Why are Holland's fees and taxes so much more?

[waterbabyfish]

Have not sailed Holland in a while and was looking at a 7 day cruise out of Fort Lauderdale , when I did a fake booking I noticed it was $150 p.p. taxes and fees whereas on other cruise lines it's only around $100. Does anyone know the reason for this?

[AV8rix]

Are the itineraries identical (HALs and the other line(s))?  That's what determines most of the taxes and fees.

Edited September 19, 2019 by Av8rix

[DeeniEncinitas]

My taxes and fees on Rotterdam $469.00 pp on our San Diego to FLL! Next year!

I have 2 cruises on Oceania a TA and a Med cruise and our taxes and fees are higher! I think you have a good deal just my opinion! I know you are looking at a 7 day cruise on HAL.

Hope you book HAL and enjoy your cruise!

Smooth Sailings 

Denise😊

[deliver42]

It could also be times in port.

[waterbabyfish]

11 minutes ago, DeeniEncinitas said:

My taxes and fees on Rotterdam $469.00 pp on our San Diego to FLL! Next year!

I have 2 cruises on Oceania a TA and a Med cruise and our taxes and fees are higher! I think you have a good deal just my opinion! I know you are looking at a 7 day cruise on HAL.

Hope you book HAL and enjoy your cruise!

Smooth Sailings 

Denise😊

It's always more when you go thru the canal. But Holland is higher on that fee also than the other cruiselines.

[richwmn]

Port charges are determined in at least two different ways depending on the port. Some ports charge by the size of the ship and some are per soul. For those that charge by the ship, the larger ships have more souls to divide the charge by but may have an overall bigger charge.

 

[edgee]

22 minutes ago, DeeniEncinitas said:

My taxes and fees on Rotterdam $469.00 pp on our San Diego to FLL! Next year!

I have 2 cruises on Oceania a TA and a Med cruise and our taxes and fees are higher! I think you have a good deal just my opinion! I know you are looking at a 7 day cruise on HAL.

Hope you book HAL and enjoy your cruise!

Smooth Sailings 

Denise😊

If you are cruising Oceania your taxes/fees should be zero. Oceania does not charge them separately...all is bundled into the fare. Which is not necessarily a good thing. When a port is missed, for example, Oceania practice of not listing fees or taxes separately means they cannot/do not refund port charges,

[BillB48]

52 minutes ago, DeeniEncinitas said:

My taxes and fees on Rotterdam $469.00 pp on our San Diego to FLL! Next year!

 

Smooth Sailings 

Denise😊

 

Two  words explain a large part of these fees...  Panama Canal!  Most cruise lines allot somewhere around $180pp for Canal fees.

Edited September 19, 2019 by BillB48

[lindaler]

I have received a credit on my account when all fees and taxes were not used.  

[mcrcruiser]

When we did 2 full  panama canal transits the port fees & taxes were way lower  than todays  port fees & taxes  .  We also did 5 Alaska cruises & I can tell  that the port fees & taxes are much higher  than those past cruises  .Seems to me port  fees &  taxes have gone up all over  .As the cruise industry expands , Cities & or countries are making their port fees & taxes higher as well  . These fees will not go down unless  there is a dramatic decline in  people cruising 

 

  

[DeeniEncinitas]

55 minutes ago, edgee said:

If you are cruising Oceania your taxes/fees should be zero. Oceania does not charge them separately...all is bundled into the fare. Which is not necessarily a good thing. When a port is missed, for example, Oceania practice of not listing fees or taxes separately means they cannot/do not refund port charges,

Maybe for you at the time but I have everything broken down from my Oceania cruise consultant invoices  on both my upcoming cruises which I booked 1/1/2 years ago.

Denise😊

 

[edgee]

7 minutes ago, DeeniEncinitas said:

Maybe for you at the time but I have everything broken down from my Oceania cruise consultant invoices  on both my upcoming cruises which I booked 1/1/2 years ago.

Denise😊

 

Interesting. This lack of port charge breakout is a source of common complaint on Oceania board. Also, I just completed a dummy booking on line with Oceania and final price shows no breakout of Port charges/taxes/fees.

[DeeniEncinitas]

I understand that. Like I said I booked my cruises 1/1/2 years ago. I am not saying you are wrong. I am giving my example to the OP of my situation. 

Have a good day edgee😊

Denise😊

[Ken the cruiser]

1 hour ago, DeeniEncinitas said:

Maybe for you at the time but I have everything broken down from my Oceania cruise consultant invoices  on both my upcoming cruises which I booked 1/1/2 years ago.

Denise😊

 

We've cruised with O 10 times and the taxes and port fees have always been included in the base fare with the port fees never being returned if we missed a port, and there have been quite a few. Last year we missed both Canary Island ports on a Riviera cruise and we never received any credit for missing them. Maybe they're changing their ways, but I just tried to book an O 2021 cruise online and the port fees and taxes were not listed in the cost breakdown either.

