Passport Question

[Herfnerd]

Please get passports. Good for 10 years for adults. Then you have no worries. Think of the cost speed out over a decade

 

 

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But the OP's issue might be the immediate cost

[Gloworm2]

But the OP's issue might be the immediate cost

 

 

 

People who cruise have resources

 

 

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[Herfnerd]

People who cruise have resources

 

 

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But if that were true across the board, the OP would not have asked this question - they explicitly stated that the cost is a concern

 

 

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[Gloworm2]

This is a weekly question. Only Americans hesitate to get passports. Go figure.

 

 

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[navybankerteacher]

But if that were true across the board, the OP would not have asked this question - they explicitly stated that the cost is a concern

 

 

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Yes, of course cost "is a concern". Weather is a concern, dress code is a concern. Paying for drinks on board is a concern --- just perhaps- people who have difficulty handling the to-be-expected concerns related to cruising might consider not cruising.

[Herfnerd]

Yes, of course cost "is a concern". Weather is a concern, dress code is a concern. Paying for drinks on board is a concern --- just perhaps- people who have difficulty handling the to-be-expected concerns related to cruising might consider not cruising.

 

I understand that. The OP was simply asking if what they were told by their TA is correct or not. The OP does not have to have a passport (assuming) they meet the legal requirements of a closed loop cruise. If they are comfortable in their decision in cruising without a passport and do not want the additional cost of obtaining them in spite of our warnings, they are doing nothing inherently wrong. To state that their difficulty in handling concerns regarding cruising related to cruising a reason to not consider cruising is a bit obtuse in this case......

[sparks1093]

This is a weekly question. Only Americans hesitate to get passports. Go figure.

 

 

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US citizens have legal options when it comes to travel. Personally I do not like spending money on things that I don't need, especially if those things come with an expiration date. We got our passports in 2015 when we took our first trip to Germany and now that the kids are grown we plan on making that trip once a year until our health forces us to stop.

[Toofarfromthesea]

Hi,

I am getting ready to book my first cruise. I called Travelocity to book it. I asked about a passport. They said since I was leaving Florida and returning I didn't need one. Just birth certificates and marriage license???

 

Is that true, can anyone help me with this so I know for sure. Passports are expensive for 3 of us, but so is a cruise we can't go on due to no passport...

 

 

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What you are ALLOWED to do is not always the SMART thing to do. It is for precisely these kind of situations where you should avoid being penny-wise and pound foolish. If you can afford to cruise you can afford passports.

[navybankerteacher]

What you are ALLOWED to do is not always the SMART thing to do. It is for precisely these kind of situations where you should avoid being penny-wise and pound foolish. If you can afford to cruise you can afford passports.

 

Well put.

[SRF]

How am I going to get stuck on St Kitts? By missing the ship. So why subject myself to the hassle when all I have to do is make sure that I make it back to the ship on time (which is largely within my control). Yes, something could happen to make me still miss the ship no matter how careful I am, but that makes a better case for travel insurance then a passport.

 

Penny wise and pound foolish? When I started cruising it would have cost me $850 for passports for my family for a 4 day cruise. That was almost as much as the cruise itself. So I looked at the rules, I looked at our travel plans (at that time the only travel we could undertake was closed loop cruises) and I analyzed our risk. I determined that spending that much money for a document that would likely never be used was foolish so we decided to wait until the day came when we needed a passport for the travel we were doing.

 

Everyone's travel needs are different and there are options other than a passport for many of them. Some will meet their travel needs by using birth certificate/gov't ID. Others by using a passport card. Others still by using an Enhanced Drivers License. As long as they are using the document that makes the most sense for their circumstances I'll not criticize them because their choice doesn't affect me at all.

 

How about a medical reason you have to leave the ship? How about a medical reason for one of your family?

 

The evening my Mother had to go to the hospital, another woman had fallen and broken her collar bone and she and her husband left the ship.

 

While waiting for a taxi, I was talking to the port agent. he told me one time, a ship pulled the gangway 6 times, each time having to deploy it again for another medical emergency.

[Herfnerd]

What you are ALLOWED to do is not always the SMART thing to do. It is for precisely these kind of situations where you should avoid being penny-wise and pound foolish. If you can afford to cruise you can afford passports.

 

 

 

Totally disagree and I am a total advocate of cruising with a passport

 

I believe it's up to the cruiser's discretion to decide on the risk they are willing to take and afford

 

 

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Edited September 15, 2017 by Herfnerd

[navybankerteacher]

Totally disagree and I am a total advocate of cruising with a passport

 

I believe it's up to the cruiser's discretion to decide on the risk they are willing to take and afford

 

 

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Of course it is -- but if someone is willing to pay close to $1,000 (all in for one cruise) it seems odd to be unwilling to spend just over $100 for a passport good for ten years to cover multiple uses and unpredictable contingencies.

