Cruises and passport stamping....

[terri910]

So next year we have several cruises planned. (1) Adriatic that will begin in Venice, stop in Dubrovnik, Kotor, Athens, Santorini, Naples and Rome. (2) Trans-Atlantic that will begin in Rome and visit Barcelona, Funchal, St. Maarten, and Miami. (3) Caribbean that will begin in Miami and visit Jamaica, Aruba, Curacao, St. Maarten, St. Thomas and back to Miami. (4) Panama Canal Transit that begins in Miami and visits Colombia, the Panama Canal, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and two ports in Mexico finally ending up in Los Angeles.

 

We have been on a Med cruise where the cruise ship gathered everyone's passports and the various countries' immigrations went through all of them, I guess. But the last couple of Med and TA cruises we've done, NCL did not take our passports and we never needed them to go ashore. But we have a few countries on these that we've never cruised to before.

 

Mainly, I am wondering about whether or not we have enough pages left in our passports. The passports are valid for another three years, but if every country requires 1 to 2 blank pages to issue stamps, we're in trouble.

 

Anyone that has been on NCL cruises to these ports, could you let me know if any of them require your passports 9so they can stamp them) to disembark for the day?

[biker@sea]

Maybe get a new one now.

U.S. has the 52 page version for the frequent traveler.

At about $100 or so.

[bakersdozen12]

I thought the only time your passports got stamped was when you fly?

 

 

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[Dcoy]

I thought the only time your passports got stamped was when you fly?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

Mine was stamped several times during a world cruise a few years ago.

 

Don

[Quilting_Cruiser]

I did an Adriatic out of Venice a couple years ago and they collected passports for that one, but that was when they went to Turkey. My understanding is that it was because of the visit to Turkey that they needed to collect the passports. The only other cruise I've ever been on that they collected passports--and this was a different cruise line--was a Baltic cruise.

[4774Papa]

I have traveled quite a bit, 70 countries. Clearly, when you fly into a country, you will almost always get a stamp.

However, you will probably get a stamp when entering a new country via a cruise. Sometimes the immigration authorities from the new port will board the ship and review all the passports, sometimes with a face to face meeting of the person.

 

For example, entering the UK from an EU country, the British immigration may come on board.

 

Some countries do require a visa for US citizens, examples, China, Australia, India, Russia, Turkey or Brazil. Australia and Turkey have an internet visa that you can acquire very easily, while China, India, Russia and Brazil have a lengthy visa application process.

 

Also, when entering the EU you will receive a stamp, but only an exit stamp when you depart the EU. You can visit several EU countries without a new stamp.

[wyandotte]

Maybe get a new one now.

U.S. has the 52 page version for the frequent traveler.

At about $100 or so.

 

 

We at one time had pages added to our passport. It was still valid for several years and it was either no-cost or cheap to have the added pages; more so than buying a new passport when our existing ones didn't expire for a while.

[ColinIllinois]

We at one time had pages added to our passport. It was still valid for several years and it was either no-cost or cheap to have the added pages; more so than buying a new passport when our existing ones didn't expire for a while.

 

 

They stopped adding pages to U.S. passports last year.

[CruiseMH]

Usually the stamps will be put closely together.I`ve been already to several countries which did stamp my passport,but all of them tried their best to put stamps onto sites which were already stamped.Nobody used a blank site of the passport just because they liked to do it.

[Loonbeam]

As noted you can no longer add pages. If you are close enough to renewal, I would and order the larger book as right now its same price. 2018 I think the larger book will be a surcharge.

[hawkeyetlse]

How much space do you have left? Most countries do not require an entire blank page just to give you their stamp(s), that's usually only if you get a visa and it covers a whole page.

 

If you still have like 5 pages left in each book, I think that will be more than enough for the trips you listed (but I have no first-hand experience with Central/South America).

[4774Papa]

How much space do you have left? Most countries do not require an entire blank page just to give you their stamp(s), that's usually only if you get a visa and it covers a whole page.

