Passport or no Passport?

[wrp96]

One thing to think about when you are traveling on that birth certificate: Even though you may have never had problems in the past, what happens if you arrive and there is a problem. For example, in the past year, anyone with a birth certificate issued by Jersey City, New Jersey found out their birth certificates - the ones they had used all their lives and had been perfectly valid before - were invalid. Why? Because it was found out that somebody there was selling fake birth certificates and it was so prevalent that they had to invalidate all birth certificates issued by that office. There are people that post on these boards that found this out when they went to apply for passports. If you can't use your birth certificate to get a passport, then you definitely cannot use it to get on the ship. Do you really want to get to the ship and there be a question about whether your birth certificate is valid?

[surfklutz]

Well Surfklutz, it seems that the advice given by many on these boards to "keep those passports locked up in the safe on the ship" is really not good advice. I agree, the passport is the best international ID there is. Therefore, we always take them ashore.

 

If it gets stolen, I'll get another one. Locked in the safe while I'm stuck at the police station in Mexico after the ship has sailed will be kind of worthless.

 

And contrary to the previous post, there is often two lines when the ship gets back to the States, the one with passports moves much quicker. Come next year, it will be a moot point.

 

I always keep a copy of my passport to take onshore- but maybe I should give the ship the copy and take my original.

[cruzincurt]

And do the people with the birth certificates take them ashore? I doubt it. They leave them locked up in the safe as well.

 

We just hired a fellow from the UK and he can't believe that most Americans, actually probably 95% don't have passports. The difference is that most Europeans routinely often travel from country to country where most Americans don't unless you live close to the borders.

[Barry ATL]

Our first cruise was in 2004 and I wrestled whether to spend the money for an Alaskan cruise that had a stop in Canada. I went ahead and spent the money. My main reason was what happened on 9/11. An aquaintence was flying from London to NYC. Plane got diverted to Iceland when they closed our air space. He ended up going from Iceland to Canada while wiating for our boarders to re-oopen. The two worst case scenerios for me would be to have our boarders close because of some "event" or I miss the ship. In either case, I would not want to be in another country wihtout a passport in either of those situations.

 

I agree with an earlier poster. Even though it is not required for a lot of places, the passport is like travel insurance. It is for the "just in case".