"Upgrade Fee"?

[SDHALFAN]

I recently booked two segments of the World Cruise aboard the Amsterdam starting January 15th of 2007. While my TA was rattling off the various charges he mentioned a Transfer Fee ($13.00 for the Fort Lauderdale/ Papeete segment, and $55.00 for the Papeete/Hong Kong segment).

 

I got confirmation of my booking and receipt for the deposits today and the above-mentioned fees are listed as Upgrade Fees. Has anyone else encountered these charges recently? I sincerely doubt that they mean I'll be getting an upgrade and imagine that they really are transfer fees from hotel to ship or ship to airport but wonder why it's $13.00 for Fort Lauderdale/Papeete and $55.00 for Papeete/Hong Kong. Of course I haven't been to Hong Kong in about 30 years when the airport was Kai Tek and know that they now have a new airport - maybe it's a long way from ship to 'plane nowadays.

 

I naturally, being a HAL fanatic, made some snide remark about the Carnivalisation of HAL and he said "yeah, it's odd because Carnival doesn't charge for transfers. Go figure:rolleyes:

 

Valerie:confused:

[blue whale]

This may be a change in policy for HAL. We are booked for a cruise from Lisbon to west Africa and then across to SA in the fall. We disembark in Ft. Lauderdale. Our agent quoted us a price for the air fare, and then gave us prices for the transfers at both ends. She said that HAL did not include those in the air fare. We think we will buy only the transfer in Lisbon, which was rather reasonable. In Lauderdale it is easy to get a cab from ship to air port. Also it is easy to get a cab from the air port to an area hotel in Lauderdale. We are sailing with you also on the cruise you mention. We intend to go into Lauderdale a day before. We will probably just take a cab to our hotel on our own—perhaps two cabs, with all the luggage we will be carrying.