Does NCL hold your passport in EU even if you don't go outside EU? Safes?

[vinotinto]

I read some reviews/threads that NCL holds your passport in Europe itineraries. It seems to me all the itineraries included Turkey. Our itinerary doesn't include Turkey, will they still hold our passports?

 

What if you (gasp!) miss the ship?

 

Also, do all the cabins have safes? We are sailing on the Spirit.

[danacline]

We were on the Spirit, Barcelona to Venice, in June of 2014. The itinerary did include Turkey (Istanbul, Ephesus). I know that visas were required if you were in Turkey more than a day, but cruise passengers were exempt from this requirement (unless your cruise began or ended there).

 

The ship did take our passports, so we made sure we had color copies of the relevant pages. There was a safe in the room.

 

All in all, good cruise at great price. Food wasn't as good as other lines, ship was old and small, but the itinerary was stellar.

[cml4958]

On our Baltic cruise in September, we kept our passports the entire time.

[mugtech]

In 2014 passports were not returned until we were through with Turkey and Greece, they gave us a photo copy upon request.