Passports in Key West???

There is a thread here on CC that is stating that you need a passport to get off the ship in Key West....has anyone ever had this problem? :confused:

No need for passports. Do recommend driver's licenses for drinking and general ID needs.

Key West is not a foreign country, it's part of the USA. You don't need a passport to visit any city in the USA or any state!

That's kind of what I was thinking too, I don't need a passport to go across state lines...:confused: so why would I need one for Key West...but that is what the thread is about...someone was almost not allowed off of the ship because they had no passport....confused me too! Thanks for reassuring me that my line of thought is correct.

That's kind of what I was thinking too, I don't need a passport to go across state lines...:confused: so why would I need one for Key West...but that is what the thread is about...someone was almost not allowed off of the ship because they had no passport....confused me too! Thanks for reassuring me that my line of thought is correct.

If they were a citizen of another country...say Canada for example...they would need a passport (we had to go through this just this past March...it is an immigration thing)

There is a thread here on CC that is stating that you need a passport to get off the ship in Key West....has anyone ever had this problem? :confused:

Are you talking about the thread that started as a question about departing the ship early in Key West? If so, the person who answered that you need a passport do to that was wrong - they were trying to explain the PVSA, botched the ruling and added the passport need (incorrectly). This is an entirely different question.

Well, I went to go find the post that I was reffering to, and it is gone.... I should have posted the link in my first reply so that you could read what it said. It simple stated that someone was on a cruise and they were getting off of the ship in Key West for a port stop and the immigrations officer almost did not let the person in front of them in line get off of the ship because they only had a birth cert. not a passport. Makes sense though, that I guess they were probably not American citizens or something...it just confused me.....

Thanks for the answers....and for being kind, I hesitate to ask a lot of questions for fear that someone will feel the need to take their bad day out on me! lol :eek:

There's another situation, though, in Key West in which everyone on the ship must show passports. It happens on Majesty of the Seas. The ship has gone to Nassau and Coco Cay in the Bahamas. Then it goes to Key West in the US. The next morning it arrives in Miami.

 

Anyway, because the ship has been to a foreign country, when it returns to a US port, the passengers must go through immigration to return to US land. So on Majesty everyone lines up and shows their passports to immigration officilas, then their SeaPasses are stamped with a paper punch and you cannot get off the ship in Key West until you show that your SeaPass has that special punched hole.

 

Having gone through immigration in Key West, the passengers do not have to go through immigration again when debarking in Miami.

There's another situation, though, in Key West in which everyone on the ship must show passports. It happens on Majesty of the Seas. The ship has gone to Nassau and Coco Cay in the Bahamas. Then it goes to Key West in the US. The next morning it arrives in Miami.

 

Anyway, because the ship has been to a foreign country, when it returns to a US port, the passengers must go through immigration to return to US land. So on Majesty everyone lines up and shows their passports to immigration officilas, then their SeaPasses are stamped with a paper punch and you cannot get off the ship in Key West until you show that your SeaPass has that special punched hole.

 

Having gone through immigration in Key West, the passengers do not have to go through immigration again when debarking in Miami.

 

Well, that certainly makes sense and would be why someone might have to go through immigrations at Key West and be told that they needed a passport etc...thanks for the info.

#87

June 24th, 2009, 03:02 PM

kruisecat

Cool Cruiser

Join Date: May 2005

Posts: 764

 

 

Passports are needed

Ok, I'm sure I'm gonna get blasted, but I wanted to share this info anyway. I was just on Valor (6/14 - 6/21) and when we stopped in Key West we all had to go through immigration on the ship. I was in line behind a gentleman who did not have a passport, only his bc. The immigration officer said and I quote "as of 6/1 passports are needed". The gentleman said "Carnival said it wasn't" and the officer said "well, they're wrong and we've told them several times". Now he did let the guy go through, but I got the definite impression that they are getting less and less tolerant.

 

Just wanted to share what I experienced and heard.

Well, that certainly makes sense and would be why someone might have to go through immigrations at Key West and be told that they needed a passport etc...thanks for the info.

 

Here's the scoop. It used to be that if you came to Key West after visiting a foreign port, everyone had to clear Immigrations. This also held true for some other places, like St. Thomas. In the morning, you had to get in a long line so a CBP officer could check your passport, ID, etc.

 

This is no longer the case. U.S. citizens no longer have to check in with Immigrations. Only non U.S. citizens still have to do this.