 

The bottom line : the cruise industry is powerful enough to be able to lobby Congress to pass laws governing travel in and out of the country which no other country would contemplate for a minute.

[Herfnerd]

The bottom line : the cruise industry is powerful enough to be able to lobby Congress to pass laws governing travel in and out of the country which no other country would contemplate for a minute.

 

 

Agreed

 

 

 

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[sparks1093]

How about a medical reason you have to leave the ship? How about a medical reason for one of your family?

 

The evening my Mother had to go to the hospital, another woman had fallen and broken her collar bone and she and her husband left the ship.

 

While waiting for a taxi, I was talking to the port agent. he told me one time, a ship pulled the gangway 6 times, each time having to deploy it again for another medical emergency.

 

That's what good travel insurance is for. The State Department has the authority under the regulations to waive the passport requirements in an emergency. Yes, things can happen to loved ones at home and as I've said repeatedly if that small risk is unacceptable to anyone then they should get a passport, but everyone's tolerance of risk is different (as is everyone's risk level). When we were cruising without passports everyone that I cared about was with me so I wasn't overly concerned with anything happening back home.

[sparks1093]

Of course it is -- but if someone is willing to pay close to $1,000 (all in for one cruise) it seems odd to be unwilling to spend just over $100 for a passport good for ten years to cover multiple uses and unpredictable contingencies.

 

The bottom line : the cruise industry is powerful enough to be able to lobby Congress to pass laws governing travel in and out of the country which no other country would contemplate for a minute.

 

You don't seem to understand that some people don't travel as frequently as you do. Why should someone who is only able to travel via closed loop cruise every few years pay anything for a document that is otherwise just going to gather dust? (And to be honest when one adds up all of the different fees a passport is closer to $150 and while that's not a great deal of money it does add up.) I don't know about you but I buy things for one of two reasons- because I need them or because I want them. Neither condition applied when I first started cruising so I decided to wait to get passports until I actually needed them because at that time the only travel we could do was via closed loop cruise and we were comfortable with the risk. (As I recall our first 4 day cruise cost around $1200, so spending another $850 for something that was not needed made zero sense.)

 

And we've had this conversation before regarding "lobbying" and it didn't happen, not if you mean that the cruise lines paid someone to go visit individual congressmen to convince them to pass a certain law. Congress mandated that DHS and the State Department write the regulations so some faceless civil servants wrote the regulations. Yes, DHS/State received correspondence regarding the proposed regulations, but at that point the closed loop exception was already in the proposed regulations. Why does the exception exist? Because DHS determined that a US citizen on a closed loop cruise presents a low risk to the national security and if that determination had been any different then the exception wouldn't exist regardless of any pressure. I know that northern border states (and possibly also the southern ones) put a great deal of pressure on DHS to have some sort of exception in the regulations because their economy depends upon dollars coming down from Canada, but DHS didn't enact one because security couldn't be assured and because plans were in place for less expensive alternatives to passports (i.e. passport cards and Enhanced Drivers Licenses).

[SRF]

That's what good travel insurance is for. The State Department has the authority under the regulations to waive the passport requirements in an emergency. Yes, things can happen to loved ones at home and as I've said repeatedly if that small risk is unacceptable to anyone then they should get a passport, but everyone's tolerance of risk is different (as is everyone's risk level). When we were cruising without passports everyone that I cared about was with me so I wasn't overly concerned with anything happening back home.

 

As I pointed out, the State Department is NOT in many of the Caribbean countries.

 

And it is not State that allows you into the US or not, it is CBP. Different organizations.

 

Yes, nothing is an issue, until it is.

 

$13.50 per year, a bit over $1 per month, is cheap insurance.

 

Also, the insurance covers the costs, but not the hassles.

[sparks1093]

As I pointed out, the State Department is NOT in many of the Caribbean countries.

 

And it is not State that allows you into the US or not, it is CBP. Different organizations.

 

Yes, nothing is an issue, until it is.

 

$13.50 per year, a bit over $1 per month, is cheap insurance.

 

Also, the insurance covers the costs, but not the hassles.

 

It's not 13.50 a year, it's due and payable up front. Embassies have phones and much of this can be done on the phone and yes, CBP is a different agency but DHS is CBP's boss and they wrote the regulations that specify what authority the State Department has. Not having a passport does present another potential hassle, but yet again it is up to each traveler to decide.

[Herfnerd]

I agree that it's "cheap insurance" to have and we always cruise and advocate traveling with a passport.

