E-Visa - Celebrity Cruise - Vietnam, January 2024

[Galanb]

We are going on a Celebrity Singapore to HK cruise in mid-January 2024, with stops in Thailand and Vietnam.

 

After a lot of online checking to see what is required for Canadian tourists, it appears we need a tourist visa to land in Vietnam.  However, there seems to be two options: a paper visa and an e-visa.  The paper visa can be obtained from the Vietnamese Embassy/Consul and appears to cost CDN $110 per (a lot!).

 

It also seems that an e-visa, according to forums, is much cheaper at around USD $25.  [Note: we are not interested in the Visa On Arrival (VOA) options available via various unknown third parties.]

 

I contacted the Vietnamese Embassy in Ottawa and got the following canned response:

Good day,

1. E-visa is issued by Immigration Department of Viet Nam, not linked to the system of Viet Nam Embassy. E-visa is used normally for air travel, because many seaports and land border gates do not accept e-visa; while regular physical visa issued by Vietnam Embassy is good for air travel, sea cruise and land travel.

2. If you want to apply for an e-visa, you need to apply at the website of the Immigration Department of Vietnam. If you have applied for e-visa and have any problems/questions, you need to contact the Immigration Department because Viet Nam Embassy can not assist you in those cases.

3. If you have problems with e-visa and want to re-apply for a regular visas issued by Viet Nam Embassy, you can apply at Viet Nam Embassy website:https://vietnamembassy.ca/consular-services/visa-application.

Sincerely,

Consular Section

 

This response states that e-visas are normally used for air arrivals and not sea arrivals, and that they may not be accepted at some, or all, seaports.

 

Has anyone got any recent experience whether e-visas are accepted at the seaports Celebrity uses for its Vietnam ports of call?  Secondly, does anyone have the official Vietnamese government website URL for e-visas?  I have tried the following links, all of which fail:

 

https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/

https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/web/guest/home

https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/en_US/web/guest/khai-thi-thuc-dien-tu/cap-thi-thuc-dien-tu

 

Thank you for any help.

 

Edited December 10, 2023 by Galanb

[mahdnc]

We (American citizens) are going on the Singapore to Hong Kong 12 night cruise in less than 2 weeks. We successfully applied for our e-Visa using the 3rd link in the list at the bottom of your post.  It took about 4 business days to get our e-Visa (download from the website).

 

What failure did you experience?

[mahdnc]

Check out this roll call where the Vietnam e-visa was discussed.

 

 

 

[mahdnc]

I would also advise that you join the roll call for your sailing.  Here it is:

 

 

These people will be on your cruise and will be happy to answer all of your questions.

[NMTraveller]

Is a visa required for Thailand in Dec. 2023 ?

[mahdnc]

No (for American citizens)

Edited December 10, 2023 by mahdnc

[Galanb]

17 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

We (American citizens) are going on the Singapore to Hong Kong 12 night cruise in less than 2 weeks. We successfully applied for our e-Visa using the 3rd link in the list at the bottom of your post.  It took about 4 business days to get our e-Visa (download from the website).

 

What failure did you experience?

Thanks mahdnc for replying.  Here is the response from the URL:

This site can’t be reached

evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn unexpectedly closed the connection.

Try:

• Checking the connection
• Checking the proxy and the firewall
• Running Windows Network Diagnostics

ERR_CONNECTION_CLOSED

[mahdnc]

This is what I get when I click on the 3rd link in your post.  Try a different web browser.

 

 

You can see the URL:

 

Edited December 10, 2023 by mahdnc

[Galanb]

16 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

This is what I get when I click on the 3rd link in your post.  Try a different web browser.

 

 

You can see the URL:

 

Great idea! I had used Google Chrome (my regular browser).  On your advice I tried another browser - Microsoft Edge - and the page loaded.  So did the other two links.  Considering HTML 5 is the current standard, Chrome should have worked properly.  I guess that site is likely old and uses Microsoft web extensions.

 

Now I am still looking for confirmations that e-visas are accepted at the Vietnamese ports of call.

 

Thanks again for your help!

 

[Galanb]

53 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

I would also advise that you join the roll call for your sailing.  Here it is:

 

 

These people will be on your cruise and will be happy to answer all of your questions.

Thanks again mahdnc.  I'll check it out...

[Galanb]

21 hours ago, Galanb said:

We are going on a Celebrity Singapore to HK cruise in mid-January 2024, with stops in Thailand and Vietnam.

 

After a lot of online checking to see what is required for Canadian tourists, it appears we need a tourist visa to land in Vietnam.  However, there seems to be two options: a paper visa and an e-visa.  The paper visa can be obtained from the Vietnamese Embassy/Consul and appears to cost CDN $110 per (a lot!).

 

It also seems that an e-visa, according to forums, is much cheaper at around USD $25.  [Note: we are not interested in the Visa On Arrival (VOA) options available via various unknown third parties.]

 

I contacted the Vietnamese Embassy in Ottawa and got the following canned response:

Good day,

1. E-visa is issued by Immigration Department of Viet Nam, not linked to the system of Viet Nam Embassy. E-visa is used normally for air travel, because many seaports and land border gates do not accept e-visa; while regular physical visa issued by Vietnam Embassy is good for air travel, sea cruise and land travel.

2. If you want to apply for an e-visa, you need to apply at the website of the Immigration Department of Vietnam. If you have applied for e-visa and have any problems/questions, you need to contact the Immigration Department because Viet Nam Embassy can not assist you in those cases.

3. If you have problems with e-visa and want to re-apply for a regular visas issued by Viet Nam Embassy, you can apply at Viet Nam Embassy website:https://vietnamembassy.ca/consular-services/visa-application.

Sincerely,

Consular Section

 

This response states that e-visas are normally used for air arrivals and not sea arrivals, and that they may not be accepted at some, or all, seaports.

 

Has anyone got any recent experience whether e-visas are accepted at the seaports Celebrity uses for its Vietnam ports of call?  Secondly, does anyone have the official Vietnamese government website URL for e-visas?  I have tried the following links, all of which fail:

 

https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/

https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/web/guest/home

https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/en_US/web/guest/khai-thi-thuc-dien-tu/cap-thi-thuc-dien-tu

 

Thank you for any help.

 

Further to my post yesterday, after a subsequent follow-up with the Vietnamese embassy in Ottawa, the embassy sent me a link to the government e-visa site:

https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/en_US/web/guest/trang-chu-ttdt

 

Also on that webpage is a link to a PDF file (see attachment to this post) of the ports of entry, including seaports, where an e-visa is accepted.  (The [current] direct link to the PDF file is:

https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/documents/20181/117155/List-of-evisa-port.pdf/c774e24b-1ab8-4fb6-9ac1-dcdfaccecf8e )   Again, as noted in another post below, neither of the above links opened in Google Chrome browser: they will only open, for me, in Microsoft Edge browser.

 

Vietnam List-of-evisa-port.pdf

[sanger727]

Paper visas are very expensive and difficult to get. We had to get those for a trip last year. E-visa is by far the best option if your arrival location is on the list of allowed entry points. You should be fine at a seaport. We were unable to use an e-visa at a river crossing.