Hello Cruisechat, No, that's not what they meant. They are only refunding the surcharge to people who had the surcharge added to their bill later, after they had deposited on their cruise. You see, Carnival (and all it's associated companies, like Princess) implemented the surcharge several months ago, and applied it to cruises that had already been booked for some time.
There was talk of a lawsuit against the cruise lines. saying it was not fair to, essentially raise the price after a certain price had been agreed upon, that the booking is actually a contract of a sort, and Carnival shouldn't have the right to change the details afterward.
Example: We booked our February '08 cruise on the Emerald Princess in October of '06. Then in approximately November of '07 we got the notice that we would have to pay another $50 per person. Sure we could have canceled, and gotten our deposit back, but not all the airfare money, nor the cruise insurance and the hotel that we had all pre-paid independently. Getting out of the cruiseline's "bait and switch" deal would have cost us a lot of money.
Well Carnival lost the lawsuit, or at least there was some "voluntary agreement" that they were wrong, so now they are going about paying back all the people who were charged a fee they had never agreed to. If they told you about the surcharge when you made the booking, you will not be getting any refund.
Example: We booked the Carnival Miracle in January, and knew about the surcharge upfront. So we won't be getting that money back.
BTW, The refund from Princess showed up on our credit card bill a few weeks ago.
-DX(