Marella Cruise to Thailand .Visa Exemption Stamp.

[Woodies 2]

Hi All,  Hope you can help me. We have booked a cruise with TUI to Thailand in Feb . We would like to stay on for a extra week at the end of the cruise , so will not be returning with TUI , but making our own arrangements. My questions are :-

• Has anybody else done this ? If so any tips / pitfalls 
• If we don't return with TUI when do we have to vacate the ship ?  (The flight back  is 11.00 ish am  so working back, the rest of the passengers on that flight would be leaving around 6 - 7 am. We would not want to get off at that time ) 
• As a cruise passenger , did you pass through immigration at the airport ?  We will need the "visa" stamp in order to avoid problems leaving the country later. (when i went on a Cruise to Barbados with TUI , i seem to remember we by passed immigration ?)

Any help to any of the questions will be gratefully received 

[John Bull]

Hi Woodies, and welcome to Cruise Critic,

 

Assuming you are UK citizens you don't need a visa to visit Thailand. Ergo, you won't need a visa stamp in your passport to get thro immigration at the airport in either direction.

 

I don't know whether you will be treated as "in transit" at the airport on arrival even on a charter flight but assuming this is Suvarnabhumi  I very much doubt it, it's a very large airport so being treated as "in transit" to transfer buses would be difficult to organise .  If it's a charter flight it may be to Don Mueang, which is smaller but again "in-transit" is unlikely so it's probably immigration, baggage hall etc.. 

 

You'll need to be out of your cabin by around 8 - 8.30, and off the ship by around 9am.

If TUI organise a lot of charter flights like they do for the Mediterranean and as you experienced in Barbados, you may be able to stay on the ship until later but you'll still have to vacate your cabin by about 8 to 8.30. ("the flight back will be 11am-ish" doesn't make sense, everyone else won't be flying back on the same aircraft and there are likely to be staggered flight times)

 

Another assumption - if the port is Laem Chabang be aware that it's 90+ minutes from Bangkok or 30+ mins to Pattaya, and there's no suitable public transport.

It's important to pre-book your transfer to a hotel because taxis available at the port are in a cartel - you'd have to negotiate with the taxi-master and since you'd have no alternative you'd be royally ripped-off. Chose a transfer operator with good independent reviews because they range from excellent to awful.

 

I can't think of any real pitfalls in staying on an extra week - will this be in Bangkok?

 

JB 

Edited November 12, 2019 by John Bull

[SRF]

If you are arriving on the cruise ship, and getting off:

 

1) You need to coordinate and get permission from the cruise line.

 

2)  It may cost you some money to do this.

 

3)  The cruise line will need to coordinate immigration and customs at the port for you.

It is not about not having a visa (permission to enter the country), but an ENTRY STAMP (showing you legally entered the country).   Show up at the airport and try to depart without having a stamp showing legal entry, it could get VERY exciting.

[John Bull]

18 minutes ago, SRF said:

If you are arriving on the cruise ship, and getting off:

 

1) You need to coordinate and get permission from the cruise line.

 

2)  It may cost you some money to do this.

 

3)  The cruise line will need to coordinate immigration and customs at the port for you.

It is not about not having a visa (permission to enter the country), but an ENTRY STAMP (showing you legally entered the country).   Show up at the airport and try to depart without having a stamp showing legal entry, it could get VERY exciting.

 

 

I'm pretty certain that this is a  fly-cruise on Marella Discovery, which starts & ends in Thailand, and that the OP is merely adding post-cruise time in Thailand.

Woodies - post again if this isn't the case, because SRF's comments apply if you are leaving the ship mid-cruise.

 

JB 

[Woodies 2]

Hi Thank you all for your comments.  Just to clarify, we have booked a fly cruise for 2 weeks flying from & to Birmingham (this is the flight that leaves around 11.00 am,  i am not sure about the London flights) However having gone all that way, we wanted to stay an extra week after the cruise has ended. TUI have no way of accommodating this,  so we will forgo return flight and' under our own steam, we will stay in Thailand for an extra week then take a flight back , probably from Bangkok.  I am thinking we will probably have to exit the cruise port via immigration and possibly get the stamp there , but i would feel happier if we had got it at the airport . We will be away three weeks in total so will not fall foul of the 4 week permitted stay . 

[SRF]

Have you priced one way flights back?

 

I would still check with the cruise line.  You may be in transit from ship to plane, and not technically a full entry into the country.

Edited November 12, 2019 by SRF

[John Bull]

If cruise passengers aren't treated as "in transit" when you arrive in Bangkok, your passport will be stamped at the airport.

Thus no worries departing the country a week after your cruise.

 

But it sounds like this is a flights-included cruise, using chartered aircraft just like their Med & Caribbean cruises, so passengers might not  have to go thro immigration on arrival in Bangkok.

Good luck with getting that info from TUI cos cruise line head office staff tend to be clueless about such things.