 

But for some/many people it can be a financial burden. They won't be looking at it as ~$1 a month but as an immediate payment of $150. For a typical family of 4, that's $600. And as a passport is not needed to cruise in most cases, they will view it as an "unnecessary" expense. I mean, the OP's own TA even told them it's not needed.

 

I have a feeling that many first timers view cruising as one time type vacation and are not familiar with the nuances of passports, flying in a day early or obtaining travel insurance (of which many experienced cruisers here in CC still will not purchase as an "unnecessary, unneeded" expense even though prudent). And in all honesty, CC members make up only a small percentage of cruisers.

 

And unless the laws are changed to require passports on cruises loop cruises, this subject will continue to be hotly debated......

 

 

 

 

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[navybankerteacher]

That's what good travel insurance is for. The State Department has the authority under the regulations to waive the passport requirements in an emergency. Yes, things can happen to loved ones at home and as I've said repeatedly if that small risk is unacceptable to anyone then they should get a passport, but everyone's tolerance of risk is different (as is everyone's risk level). When we were cruising without passports everyone that I cared about was with me so I wasn't overly concerned with anything happening back home.

 

Do you really think that someone who is reluctant to pay for a passport is likely to invest in "...good travel insurance..."?

 

Also, while the $135 may have to be "paid up front and is not just $13.50 per year" -- the fact is that the cost can be (and usually is) spread out --- by anyone who carries any credit card or auto loan balance. Money is fungible - so it is absurd to claim that the fact that passport fees must be paid in full in advance means the real cost cannot be amortized over the life of the passport.

[sparks1093]

I agree that it's "cheap insurance" to have and we always cruise and advocate traveling with a passport.

 

But for some/many people it can be a financial burden. They won't be looking at it as ~$1 a month but as an immediate payment of $150. For a typical family of 4, that's $600. And as a passport is not needed to cruise in most cases, they will view it as an "unnecessary" expense. I mean, the OP's own TA even told them it's not needed.

 

I have a feeling that many first timers view cruising as one time type vacation and are not familiar with the nuances of passports, flying in a day early or obtaining travel insurance (of which many experienced cruisers here in CC still will not purchase as an "unnecessary, unneeded" expense even though prudent). And in all honesty, CC members make up only a small percentage of cruisers.

 

And unless the laws are changed to require passports on cruises loop cruises, this subject will continue to be hotly debated......

 

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Affordability is only part of the equation, an individual's level of risk is (too me) a much higher consideration and if someone does have a higher risk (an elderly parent at home they would need to return early for if needed, traveling with an infant) then it may be prudent for them to get the passports regardless of the cost.

[pliskin]

For what it's worth, the passport card is only $55 And only covers land and sea entry into the US but also would work fine in an emergency.

 

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[pliskin]

...add to that, if you opt not to get a passport, be 110% sure you have the correct docs or they will not let you board the ship. That I have seen happen tons of times and it's heartbreaking. Personally, I'd get at least the passport card to be sure.

 

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[sparks1093]

Do you really think that someone who is reluctant to pay for a passport is likely to invest in "...good travel insurance..."?

 

Also, while the $135 may have to be "paid up front and is not just $13.50 per year" -- the fact is that the cost can be (and usually is) spread out --- by anyone who carries any credit card or auto loan balance. Money is fungible - so it is absurd to claim that the fact that passport fees must be paid in full in advance means the real cost cannot be amortized over the life of the passport.

 

I really don't care if they have insurance or not, it's not my call. I know that I do obtain travel insurance, even now that we have passports. A passport will reduce the hassle of getting home "if" something happens. I think most people are quite capable of figuring out how likely that is for themselves. Yes, I know that there are ways to pay for something without having the cash but my point remains why spend it if you don't have to? You might think it's worth it to spend $850 for a 4 day cruise that cost $1200 and that's fine, it's your money, spend it how you please. I reached a different conclusion.

[sparks1093]

For what it's worth, the passport card is only $55 And only covers land and sea entry into the US but also would work fine in an emergency.

 

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It may make it easier for the State Department to verify who you are but it could not be used to get on the plane.

 

 

...add to that, if you opt not to get a passport, be 110% sure you have the correct docs or they will not let you board the ship. That I have seen happen tons of times and it's heartbreaking. Personally, I'd get at least the passport card to be sure.

 

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I've heard of people being denied boarding because they grabbed their expired passport by mistake so it is always important to make sure you have the right documents.

[pliskin]

That almost happened to me. I stood in line and when it was my turn to check on, I found that I had brought my leather passport cover but the passport wasn't in it. Then I remembered my passport card was in my wallet. Close call. But i have literally seen kids crying because thier parents didn't have the right documents and thier vacation was not only ruined but they were out the money they spent getting to the port, hotel the night before, etc.

 

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