How many blank passport pages needed for a world cruise?

[peggy49]

My husband and I are thinking of doing the 180-day world cruise. If you have done one, how many passport pages did you use for VISAS and the country-specific enter and exit stamps? Approximately, how many days/ports/countries did your trip include? Thank you for your help. It will enable us to decide if we have enough empty pages in our existing passports or if we need to get new passports.

[2552phxcrzr]

I believe the requirement for our 180-day cruise in 2017 was 10 blank pages.  This will change based on your itinerary.  O will advise early on how many pages you should have. You also need to check when your passport expires as some countries require at least a six month window prior to expiration.  I have no idea if this is looked at that carefully, but better safe than not.  I don’t recall exactly how many ports of call, but I believe we had a 60-70% ratio of ports.

[oskidunker]

Most places dont stamp it. You have to beg them

[njhorseman]

30 minutes ago, oskidunker said:

Most places dont stamp it. You have to beg them

This isn't like your run of the mill Caribbean or European cruise.

 

The world cruise will typically visit a substantial number of countries that require you to obtain a visa in advance of your cruise and Oceania obtains those visas for you through a visa service . The cost of the visa package is included in your fare. 

 

Even when cruising to countries that didn't require you to obtain a visa in advance or while on the ship we've  had our passports inspected and stamped by local officials fairly often when cruising to more "exotic" locales. 

 

We're booked on the 2024 world cruise and our passports are expiring this  November so a couple of weeks ago we sent them off for renewal. We decided to request the optional 52 page passports just to make sure we have enough pages for the world cruise and for any other travels over the next 10 years. 

 

[Mura]

Have not done this long a cruise ourselves but I would assume you want as many pages as you can get!

 

Recently (say the past 10 years or so) I have requested extra pages -- although I never tried to specify the number of pages.  Just because  we were doing a lot of traveling and came close to running out.

 

Better to have too many rather than too few.

 

Have you asked the passport bureau for their recommendation for this long of a cruise?

 

Mura

[njhorseman]

10 hours ago, Mura said:

Have not done this long a cruise ourselves but I would assume you want as many pages as you can get!

 

Recently (say the past 10 years or so) I have requested extra pages -- although I never tried to specify the number of pages.  Just because  we were doing a lot of traveling and came close to running out.

 

Better to have too many rather than too few.

 

Have you asked the passport bureau for their recommendation for this long of a cruise?

 

Mura

The US no longer permits you to add pages to an existing passport. If you need more visa pages you have to get a new passport book regardless of how long your current passport will be valid. When you apply for the new passport you have the option of ordering the standard 32 page book or the 52 page book, with no additional charge for the 52 page passport .

[Noxequifans]

Good information ... thanks. 

[peggy49]

Thank you for the all the good information. Our passports are already the extended 52-page version, and they are good until 2026. Currently,  I have about 20 pages left in my passport, and my husband has about 25 pages left. (This will decrease with upcoming travel in 2022.) I am deciding if we need to 1) apply for a new passport, 2) get a second (backup) passport, or 3) take our chances that our existing passports have enough pages. Given the amount of time it takes to get a passport renewal, and our other upcoming trips, there is not a long-enough time window when we can be without our passports for the renewal. 

 

Oceania's VISA PDF for the 2023 World Cruise says  "NOTE: Guests are required to have minimum ten (10) blank visa passport pages at time of embarkation to facilitate passport stamping, including South Africa. South Africa port officials alone require a minimum of two (2) blank visa passport pages (one upon entry to the country and a second upon exit).

 

Ten blank pages does not seem to me to be enough. It may be enough for the VISAs

only, but what about country enter and exits.

 

So... if you took a previous world cruise, how many passport pages did you actually use? And, did each country you visited stamp your passport if you left the ship?

 

Thank you again for your insights and sharing of information.

[cbb]

If you go on any ATW Overlands you will need even more blank pages.

 

At end of overland description on O ATW website is info on visas and number of "clean" pages required in passport.

 

[S1drfl]

Just ran through my passport used on the 2016 ATW.  Visas and stamps took up 16.5 pages.  Only overland trips we took were those offered as part of the O package for the cruise.  Could have been more (one page had 6 stamps) or less (several pages with 2 or 3 stamps, either oversized or placed such that no room for additional stamps).

[cbb]

Hi!  We took 4 Overlands and Began on ATW16 and had 2 completed with 3 more scheduled for ATW20 before it was cancelled. Lots of pages used