 

There are various ways to overcome that if necessary, such as breaking away from the herd at the airport to go thro immigration, or getting an arrival stamp at Lasem Chabang,  But that's all beyond my ken - you're very reliant on TUI for best advice.

 

You will in any case have to advise TUI of your plans and seek their OK. And don't forget to remind staff on-board that you won't be using their return flight or (unless you choose otherwise) the transfer back to the airport.

BTW it's a moot point whether you're best to fix your own transfer from Laem Chabang to Bangkok or take the included airport transfer & taxi from there to Bangkok. It's somewhere under an hour shorter from the airport so it's cheaper, but you'll be stuck with ship's transfer time.

 

And BTW Bangkok is certainly worth at least  3 or 4 days 

 

JB 

Edited November 12, 2019 by John Bull

[Woodies 2]

Hi JB  & SRF , 

I thought we may be treated as in transit . We had a similar experience in Barbados . When we left the ship we went though customs at the port as if we had just arrived in the country. However i have heard some horror stories about Thai immigration, so i am not as relaxed about doing this in Thailand as i was in Barbados. 

JB .... I think i will have to bite the bullet and discuss with TUI , however i do know they say visas etc are the responsibility of the customer. Also their "information" is unreliable. I still have an email from them telling me that i would need to obtain Visas for all Caribbean Islands if i were to visit the Islands independently. This, they told me, could be avoided if I were to book their shore excursions  !!! (I now know this to be complete and utter nonsense ! )    

[John Bull]

3 hours ago, John Bull said:

 

Good luck with getting that info from TUI cos cruise line head office staff tend to be clueless about such things.

 

JB 

 

2 hours ago, Woodies 2 said:

Hi JB  & SRF , 

I thought we may be treated as in transit . We had a similar experience in Barbados . When we left the ship we went though customs at the port as if we had just arrived in the country. However i have heard some horror stories about Thai immigration, so i am not as relaxed about doing this in Thailand as i was in Barbados. 

JB .... I think i will have to bite the bullet and discuss with TUI , however i do know they say visas etc are the responsibility of the customer. Also their "information" is unreliable. I still have an email from them telling me that i would need to obtain Visas for all Caribbean Islands if i were to visit the Islands independently. This, they told me, could be avoided if I were to book their shore excursions  !!! (I now know this to be complete and utter nonsense ! )    

 

Right, so you know what I meant about TUI. 

I've had all sorts of mis-info from their head office on such matters.

The crews on-board have always been spot-on, but how does one get the info from them??

 

Could you ask TUI for contact details of their ground-handlers / port agents in Bangkok? They'd know.

 

And folk who've cruised TUI out of Laem Chabang will know whether they went through immigration on arrival at Bangkok airport or direct to their transfer bus.

I think the first cruise this season sails on 12th December - you could post on both the Marella forum and the Asia forum. Might be read by someone who did this cruise last year, or someone who can respond some time after 12 Dec if that's not too late.

https://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/forum/388-marella-cruises-formerly-thomson/ 

and

 https://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/forum/43-asia/

 

I personally think the odds are that passengers will have to go through immigration at the airport - both of Bangkok's airports are very different to small & informal Grantley Adams airport.  No worries if that's the case.

But altho I've visited by both air & cruise ship I've not done both on one trip, so that's purely an educated guess.

 

JB 

[Woodies 2]

Hi JB ,

Thank you so much for taking your time to consider my dilemma & reply to this thread. It has been really helpful.

  

[John Bull]

48 minutes ago, Woodies 2 said:

Hi JB ,

Thank you so much for taking your time to consider my dilemma & reply to this thread. It has been really helpful.

  

 

No worries, and good luck.

 

In Bangkok

- do take a long-tail boat ride through the klongs.

- the Royal Palace is a must, but beware the dress code & take water

- consider a day-trip, out  from Bangkok by coach to the Summer Palace at Bang Pa-In and nearby Ayutthaya,the ancient capital of Siam, then by riverboat down to Bangkok on the Chao Phraya River, very much the best way to enter Bangkok.

https://www.thairivercruise.com/ayutthaya-river-cruise-day-tour-bangkok-chao-phraya-river-thailand

- nowadays you have to bargain really hard with the tuk-tuk drivers. And tell 'em that you want to go to your destination DIRECT - not via their sister-in-law''s jewellery workshop or uncle's carpet shop or  great-niece's art studio 

 

JB 

[SRF]

Also, before you take a taxi or tuk-tuk in Bangkok, ask your hotel or the shop which side of the street to get one.  Due to many one way streets and no right turn (they drive on the left), getting one the other side of the street may be a 5 minute ride, while from this side, it is 30+ minutes.

 

I did a one day Bangkok tour that did the reclining Buddha and the Emerald Buddha.  Around the reclining Buddha are many small temples with monks in training.  As the group was all male, we were actually allowed into one of the temples/training places.