Canada/New England Cruise

[boomer3029]

Hello All,

Sailing on the Spirit's Canada/New England cruise and have a quick question. Our airline moved our return flight's departure time up and I am a little concerned about getting through customs and to the airport on time. I think I remember someone mentioning in either a review or another post that they cleared customs in Portland, Maine as that was the first US port they stopped in after completing the Canadian portion of the cruise. Can anyone confirm this? Sure would make the trip from the pier to the airport a little less frantic!

 

Thanks!

[Ontheotherhand]

I haven't been on that cruise, but my guess is you would clear customs at your ultimate debarcation in NYC (otherwise, I would think they could not sell any duty free items after customs was cleared in Bar Harbor as there would be no way for them to be cleared by customs later). I think the ship goes into international waters between each US port.

 

There may be an immigration check at Bar Harbor (and possibly each subsequent US port), but you would not be cleared by customs until you left with your luggage and purchases, etc.

[boomer3029]

Think I found my answer. Found this in a review from September 2008.

 

"One weird thing we encountered this cruise. Because Boston was our point-of-entry back into the US we all had to get up on Thursday morning & march up to the Galaxy to be processed by US Customs (foreigners/resident aliens went to the Stardust Theater)."

 

Guess I'll know for sure in a week!

[vacation luvver]

<<Think I found my answer. Found this in a review from September 2008.

 

"One weird thing we encountered this cruise. Because Boston was our point-of-entry back into the US we all had to get up on Thursday morning & march up to the Galaxy to be processed by US Customs (foreigners/resident aliens went to the Stardust Theater).">>

 

Not necessarily. I just returned from a New England-Canada sailing on a RCI ship (I hope you don't mind that I'm posting here), and our stops were Portland, Bar Harbour, Saint John, Halifax, and then Boston, and we were also told that we had to get up early on Thursday morning (the day we arrived in Boston) to meet with Immigration (or Customs, or something). As I got out of the shower a half hour before we were supposed to meet the officials, my traveling companion told me that there was announcement that we did not have to meet with those officials after all. The announcement was not repeated, so it's a good thing I wasn't traveling alone, or I wouldn't have known about it, and I would have spent time going to the meeting place and looking around for the officials.

 

That night, the Cruise Director insisted that it wasn't his fault that we were told to get up extra early to meet with the officials. He said that the officials decided at the last minute that we didn't have to meet with them. He said that such a meeting was necessary on the previous cruise.

 

We cleared Immigration and Customs when we got off the ship in Bayonne, NJ.