Overnight stays in Amsterdam are being cancelled!

With ever growing ships and more and more ships sailing the high seas, a few ports of call have already voiced their displeasure at such large vessels with huge capacities descend on their hometowns and see the sights. Thousands of passengers swarm of ships into ports every day and a lot of these ports of call feel that although a huge influx of tourists visiting, a large proportion of this offers so little in terms of spending in the local economy. Many will have booked excursions through the cruise line whilst others will just disembark and have a look around rather than spending money,

Amsterdam has not implemented a Cruise Tourist Tax on all cruise passengers visiting the popular Dutch city. This will cost passengers 8 Euros per person for 24 hours, so those with overnight stays face a charge of 16 Euros! Cruise guests that start or end their itinerary in Amsterdam will not be charged the tax, much to the relief of all the river cruise passengers starting in Amsterdam.

MSC and Cruise and Maritime have already changed or cancelled planned stops on all of their 2019/2020 itineraries due to the tax, which they would have no choice but to pass the charge on to their customers. MSC gave the customers the opportunity to cancel free of charge as they replaced Amsterdam with Rotterdam.

Cruise and Maritime have amended over 35 itineraries that had planned stops in Amsterdam and replaced most with stops in Rotterdam, which has affected over 50,000 guests.