St Thomas - Immigration for UK travellers - help please!

[TravelMadBrits]

Hi everyone

 

We are taking our first TA in November on IOS Southampton to Fort Lauderdale. Our first port of call will be St Maarten and then St Thomas. I understand that we will have to clear USA immigration control on the ship at St Thomas before we can get off.

 

I would like us to take a half day snorkel excursion in the morning on St Thomas and a walk in town before boarding again. However, I'm really concerned that immigration could delay us getting off the ship in time.

 

Has anyone experienced this? And would you advise booking a ship excursion in St Thomas just in case? We are there 8am til 6pm.

 

Any advice would be really welcome! This will be our 7th RCI cruise but first TA so any tips/comments welcome. Thank you.

[NorbertsNiece]

Hi,

 

Wish I had good news for you.

 

Pics from my experience with immigration on my TA are in my blog in my sig below.... immigration was a challenge.... to say the least. Best advice I have is to get to the line as early as possible. They allocate the time according to deck; I arrived early for my specific time and still waited an hour. You need a copy of your ESTA to show them; RCCL allowed people to use the ship PCs on a specific day/time free of charge to apply and download if necessary but I highly recommend you do this before you leave the UK. You need to have your passport and the other forms they will provide with you and they will be checked numerous times whilst you queue. You get the standard Q&A from the Immigration personnel.

 

I know there were people who were held up (problems with their room safe bizarrely) and were late for their tour. They hadn't even gone through immigration.... I believe they were fast tracked.

[welshrich]

We encountered this issue in September on a Canada to New York cruise, we had to clear US immigration when we crossed the border and docked in Portland, Maine (I think), they had the immigration officers in the dining room and US guests accessed them from Deck 5 and all non US from Deck 4, we were not in a rush to go ashore so were not bothered but the queue when we joined was from the dining room, back through the casino and ended in the Schooner (and got longer from there), they only had a few immigration officers and it took about an hour. We were advised to print out our ESTA but they did not ask for that they just stamped our passports and that was it (actual process was about 30 seconds). My Advice would be to go and start queuing about 40 mins before it begins if you have an early morning tour, if you have an afternoon tour, go for breakfast first while everyone else is in the queue and by the time you finish the majority will be done (they did put announcements out for stragglers) and you can just go straight through and get clearance.

[NIKII135]

We are also booked on a March cruise (Allure) including St maarten & St thomas & hadn't realised this was an issue.

 

Can I ask the ESTA you speak of - is this the same you apply for before flying to the USA? Or do we have to complete a separate ESTA for these 2 islands?

 

If you book a ships tour - do they hold up the tour until you are through immigration? Or will it just go without you.

 

Roughly how long does it take to get through?

 

I haven't organised any tours yet for these 2 stops & clearly this may have a bearing on what we decide.

Thanks

[SadmanCruiser]

TravelMadBrits - we were on the Liberty transatlantic in October 2013 and like you we had to clear immigration at the first US port - in our case San Juan. We have had the same in St Thomas on a previous cruise.The queues were horrible! Even though you were supposed to go down at the time your deck was allocated, many went down early. The queue stretched all around the dining room (where the US agents were), down the promenade all the way to the other end. As we have been to San Juan several times we waited till the queues died down around mid day.

 

They normally put a sticker on your seapass card and you cannot get off without it.

 

NIKII135 - You will not have immigration on the ship. You will do it on your first point of entry to the USA. The ESTA is the same one you have to do before flying to the US but on a transatlantic cruise the first point of entry can be one of the Islands. And hello from a fellow Lincolnite!

 

Pete

[NorbertsNiece]

We are also booked on a March cruise (Allure) including St maarten & St thomas & hadn't realised this was an issue.

 

Can I ask the ESTA you speak of - is this the same you apply for before flying to the USA? Or do we have to complete a separate ESTA for these 2 islands?

 

If you book a ships tour - do they hold up the tour until you are through immigration? Or will it just go without you.

 

Roughly how long does it take to get through?

 

I haven't organised any tours yet for these 2 stops & clearly this may have a bearing on what we decide.

Thanks

 

Just to clarify..... the info I posted above relates to a TA (Transatlantic). If you are flying in to the US you need your ESTA before you fly.....

[heatherb1958]

Immigration after a TA is always a nightmare, done it several times in St.Thomas and San Juan and it never improves. :(.

Guests in the queue on our Nov. 13 Liberty TA who had ship's tours were fast tracked through but only after people started to complain.

We were stood in line for 90 mins.and were amongst the first 30 people in the line.

The problem seems to be the immigration officers go for breakfast first onboard delaying the start of the process , assign more of themselves to clear the US guests even when they know there are more non -US guests to clear .

You will need a lot of patience, a smile and just go with the flow.

Sorry to be so down but it will happen.

Having said all that we did the Serenade TA recently and immigration in New Orleans was a breeze , so quick we were off the ship by 7.15a.m., must have been a record!:)

[Tiggertastic]

We just did immigration in a mid way port and it was a shambles. We received a letter in the cabin and they had split the time of the immigration by lifeboat stations, not decks. However the instructions on the TV said different.

 

So although we were diamond and our friend in a suite, made no difference. According to the sheet, we were not set to go through until 10.30am - so we rang guest relations and told them it was not good enough - we were told to turn up for the first time available. So we got in line 15 minutes before 9am.

 

They sent USA to one restaurant and non USA to the theatre. We had many non USA.

 

Our lifeboat station was never checked but by 9.30 we had not moved - a member of staff shouted everyone with ship cruises to make a new line and then sent them in before everyone else. Someone even told us that they knew they did that so had purposely bought an excursion. Then USA passengers started turning up saying they had been told as they had an excursion to get into this line - so they were sent back again and this happened for a long time.

 

When those who had been in the line for ages before the excursion people raised it as an issue, they were all told to ignore the tv and paperwok and do as they tell us instead

 

Eventually we could go in - our card was scanned to show we arrived, immigration paperwork said bring a paper copy of the esta (even though the online esta system says its not needed) do make sure you take a paper copy.

 

Immigration spent less than 30 seconds with us and then our card was punched so that if we went to get off the ship without the punch hole, security would stop us.

 

We finally got off the ship at 11am

 

I would also rad the review from Celebrity Eclipse TA that cleared immigration in St Thomas in November - they waited up to 6 hours

 

So if you are booking anything, do it with the ship on that day

[TravelMadBrits]

Many thanks for all your comments, it has really helped me decide:-

 

I will be booking a ship excursion - there are a couple to decide on and one that is an afternoon time so that is probably going to be less stressful. I will have copies of all paperwork and finally we will expect the worst! If we all have that mindset then anything better will be a bonus!

 

Many thanks x