Does NCL refund port charges anymore?

[julig22]

8 hours ago, vacation44 said:

But what about a port being deleted before a sailing?  

When they cancelled St. Petersburg last summer, they offered a 10% discount plus added a substitute port.  But ships weren't full and people were reluctant to travel to the Baltics so probably necessary to do something unusual in that case.

[mattvqa]

NCL apparently no longer gives port charge refunds. I didn't get a Ponta Delgada refund (Dec2022, as mentioned by Middleager), and I received the following NCL reply for a recent (Apr2023) missed Nicaragua stop:

"Please note that under the terms and conditions of our Guest Ticket Contract, Norwegian Cruise Line in its sole discretion may cancel, postpone or delay any port of call without prior notification.

...

Respectfully, and in light of the above, we are not extending any form of compensation and appreciate your understanding in this regard."

 

[vacation44]

We received OBC during our Epic cruise two weeks back in the amounts of $9.37 and $1.49 each.  Totaled $43.44.

[BirdTravels]

We have always got port and tax refunds. They are normally $8ish dollar credits to our on board account that most people would not even notice. 

[hallux]

31 minutes ago, mattvqa said:

NCL apparently no longer gives port charge refunds.

The $12.77 I received in March will argue that.  No skipped port - I believe they under estimated the passenger load (thus the estimated per-passenger responsibility for port costs was too high) and as such we got a random OBC late in the cruise.

[julig22]

32 minutes ago, mattvqa said:

NCL apparently no longer gives port charge refunds. I didn't get a Ponta Delgada refund (Dec2022, as mentioned by Middleager), and I received the following NCL reply for a recent (Apr2023) missed Nicaragua stop:

 

Not true.  Every situation is different.  We got about $25 back when missing Stanley in February.

In short, as has been said many times, port fees/taxes are estimated and pooled.  So sometimes there is an excess, sometimes a deficit. No refunds if there is a deficit.

[Nclgetawaymenhoney]

We received $58 per person back on a missed  private island month on the Gateway.

[KeithJenner]

On 12/9/2022 at 2:20 AM, zzdoug said:

Does ncl ever substitute a port? If so, is there any chance we could be responsible to pay the difference if the new port's fee is higher?

Yes, they often substitute ports. It has happened to us a few times, including times when it is very likely the new arrangements would have higher fees.

 

The only price adjustments we have ever had is refund on port fees onboard (on some occasions).

[KeithJenner]

6 hours ago, julig22 said:

Not true.  Every situation is different.  We got about $25 back when missing Stanley in February.

In short, as has been said many times, port fees/taxes are estimated and pooled.  So sometimes there is an excess, sometimes a deficit. No refunds if there is a deficit.

This.

[cruiseny4life]

In March we missed Costa Maya. We were told months ahead of time. On the day of our planned, but canceled, stop in Costa Maya, we received a $16.50 credit to our account x two. Everyone else did too. This was for the Costa Maya port fees. 

 

[DCGuy64]

11 hours ago, julig22 said:

Not true.  Every situation is different.  We got about $25 back when missing Stanley in February.

In short, as has been said many times, port fees/taxes are estimated and pooled.  So sometimes there is an excess, sometimes a deficit. No refunds if there is a deficit.

That's what I'd say, too. It's not correct to extrapolate from one example that "NCL doesn't give refunds anymore." That's a broad generalization. I'd say it's more like a case-by-case basis. When we had 2 ports cancelled last December, we absolutely got money back, I think it was $100 pp OBC.

[WillCruiseForMoney]

Last October, on the Pearl, missed Bar Harbor which became a sea day.  No refund of port fees.

In March was on the Oceania Riviera (NCLH owned ship) missed 3 days in Bermuda, no refund of port fees - although we did have an overnight in Jacksonville as a replacement.

 

Individual port fees are usually pretty small dollars, so does not matter much, other than the principal of it.

[Homosassa]

15 hours ago, mattvqa said:

NCL apparently no longer gives port charge refunds. I didn't get a Ponta Delgada refund (Dec2022, as mentioned by Middleager), and I received the following NCL reply for a recent (Apr2023) missed Nicaragua stop:

"Please note that under the terms and conditions of our Guest Ticket Contract, Norwegian Cruise Line in its sole discretion may cancel, postpone or delay any port of call without prior notification.

...

Respectfully, and in light of the above, we are not extending any form of compensation and appreciate your understanding in this regard."

 

The NCL reply does not appear to be a response to the refund of port charges ( which the experienced cruiser knows may or may not be refunded based upon many factors), but instead appears to be a response to a  request for compensation over and beyond a port fee refund. 

[mattvqa]

3 minutes ago, Homosassa said:

The NCL reply does not appear to be a response to the refund of port charges ( which the experienced cruiser knows may or may not be refunded based upon many factors), but instead appears to be a response to a  request for compensation over and beyond a port fee refund. 

 

This was strictly for a port fee refund (explicitly stated twice in my request to NCL).

 

fwiw: I'm currently Platinum+/Sapphire, and have previously received port fee refunds (automatically), but not on my last two sailings with NCL.

 

On a separate note: on my last trip I also noticed that my excursion and store discounts were not being automatically applied. It took several visits to the excursion counter to get part of that fixed (and I didn't bother with trying to get the store discounts fixed).

[julig22]

26 minutes ago, mattvqa said:

 

This was strictly for a port fee refund (explicitly stated twice in my request to NCL).

 

fwiw: I'm currently Platinum+/Sapphire, and have previously received port fee refunds (automatically), but not on my last two sailings with NCL.

 

On a separate note: on my last trip I also noticed that my excursion and store discounts were not being automatically applied. It took several visits to the excursion counter to get part of that fixed (and I didn't bother with trying to get the store discounts fixed).

FYI - the latitudes discounts are never automatically applied onboard.  They are manually applied and you have to ask for them.  The only time they are automatically applied are if you book excursions online before boarding.

 

[mattvqa]

10 minutes ago, julig22 said:

FYI - the latitudes discounts are never automatically applied onboard.  They are manually applied and you have to ask for them.  The only time they are automatically applied are if you book excursions online before boarding.

 

Thank you for the explanation: that's very helpful. I didn't recall previously having to ask, but definitely good to know now.