Passports & Visas….what should you know….

As a cruise specialist, the questions about passports and visa requirements are ones I get asked on a daily basis. As most people are aware if you book a cruise holiday to anywhere in the world you will require a valid passport at the very least, and perhaps a visa or visas for the countries you will be visiting. As much as I can give you all the information I have regarding any aspect of your cruise holiday this is one area that I am not able to advise on.

I would love to know all the visa requirements for all the places in the world, but as you can imagine this is a huge amount of in-depth knowledge that we just don’t have at our fingertips. The requirements also often change and this information has to be the very latest and up to date available for all the different countries. This is why if these questions do arise, which they often do we direct you to a specialist visa company.

CIBT visas are the company you can contact to discuss your visa requirements. The information they will provide you with will be correct and up to date. You can talk to them or visit the website and as a cruise passenger, you are able to go through your itinerary checking the requirements. Remember you have to check all the countries you will be visiting to make sure you don’t miss any.

I know finding out about visas and how to actually get them can be quite daunting especially for some countries, for example, China or India perhaps, but there is lots of information online and CIBT are there to help you through the process. They can arrange the visa on your behalf usually for an admin charge or you can arrange the visa yourself and they can guide you in the right direction.

If you don’t have the correct visa or visas for the countries you are visiting it can mean that you aren’t able to board your cruise. Some passengers ask if they can just stay on the ship and not get off at the places they don’t have the visa for but this isn’t possible. Even if you stay on board the ship, the ship is still in the country and the visa requirements apply.

Not checking and researching the visa requirements can be a costly mistake and worst-case scenario if you leave it too late you can’t go on your cruise. The best advice is to have a look at this before you book your cruise, you can then factor in the cost of the visas and also find out how to go about getting your visa. Ask your cruise specialist if you are unsure where to find this information and we can help direct you to the right place.

As always thanks for reading, until next time Abbi x

 

 

 

 

 


About Me

I have been in the travel industry over 20 years, what was meant to be a short summer working in Menorca when I was just 21 turned into many fantastic years within the industry. I have been lucky enough to travel to lots of destinations all over the world, including…

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