 

If you still have like 5 pages left in each book, I think that will be more than enough for the trips you listed (but I have no first-hand experience with Central/South America).

 

We had to get new passports because we didn't have two clean pages left and China requires that, one for their visa and one for stamps.

[eileeshb]

You'll only need clean pages if it's a full-on visa application required, maybe check the visa requirements for the countries you'll be visiting. My passport caused the US immigration officers mass confusion on my recent cruise as I'd so many stamps from past trips to the USA in it I wound up having to tell them which page the stamp was on for the current trip... "the page with the costa rica stamp". There was a time when they'd put the stamp on a clean page every time I visited the US, but as I was travelling over so often they had to start putting them on pages they'd used before so I'd still have clean pages for other visas. Thankfully that passport expires next year so there won't be that confusion next time as I'll have to renew it before my next visit.

[Tricialy]

We did the Adriatic/Greek Isles Back to Back last summer - they collected our passports for the first half, then returned them later that week and didn't pick them up for the second week at all. I want to say they returned them after our stop in Athens. We didn't get any stamps other than the one we got when we flew into Venice. Not sure why we needed it to go to Greece the first week, but not the second week. The call in Turkey had been replaced with Santorini.

[terri910]

How much space do you have left? Most countries do not require an entire blank page just to give you their stamp(s), that's usually only if you get a visa and it covers a whole page.

 

If you still have like 5 pages left in each book, I think that will be more than enough for the trips you listed (but I have no first-hand experience with Central/South America).

We each have 8 blank pages left.

 

But, there may be fewer by the end of this year, as we will be making trips from the US to Ecuador twice. We are US citizens and have residency in the US, but also legal residency in Ecuador. If we decide to get a new passport, we will eventually have to go to the Ministerio here in Ecuador to have our residency visa transferred.

Although we have been told we can travel with both passport for a while and Ecuador immigration will accept the residency visa in the old passport as valid.....

[terri910]

You'll only need clean pages if it's a full-on visa application required, maybe check the visa requirements for the countries you'll be visiting. My passport caused the US immigration officers mass confusion on my recent cruise as I'd so many stamps from past trips to the USA in it I wound up having to tell them which page the stamp was on for the current trip... "the page with the costa rica stamp". There was a time when they'd put the stamp on a clean page every time I visited the US, but as I was travelling over so often they had to start putting them on pages they'd used before so I'd still have clean pages for other visas. Thankfully that passport expires next year so there won't be that confusion next time as I'll have to renew it before my next visit.

 

I almost wish our passports expired next year, because then we'd absolutely have to get all this done. It just seems like we're wasting 2 years worth of use. *LOL*

[eileeshb]

I almost wish our passports expired next year, because then we'd absolutely have to get all this done. It just seems like we're wasting 2 years worth of use. *LOL*

I know for Ireland you can renew if there's less than 12 months validity remaining on your passport. That's for 2 reasons, firstly because some countries require you to have 12 months validity remaining in order to get a visa, and secondly because sometimes there's backlogs in passport renewal and application processing here.

Our passport office has been overwhelmed for the past year thanks to Trump and brexit leading to an increase in applications for Irish passports from the USA and U.K.

Renewals used to take about a week by post it can now take up to 6 weeks! Thankfully they've just introduced an online renewal service which accepts digital photos for existing passport holders.

[mugtech]

Last week I got my renewed passport out of Philadelphia and it took exactly 5 weeks. Got my old passport with two holes punched in it a few days later.

[gerelmx]

When we cruise British Isles and Norwegian Fjords on RCCL Splendour of the Seas, the passport only was stamped in London airport when we arrive.

[eileeshb]

Last week I got my renewed passport out of Philadelphia and it took exactly 5 weeks. Got my old passport with two holes punched in it a few days later.

With the new online renewal service I won't even have to return my old passport, I think, so it won't be getting defaced the way my previous ones were. The others had the corners clipped off them when I sent them back for renewals.