Five of Carnival Corporation’s cruise lines have announced a change to the way that they will advertise the price of cruises. This change will go into effect for all new bookings for July 1, 2024 and beyond.
A new California consumer protection law that goes into effect on July 1, 2024 will require an advertised price to include port taxes, fees, and taxes.
Because of this, five of Carnival’s cruise lines have elected to include ALL the current taxes, fees and port expenses into the advertised price of a cruise. They are:
- Princess Cruises
- Carnival Cruise Line
- Holland America Line
- Costa Cruises
- Cunard North America
Seabourn, Carnival’s ultra-luxury cruise line, already prices cruises this way. The other three of Carnival’s cruise lines (AIDA, P&O, P&O Australia) are not geared towards the U.S. market.
The total price of cruises will stay the same, just the advertised price will now include all the extras that get tacked onto the total cost of the cruise.
As an example, their websites will now show “$849 (includes all taxes and fees)” as the price.
Princess Cruises gave this example in an email a few minutes ago to travel professionals.
The cruise lines are asking travel professionals to start pricing cruises this way no later than July 1, 2024.
In the email to travel agents, Princess Cruises said the following about this new change:
“This will provide guests with the clear total price upfront for the cruise selected. Please understand this is only a change in the way the cruise prices are advertised but does not impact the total price consumers pay today or the portion of the cruise fare that is commissionable to travel advisors.”
These changes are being made because a new law by the State of California will make it illegal to show a price that is less than the actual price of a cruise.
Carnival’s five cruise lines are making this change for all of the U.S. and Canada so there is no confusion or “advertised price differences” depending on the state that you live in.
Cruise Fever recently published an article on whether cruise prices are too misleading, you can read it here. This change will help eliminate this problem where a cruise shows as $149 per person, but really costs $349 per person after adding in all of the extra fees/port charges.
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