Visa to Vietnam - Specific Question

[mike30mike2002]

Hello all,

I understand that you need a visa to enter Vietnam. You can get it on board, is this visa for entrance only applicable to group tour? can you get the same visa and be on your own?

Nobody at azamara's been able to answer this specific question.

PS: i have a personal interest in this because this is the first time in 31 years i get to visit my country of origin. It'd be a shame if, once got there, i am unable to visit my own home (i understand that the Vietnamese govt has all kind of quirky rules). Do I need to get a visa in advance?

Thank You

[Jancruz]

Hello all,

I understand that you need a visa to enter Vietnam. You can get it on board, is this visa for entrance only applicable to group tour? can you get the same visa and be on your own?

Nobody at azamara's been able to answer this specific question.

PS: i have a personal interest in this because this is the first time in 31 years i get to visit my country of origin. It'd be a shame if, once got there, i am unable to visit my own home (i understand that the Vietnamese govt has all kind of quirky rules). Do I need to get a visa in advance?

Thank You


You can do your own thing is Viet Nam as long as the ship has the visa..
Not a problem..we have been there 3 times and love it!!
Jancruz1

[Albert Ross]

The ship supplies the visa for Vietnam and Cambodia. In the UK we are old it is 'no more than $50pp' so I assume your costing is likewise. You are not tied to any ship's tour.

[sunandfun]

Yes, we did this cruise in December on the Quest and the ship will just charge the visa to your onboard account - you do not have to take a ship's tour. Same applies for Cambodia. They will also set up a table in the lobby for local currency exchange etc. at fair rates....and the ship runs shuttles to town at most ports - I think it was around $10 also charged to your onboard account. It is really simple, don't worry.

[susiesan]

Read through this:

http://www.vietnamembassy.us/consular_services/visa_info/

[Jade13]

The ship supplies the visa for Vietnam and Cambodia. In the UK we are old it is 'no more than $50pp' so I assume your costing is likewise. You are not tied to any ship's tour.

Can you get it in "advance" from them before the day of arrival? We are planning to leave the ship overnight and go to Angkor Wat. We need to be off immediately upon arrival.

[uktog]

You can get off as soon as you dock and the ship has been cleared that all on board have valid passports
when we priced it last year the visa through the ship was cheaper and so much less hassle than sending your visa off

[gail1000]

If you are doing a ship tour the ship visa was adequate. We did the overnighter into Camboadia and had no problems. If you are doing a private overnight tour (we did an overnight tour on a Junk boat in Halong Bay, just the four of us), Azamara would not give us a copy of our passport and visa which is in it. Thus we had a terrible time getting on the junk. They finally let us go but we had quite a wait. i would recommend getting your own visa if you are going on a private junk tour overnight in Halong Bay. Pat

[Jade13]

If you are doing a ship tour the ship visa was adequate. We did the overnighter into Camboadia and had no problems. If you are doing a private overnight tour (we did an overnight tour on a Junk boat in Halong Bay, just the four of us), Azamara would not give us a copy of our passport and visa which is in it. Thus we had a terrible time getting on the junk. They finally let us go but we had quite a wait. i would recommend getting your own visa if you are going on a private junk tour overnight in Halong Bay. Pat

Azamara would not give you your passports with Visa??? We always keep our passports with us (Exception in Antarctica on Minerva and they had them stamped for us). We need our passports as we are leaving overnight to go to Angkor (we have permission from Azamara). Can you please clarify as maybe I'm missing something here. We always take our passports with us. Are you just saying that you wanted a xerox copy?

[uktog]

For speed of clearing the whole ship through immigration at each port in the Far East as the immigration authorities may wish to see any orignal passport before clearing the whole ship Azamara retain all passports on board but give passengers photocopies back of the key pages. Makes so much sense otherwise everyone would individually have to clear each country and given the bureaucracy in these countries this would take a long time. You will not be able to keep your passports with you however if you are going on a private overnight trip where you will need passports contact Guest Relations a couple of days before hand to arrange when you will collect them. You will not be able to do this until the ship clears that country's immigration though.

Talking to officers, the immigration on the Far East trip is a logistical nightmare even when they have all the guest and crew passports to hand for the agents.

Just relax and trust Azamara on this one!!

[gail1000]

Yes we had our own zerox copy of our passports. We tried everything.....begging, waiting till customs had cleared everyone, but couldnt get our passports with visa from Azamara last january. It sounds like Azamara had some feedback on this and now will give them to you if you tell them ahead of time. So hopefully this isnt a problem now.

[Jade13]

Yes we had our own zerox copy of our passports. We tried everything.....begging, waiting till customs had cleared everyone, but couldnt get our passports with visa from Azamara last january. It sounds like Azamara had some feedback on this and now will give them to you if you tell them ahead of time. So hopefully this isnt a problem now.

Unbelievable and you were leaving the ship overnight. We have no choice as we can't fly without them.

[kitty9]

Many cruise lines take your passport and keep them until the night before your cruise ends, and this is pretty much is normal procedure for the more exotic cruises. They will give them back to you if you need them at a port of call, but they keep them locked up and only bring them out to clear the ship by local authorities. I cannot tell you how many times I've had the cruise line take my passport, even for cruises to Alaska and Canada.

[doodle1998]

We are scheduled to leave the Quest from Ho Chi Minh City and fly to Siem Reap Cambodia. Have not been able to verify with Azamara that the ship's Viet Nam Visa will be sufficient. Does anyone know how to contact someone who would be in charge of Visas at Azamara? Will the ship's Visa work for this situation?

[Jade13]

We are scheduled to leave the Quest from Ho Chi Minh City and fly to Siem Reap Cambodia. Have not been able to verify with Azamara that the ship's Viet Nam Visa will be sufficient. Does anyone know how to contact someone who would be in charge of Visas at Azamara? Will the ship's Visa work for this situation?

If you are a US Citizen and flying you can get them electronically in advance. I would do that.

We can't do this to enter the port in Shihanoukville so sent our passports to the Kingdom of Cambodia Embassy in DC. They take personal checks and it is $20.00 each.

If you are in the US, go to their embassy and get the Visas electronically.

[Albert Ross]

You get the visa for Cambodia when you land at the airport there - we got ours at PP and it was around $20.Needed a couple of passport pics for the forms
I am sure that the visa from the ship is fine for Vietnam travel but if you are worried then I would get your own. The ship's visa may be date specific so you may have issues getting back into the country to rejoin the ship. ( I doubt it but it is worth checking)

[aandjw]

We are scheduled to leave the Quest from Ho Chi Minh City and fly to Siem Reap Cambodia. Have not been able to verify with Azamara that the ship's Viet Nam Visa will be sufficient. Does anyone know how to contact someone who would be in charge of Visas at Azamara? Will the ship's Visa work for this situation?

The ship's visa will be single entry. If you are flying from Ho Chi Minh to Cambodia and then BACK into Vietnam, that would be considered a double entry and I do not think that the cruise line visa will suffice.

jack