MSC are now planning to offer year round cruising in China and the Far East to tap into the massive market there is out there for cruises domestically but also for international customers like from the UK wanting to see this amazing part of the world. Just some of my pics from my two amazing big trips to China below!
This area is ready made for cruise passengers, apart from maybe just one thing.
The advantages are.
- Its reasonably priced on shore, much more so than Europe or pretty much any other area of the world
- there are amazing cultures on offer, even just in China all the major cities are so spread out over landmass they have their own unique culture and language dialects, truly amazing stuff
- the food, again so different in different areas of Asia and generally the best in the world
- the climate, more in the tropics of Asia the weather is hot and humid year round (ignoring a bit of monsoon here or there, its still hot and humid but it rains!!)
The disadvantage of China especially though is the visa and the same with others like India!!!
With that in mind you would hope that cruise companies might start to get more info and help agencies and customers out with Visa requirements as generally speaking a China visa costs around the £200 mark per person and can be a deciding factor in whether UK customers decide to go there. So if companies are putting on more ships in China you would think they might either a: lobby the Chinese government to relax their visa regulations for cruisers or b: provide more info direct to customers on what would suit their cruise.
I’ve arranged myself visas for China twice direct through the embassy but with the world as it is sometimes it is better trusting to an agency who can make sure everything is up to date and all the rules are followed. We advise our customers to go through CIBT who specialise in this sort of thing.
P&O also have an info page on their website P&O visas info that gives visa info for most countries, that said there is no one size fits all and a visa could be different because of which ship, which itinerary you are or even the order of destinations in theory so its a very nuanced subject where the only 100% right answer will come from the embassy of the relevant country at the time you are applying.
Hopefully more and more cruise companies are going to sail from Asia now, its certainly somewhere I go again and again to travel and would love to do a Japan cruise out there to see a bit more of this wonderful country (which doesnt need a visa currently!!!)