Visa or not

[razor7_us]

My Mother-in-Law, traveling from Germany on a valid passport and an ESTA, will be joining us on an NCL Western Caribbean 7-day cruise with stops in Roatan, Honduras, Harvest Cay (NCL Private Island in Belize), Costa Maya and Cozumel. My question.....Is her passport and ESTA all that is required or will she be required to obtain a visa for one or more of these ports? Has anyone ever experienced a problem from a less than knowledgeable port agent(s) regarding ESTA, Foreign Passports or VISAs? Thanks in advance.

[Aulanis]

We are from the uk and did not have any problems in the places you mention.

You do not actually say if she is a German citizen with a German/Eu passport?

This seems a good place to check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_German_citizens#Visa_requirements

click on the blue number and it will take you to details.

Some places say it MUST be a machine readable (biometric?) passport - (have a look at the USA entry)

 

Whilst people can give an opinion here you should be checking with the visa sections of the embassies in Germany of the countries being visited - things can change quickly ( I will refrain from mentioning recent actions of your President):rolleyes:

[easyboy]

Only cruise cards and government-issued ID's were only required in ports mentioned. You may want to ask NCL if they require it for check-in & boarding, aside from the valid passport and ESTA.

[chengkp75]

Only cruise cards and government-issued ID's were only required in ports mentioned. You may want to ask NCL if they require it for check-in & boarding, aside from the valid passport and ESTA.

 

While this is true of actually leaving and returning to the ship, the necessity or not of having a visa is taken care of by the immigration clearing officers at the port and the ship's purser when the manifest is supplied and the ship clears to enter the port. So, it is not for NCL to decide whether a person needs a visa, it is a requirement of the country visited, and while many CSR's are not knowledgeable enough about this, the OP should start with NCL and then contact the various consulates of the countries involved to get accurate answers.

[Geldhart]

Get an answer DIRECTLY from the governments of ALL the places visited. Do so well IN ADVANCE (ie start today). Get it in writing and make sure she mentions everything (also dont forget to make sure she can re enter the US).

 

Do NOT rely on answers from the cruise line. They aren't the ones who make the rules.

 

Sent from my LG-D852 using Forums mobile app

[John Bull]

 

Do NOT rely on answers from the cruise line. They aren't the ones who make the rules.

 

Sent from my LG-D852 using Forums mobile app

 

Presuming a German passport, I really don't see a problem for the OP's MIL.

So, OP, don't bother about the rest of my post.;)

 

But it's not just the immigration authorities who make the rules.

At embarkation, cruise lines decide whether a passenger's paperwork (visa, passport etc) is in order. And if they think it's not in order they can - and do - deny boarding.

Trouble is, they're sometimes wrong or out-of-date about the need for visas.

 

A classic example was the relaxing of China's visa rules for Hainan province a few years ago - MSC were quick to remove the need for a Chinese visa on cruises where the only Chinese port was Sanya, most other cruise lines continued to put their passengers through the unnecessary grief and expense of fixing up a visa. (I do wonder whether that was so they could restrict the port to those who bought a visa-free ship's excursion, but mebbe that's just me being cynical)

 

And currently Celebrity and others continue to require passengers whose cruise ends at Shanghai (the cruise's only Chinese port) to fix up a Chinese visa, even though the vast majority of them qualify for the 144 hour visa-free transit entry to Shanghai introduced over a year ago.

(They may have their reasons, but they've been shy about sharing them).

So we have the ridiculous situation of those flying in to Shanghai to start their cruise not being required to fix a visa (airlines are much more switched-on), but those ending their cruise at Shanghai & flying home being required by the cruise line to have a visa. :rolleyes:

 

So, as Cheng's post, passengers need to check with the cruise lines as well as the relevant embassies.

 

BTW Cheng, google lists over 200 acronyms for CSR.

Can you enlighten this country boy? :confused:

 

JB :)

[chengkp75]

Sorry, John;

 

Customer Service Representative, synonymous with moron on the other end of the phone.

[broberts]

https://www.ncl.com/ca/en/freestyle-cruise/cruise-travel-documents is pretty comprehensive and a good place to start. I would expect that the information on the page will be used at check-in to determine eligibility.