Alaska Cruise Tax?

[jrogers03]

Hello,

 

I've been following this forum for several months now, and have gotten lots of great information from everyone...thanks so much!

 

In October, my girlfriend and I booked an Alaska Inside Passage cruise on the Amsterdam for May 2007. We booked through HAL directly and paid the deposit. Last week (December 15), I noticed the rate had dropped $60.00 and called HAL to find out if we could get the lower rate. The agent told me I could, and sent me an updated guest confirmation. Then tonight I received a new confirmation via email, with no changes indicated. As I looked more closely, it became clear that our rate (taxes/fees) had gone up $100. I called HAL and the agent told me about the $50 Alaska tax.

 

I'm wondering if HAL went back and hit everyone with the new tax, or if they "ate it" for people that had booked prior to the implementation (again, our original booking was in October).

 

Does anyone know if HAL sent everyone updated confirmations today, or if I was only charged because we "re-booked" last week? I'm totally okay with it if they're going through and adding it to everyone now, but will be pretty annoyed if we were only charged this because we rebooked (with no mention of the additional tax by the agent last week).

 

In any event, the most annoying aspect of this is that neither HAL agent mentioned this (even as a potential tax), either time I booked, and that the updated confirmation had no notification of the reason for the additional charge.

 

Thanks in advance,

 

jim

[jtl513]

When we booked our Alaska cruise-tour in Oct we were charged $305 for Port Charges and $202.95 for Tax/Surcharges (per person) but we don't have any breakout of those items. Do those amounts look like yours before or after HAL added the $50 pp cruise tax? I'm just wondering if we're also going to get hit for more. Thanks. :)

[Atomica]

I'm actually also wondering that. I noticed on HAL's site that the fare we booked at for next September has gone up by $60 per person CDN, but the price quoted when we booked the cruise in November remains the same.

 

It's not entirely clear whether they've added the new tax on for those who have booked Alaska cruises for 2007 in 2006. I just assumed they did.

 

A breakdown of the exact port charges/taxes etc. would be helpful, much in the same way airlines break taxes down on your reciept.

[fman]

We have reservations for a R/T Vancouver cruise in June. We made the reservations last month. We received an email from our TA last week that the $50 tax would be added and would be due upon final payment in March.

 

We knew about the possibility of the tax when we booked so it's not a big suprise for us.

[mushroom]

Everyones reservation will be repriced to reflect the $50.00 per person tax. All cruise lines, not just HA, are required to collect it. That's due to the Ballot Initiative 2 which was approved by the voters in Alaska.

[lvtotrvl1]

Mushroom is correct. Everyone will have to pay the 50 at final payment.