[sevenseasnomad]

Christmas/New Year's 2020 partial Panama Canal was over $500 per person in taxes and port fees when we booked several months ago.  I'm still shaking my head over the exorbitant amount, but we either pay it or we don't go.  I haven't investigated what other lines are charging because we aren't interested in sailing with any of them.  Ten years ago when we traveled to Panama Canal on Zuiderdam, our total price of that cruise was slightly over $800 per person with all taxes and fees.  What a difference 10 years can make.

[richwmn]

For Panama Canal tolls, a quick search yielded this chart from 2016, I don't know if it is still current but shows how the tolls are calculated. Please note that the calculation is for Berths, not occupied Berths.

The source document is https://www.pancanal.com/eng/op/tolls.html

 

Edited September 19, 2019 by richwmn

[SilvertoGold]

I have noticed on the past 4 cruises this year that we were refunded some "taxes and fees" on each one.  Not a lot, but around $50 pp for a 14 day cruise.  We've had refunds before, of course, but it was odd to have 4 in a row.

[sevenseasnomad]

9 minutes ago, richwmn said:

For Panama Canal tolls, a quick search yielded this chart from 2016, I don't know if it is still current but shows how the tolls are calculated. Please note that the calculation is for Berths, not occupied Berths.

The source document is https://www.pancanal.com/eng/op/tolls.html

 

Just checked our port/tax fees for our booking on Panama half-transit, which are $525.  We're sailing on the Volendam for 14 days with visits to 8 ports.  I wouldn't begin to guess how that amount breaks down per port as to taxes and fees.  IMO, taxes and fees aren't something I usually think about because they're beyond my control, money I must pay if I want to go on a particular cruise.  Nonnegotiable.  I don't mind admitting, though, that when my PCC revealed the taxes/fees for this cruise, I yelped. 

[mcmarya]

Panama raises fees from time to time so that part of taxes and fees can change.  In addition to the per berth charges, there are some pretty steep reservation fees that have to be paid in order to guarantee a certain transit time.

 

[WisRiver]

We were on the Zuiderdam on the Voyage of the Vikings in August, 2019.  We missed two ports because of weather, a tender port in Greenland and St. John's,  Nova Scotia.  On our final bill we had a refund of about  $10 per person for the Greenland stop and $115  per person for St. John's.

[waterbabyfish]

I just checked some other cruiselines...it looks like they all have gone up quite a bit, but it seems so excessive!! 

[CruiserBruce]

To answer the OP's questions, as commonly discussed here, port fees and taxes vary due to contractual arrangements and other items individually arranged between the cruise lines and the ports. For example, Grand Turk charges Carnival ships very little, as Carnival built the port. Ships  may, or may not use tugs, or take on water, or other services and activities. Each docking is not the same.

[edgee]

8 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

We've cruised with O 10 times and the taxes and port fees have always been included in the base fare with the port fees never being returned if we missed a port, and there have been quite a few. Last year we missed both Canary Island ports on a Riviera cruise and we never received any credit for missing them. Maybe they're changing their ways, but I just tried to book an O 2021 cruise online and the port fees and taxes were not listed in the cost breakdown either.

They have not changed their ways. We have cruised O seven times, including earlier this year and they have never separated out port fees.

[wander]

About 15 years ago I went through the Panama Canal.  At that time the Captain told us that the fee for the ship for a transit of the Canal was in part determined by the ship's "displacement" of water.  

[BillB48]

5 hours ago, wander said:

About 15 years ago I went through the Panama Canal.  At that time the Captain told us that the fee for the ship for a transit of the Canal was in part determined by the ship's "displacement" of water.  

 

Perhaps the captain was just trying to give a brief description of the tolls calculation, it's a little complicated than that... but I'll be brief!  Fifteen years ago the Canal was primarily using a volume measurement of the revenue generating parts of the ship.  Spaces that were used to operate and  crew the ship were not included in that measurement.  The process was similar to how the net tonnage of a ship is calculated. 

 

It is a wee bit more involved than that now, but the tolls are determined by the revenue generating space on the ship.  Tolls for a pure container ship are determined by, the total capacity of containers the ship can carry.  The capacity of a container ship is expressed in TEUs (twenty foot equivalent units).  The largest container ship that can use the original locks is around 5000 TEUs, for the new locks 15,000 TEUs.  The second part of the the toll calculation is the number of loaded containers that are on board the ship.  For most passenger ships the toll is calculated on the total number of passenger berths.  It was pointed out earlier the ship pays for all the berths, occupied or not. There are other charges that can be included that may not be actual tolls such as reservation for a particular day, daylight transit guarantee and tugs.  The list goes on, but those mentioned are the bigger ones.

 

I'm sure it won't come as a surprise, but tolls are going up in January.  So see it soon while it is still "cheap"!