Port Taxes and Fees - not reduced with cruise fare reduction

[Nancy O.]

Port Taxes and Fees:  I made a reservation on 1 March.  At the time, the port taxes and fees for the cruise were $195.23 per person.  A month later I took advantage of a "flash sale" they were running and had the cruise fare adjusted down.  The port taxes and fees, however, stayed the same even though they were listed as $178.96 per person in the mock reservation I did on their website for the same ship, date and category cabin.  When I called RCCL to find out why the port taxes and fees weren't reduced to the current rate with the fare adjustment, they simply said the port taxes and fees are based on when I originally booked and won't change.  Has anyone ever heard of this?  I was always under the impression that if the taxes and fees went down, they were obligated to refund the difference.

[SpeedNoodles]

I don't know about the taxes (I'd assume they'd go down), but the port fees wouldn't change.

[twangster]

Port fees and taxes do not qualify for price adjustment. 

They are estimated based on load factors and historical data.  Many of the fees originate from sources that are fixed such as the pilot fees.  The pilot(s) charge the same price if there are 1,000 guests or 5,000 guests on a particular ship.  Dockage fees are fixed.  The unionized longshoreman in some ports charge the same to handle the lines when ships enter and leave port.  These don't vary based on passenger count.   Most of the port fees and taxes result from charges of the home ports here in the US where labor rates and unionized labor costs more.  Most Caribbean nations have low port fees relatively speaking to make that country look appealing to cruise lines.  Alaska has higher port fees because there are more US ports.

Cruise lines estimate how many people they think might book each sail date and spread these fixed fees across the estimated guests.  As time goes on sometimes they up and sometimes they go down.

Just as they don't charge more port fees and taxes for already booked guests when they go up, they also don't lower them for already booked guests when they down.

[Nancy O.]

Given when they do a cruise fare adjustment they are essentially rebooking the cabin(s) at the new rate, in my experience they always applied whatever the port taxes and fees were at the time of the adjustment, whether higher or lower than the previous.  Not a deal breaker, but was scratching my head a bit when I saw that they kept the higher rate from the initial booking.