Visa Question

[jtslattery]

Is there an easy way to find out what visas are required for and upcoming Seabourn cruise? 

 

[Catlover54]

Call SB if you have no TA, to be sure, or call your TA if you do. Travel documents also have info, but those come late.

 

Where are you going, and are you a U.S, citizen? EU countries typically require no visa for them.

 

[rols]

The online documentation we had for our last cruise, available as soon as we'd registered, had very good visa information. It wasn't just information about US travellers, as it often is, but broke it down for other nationalities as well and said which countries visas would normally be available on the ship. We found that to be completely accurate in our case. 

 

Our TA of course knew all the rules and was spot on, but it was good to have two independent sources. 

 

For some reason we received an email via the TA's company (not via her) purportedly from Seabourn a week before we travelled saying in effect "we know you're visa free for xx and yy, however we recommend getting visas for all these countries just in case".  By then of course it was far too late even if we needed to get them and everything else pointed to visa free travel so we went and all was fine. I believe, from the wording of the mail, that it didn't come from Seabourn at all but from the parent travel company who owns a visa processing service. 

 

And yes as Catlover asks, if you say where you're going and what nationality you have, you'll often find someone here has taken a similar trip recently and can tell you what the visa situation was. 

[jtslattery]

Good idea - We are US citizens cruising from Singapore to Athens.

Countries visited are Thailand, Mynamar, India, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Aqaba Jordan, Israel, Greece

[Qld13]

Go to https://cibtvisas.com and enter your details and it will tell you what you need. At the bottom there are links for different countries if you are not in the US

[Sunviking]

2 hours ago, jtslattery said:

Good idea - We are US citizens cruising from Singapore to Athens.

Countries visited are Thailand, Mynamar, India, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Aqaba Jordan, Israel, Greece

 

I can't speak for the first 3 countries on your list, but for our recently completed cruise which began in Dubai (UAE) and stopped in Oman, Jordan, Israel and Greece we didn't have to get any individual visas. We are also US citizens.

[markham]

I BELIEVE that Americans ie US citizens need a visa for India. Otherwise in places that are “visa light” such as Myanmar the ship will get the visa on your behalf and charge you for it.

 

As others have noted, Seabourn will tell you what is what after payment is made as will your TA.

 

Happy and healthy sailing!

[rols]

3 hours ago, jtslattery said:

Good idea - We are US citizens cruising from Singapore to Athens.

Countries visited are Thailand, Mynamar, India, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Aqaba Jordan, Israel, Greece

India is a definite visa, Thailand, UAE, Quatar, Aqaba, Jordan, Israel, Greece .. 99% sure they are visa exempt for US passports, Myanmar is visa-on-arrival arranged by the ship for every country I know of. Obviously confirm all this but that's what you should expect to see. Oh and Singapore .. no visa here either. 

And India .. ugh .. that one was a royal pain the last twice we did it and we met people on the ship who had an even worse time. They'll usually want your birth certificate copy and details about where your parents, or at least father, were born. Perhaps it got easier since the last time but we, who usually just arrange any visas we need, found someone to do this for us. And for India there is no 'no visa, stay on the ship' option, you need a visa for the ship to clear so you have to have that one before they even let you board. 

[rols]

1 hour ago, Qld13 said:

Go to https://cibtvisas.com and enter your details and it will tell you what you need. At the bottom there are links for different countries if you are not in the US

The problem with almost all those sites is two-fold

1) They are set up for the 99.9% of people arriving by air. Arrival by sea continues, even now, to be 'different'. That means countries you need a visa in advance for when arriving normally can sometimes have visas arranged on arrival by the ship, and often cheaper. Conversely if you're told it's visa-on-arrival or e-visa, sometimes that doesn't work for ships. 

2) Many of the sites are associated with visa arrangement services and the advice they give is often slewed towards 'you need a visa, apply for it here', even when there may be circumstances in which you don't (like arriving by sea, or leaving within a few days, China a good example of this) or where visa-on-arrival or an e-visa you can apply for yourself is available. 

So it's a handy first check about whether there's any visa requirement at all, beyond that, these sites often err on the side of making you spend lots of money for visas you may not actually need. 

[Chairsin]

To follow up with previous posts indeed US citizens are required to secure a visa for India. And this is not the type of  visa that the ship is often able to secure for passengers. Furthermore you cannot apply for the Indian visa more than 45 days prior to your entry.. In case you think you will just remain on the ship and thus avoid the hassle of securing this visa please note the following  quote from the documents I recently received from our TA regarding our December cruise from Dubai to Singapore “ you must obtain your own multiple entry visas for entry into India, even if you do not attend to disembark the ship. You will not be allowed to embark the ship without these.” 

 

[Qld13]

Ooops see below!!

