Visa info

We will be sailing on the Insignia on January 20th from Barbados to Cape Town. Does anyone know where I can find the visa requirements for the countries we will be stopping at in our ports of call ??

Also, I read somewhere where you need to have a certain number of blank pages in your passport for visas. Does anyone know the number ?? I have 11 blank and my wife has 14 blank in her passport. Will that suffice ??

We are going to Europe (Ireland & Spain) for 2 weeks in late Sept. - early October and I am trying to anticipate the visa needs, time to get and the time to get additional pages from US State Dept. with need to have passports in our hands until mid October, leaving us only 90 days until the Insignia.

Thanks !!

http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/english/country.html

just click on the Country you are visiting

thank you so much !!

Another dumb question....if you are not planning to get off a cruise ship at a port, do you still need the requisite visa for that country ??

Another dumb question....if you are not planning to get off a cruise ship at a port, do you still need the requisite visa for that country ??

Yes.

Based on the information we have received for the World Cruise, it appears that you will need visas for Brazil, Togo and Sao Tome, but double check.

Cenia

Is there one company that can do them all or do you have to do each country individually from an application process ??

Based on what I found on US State Dept. website, also need for Namibia and Benin

Is there one company that can do them all or do you have to do each country individually from an application process ??

For those of us on the full World Cruise, where the visas are included, Oceania will be having us use CIBT, a visa service.

Cenia

Based on what I found on US State Dept. website, also need for Namibia and Benin

I find the best information is from the website for the embassy for the specific countries. I have not done any research on which countries we will need visas for since Oceania will be handling it for us and I expect them to know what we need, but I will double check.

Cenia

Benin needs Visa, Namibia does not. I am assuming you are a US Citizen.

Cenia

Yes. Guess I need to start making inquiries starting tomorrow. Maybe Oceania or TA can help. We just literally booked this cruise (Barbados to Cape Town only) and I am finding out some of the details as I scrounge thru the CC boards. I thank you greatly for your time and assistance.

This may be irrelevant -- maybe others can correct me if so -- but on O's sister line, Regent, the cruise line offers the option of securing all necessary visas for you. They use a service (in D.C., I think) that handles everything with all the local embassies. It costs a bit more than if you personally handle each visa separately with each country's embassy, which can require individual submissions of a week or two each, but when visiting multiple countries the convenience factor can't be beat.

Your TA should be able to tell you whether O offers this service as well. Or just call O and ask. I bet you'll find that it's a simple matter of mailing them your passport, waiting a few weeks and having everything arrive all hunky-dory. The charge is simply added onto your cruise invoice. (At least, that's the way it works with Regent.)

Have fun!

but on O's sister line, Regent, the cruise line offers the option of securing all necessary visas for you. They use a service (in D.C., I think) that handles everything with all the local embassies. It costs a bit more than if you personally handle each visa separately with each country's embassy, which can require individual submissions of a week or two each, but when visiting multiple countries the convenience factor can't be beat.

This should read - it costa QUITE a bit more.... :D

However, it may be worth it to some - YMMV.

Paulchili is correct, of course. Guess I was channeling my inner Brit by understating the circumstances.

O's charge for visa service compares to your individual visa cost in about the same ratio as O's charges for shore excursions compare to your personally-arranged shore excursion costs. Roughly double.

You pay for convenience. Whether it's worth the extra money depends on the value you place on your time and effort.

I've never used cruise line visa service, but might do so for a multi-stop itinerary in which more than a couple of "off the beaten path" countries require visas...unless I lived in or near D.C. or another major U.S. city in which those countries have consulates so one can apply for the visas in person.