Edited June 13, 2019 by Qld13

[Qld13]

8 hours ago, rols said:

The problem with almost all those sites is two-fold

1) They are set up for the 99.9% of people arriving by air. Arrival by sea continues, even now, to be 'different'. That means countries you need a visa in advance for when arriving normally can sometimes have visas arranged on arrival by the ship, and often cheaper. Conversely if you're told it's visa-on-arrival or e-visa, sometimes that doesn't work for ships. 

2) Many of the sites are associated with visa arrangement services and the advice they give is often slewed towards 'you need a visa, apply for it here', even when there may be circumstances in which you don't (like arriving by sea, or leaving within a few days, China a good example of this) or where visa-on-arrival or an e-visa you can apply for yourself is available. 

So it's a handy first check about whether there's any visa requirement at all, beyond that, these sites often err on the side of making you spend lots of money for visas you may not actually need. 

 

Only suggested as it would give an idea on what countries require visas.

[kowhairob]

We did Athens to Singapore on Seabourn Encore October 2018 and the only country that required a visa was India . It was a pain in the backside , however its mandatory . Go online and do a mock application to get an idea of the forms/information required .

[3418ahl]

The visa company that Seabourn uses is VisaCentral 866-788-1100, website: visacentral.com/seabourn.   They can tell you exactly what visas Seabourn will supply for you, and what visas you need to obtain on your own.

[fudgbug]

Thanks for your post.  Very helpful. We'll be going to the UAE, India, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Vietnam over the holidays.

[Jane21]

We recently sailed Singapore to Dubai. We knew we did not want to get off in India as been numerous times but Seabourn Head Office and our TA advised us that we still must obtain the Indian Visa (which we did).

 

Very annoying on cruise to find a number of people without visas as not going into India and when raised issue: informed at Seabourn Square that we did not need them as we were not leaving the ship to travel within India !!

 

[rols]

3 hours ago, Jane21 said:

We recently sailed Singapore to Dubai. We knew we did not want to get off in India as been numerous times but Seabourn Head Office and our TA advised us that we still must obtain the Indian Visa (which we did).

 

Very annoying on cruise to find a number of people without visas as not going into India and when raised issue: informed at Seabourn Square that we did not need them as we were not leaving the ship to travel within India !!

 

OK that is the first time I've ever heard that. We also didn't want to get off in India on our last cruise which stopped there and not only the line (I think that was Seabourn, if it wasn't it was Silversea) informed very cleared that every passenger had to have a visa or they would be denied boarding but we even checked this with the Indian Embassy here and were told the same thing, a visa is needed by everyone on a cruise ship or it's not allowed to clear. Our TA had the same story and she's been spot on about visas all the years we've used her. 

[Jane21]

The form that Seabourn gave us to complete on the ship before arrival at first Indian port had some checkboxes that you needed to complete: one option was : no Indian visa as not getting off !

 

If anyone is on the Dubai to Singapore trip in November/December this year, please take a photocopy of the form and post it on this board.

[rols]

1 hour ago, Jane21 said:

The form that Seabourn gave us to complete on the ship before arrival at first Indian port had some checkboxes that you needed to complete: one option was : no Indian visa as not getting off !

 

If anyone is on the Dubai to Singapore trip in November/December this year, please take a photocopy of the form and post it on this board.

That's really handy information, would be great to see that form. We've passed on a few cruises which have one single stop in India because of the total PITA of getting a visa. 

[raphael360]

On 6/17/2019 at 12:32 PM, 3418ahl said:

The visa company that Seabourn uses is VisaCentral 866-788-1100, website: visacentral.com/seabourn.   They can tell you exactly what visas Seabourn will supply for you, and what visas you need to obtain on your own.

This is an excellent visa site.  I book marked it in my browser.

 

Thank you

[MHF]

On 6/17/2019 at 12:32 PM, 3418ahl said:

The visa company that Seabourn uses is VisaCentral 866-788-1100, website: visacentral.com/seabourn.   They can tell you exactly what visas Seabourn will supply for you, and what visas you need to obtain on your own.

Thank you!  They post cruises 90 days out so I will check in February for the Encore Middle East/Holy Lands cruise in May.

[fdnycruiser]

You'll qualify for an evisa in India and is relatively painless.I was on Ovation earlier this year and used the evisa. You can get it online. The hardest part was getting the pictures to the right size. Then again, I'm not a tech wizard. We also stopped at the rest of the ports you mentioned, and Seabourn obtained all of them and we paid on the ship. 

[3418ahl]

We are on the Singapore to Athens cruise on Ovation, March 14, 2020 and we were told the only Visa we have to obtain ourselves is that for India.  The rest will be supplied by Seabourn.

[Dehart]

We are on this cruise and I was planning on purchasing the Visas via the internet - any thoughts?  Doug & Faith De Hart - San Diego

 

[fudgbug]

9 minutes ago, Dehart said:

We are on this cruise and I was planning on purchasing the Visas via the internet - any thoughts?  Doug & Faith De Hart - San Diego

 

We purchased our visa for India via internet with no problem using photos that we had taken at a CVS.  Enjoy your cruise.