Russian Immigration card onboard ship

Are immigration cards for Russia available onboard the ship? Just booked a tour with SPB and they've asked I fill out the immigration card onboard before going through immigration. According to SPB's website, ships are required to have them available onboard. I'm on the Oceania Marina.

Hello, we were on Celebrity Eclipse & they provided us with the forms on the ship...with spare for those who made mistakes filling them out:o

The ship will have them, as they need them for pax using cruise ship tours.

They probably will have them as all passengers need to fill them out

We had them in our cabin the night before when we went to Murmansk in 2010 on the Insignia

You may try asking on the Oceania forum for more recent experiences

Are immigration cards for Russia available onboard the ship? Just booked a tour with SPB and they've asked I fill out the immigration card onboard before going through immigration. According to SPB's website, ships are required to have them available onboard. I'm on the Oceania Marina.

Hi We did a Baltic cruise on Legend of the Seas in May this year. When we arrived in SPB there were no immigration forms available. Panic!

However, we were told that the rules had changed and they were no longer required. There was a bit of disbelief and apprehension but we just had to go along with what we were being told and sure enough all that was required at immigration was a passport and a tour ticket.

So it appears the rules have changed and immigration forms are no longer required. Can other cruisers please confirm this as their experience too.

Anni.

They're similar to the landing cards you're often required to fill out on international airplanes - basically details from your passport, here's a typical one

http://www.bravosolutions.com/airport/russian%20imigration%20landing%20card.gif

(don't print this one off, they're numbered)

Delivered to your cabin or available from ship's Guest Relations, I've never heard of that not being the case.

But a recent returnee has reported that they're no longer required from cruise passengers at St Petersburg. :)

JB :)

We had to have one early July.

They took the first half and left us with the lther half. They took the second half when we got back on, but the second day they asked where it was. I told them they took it yesterday. They seemed confused (as it was supposed to be for when we left Russia).

It depends who you get as to how strict they are. One person didn't even look at our paperwork to see if we were booked on a tour, others were quite strict, checking receipts etc.

Make sure you have your receipt for your tour if not on a ship tour.

We had to have one early July.

 

They took the first half and left us with the lther half. They took the second half when we got back on, but the second day they asked where it was. I told them they took it yesterday. They seemed confused (as it was supposed to be for when we left Russia).

It depends who you get as to how strict they are. One person didn't even look at our paperwork to see if we were booked on a tour, others were quite strict, checking receipts etc.

 

Make sure you have your receipt for your tour if not on a ship tour.

Thanks but I wish someone would confirm my experience on May 12th, I'm beginning to wonder if I imagined it. :confused:

So it would appear that the only rule is that there are no rules! Or at least that they change with the weather. :rolleyes:

In that case you can only do as we did and go along with what you are told on the day :)

Happy cruising

Anni

We have shore excursions booked with TJ Travel in September, and they have advised us that the immigration forms are no longer required for cruise passengers in St Petersburg, just our tour tickets, with passport of course.

We have shore excursions booked with TJ Travel in September, and they have advised us that the immigration forms are no longer required for cruise passengers in St Petersburg, just our tour tickets, with passport of course.

Thankyou,

My sanity confirmed by a 'cousin from over the Tasman'.

As I said, it seems you just have to go with what you are individually told.

Anni

Thanks, everyone for your replies!! :)

Just got back from a Baltic cruise on Legend of the Seas. No immigration forms were required for SPB.

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It may also depend on where you are docked. We are just back this week from our cruise. We were in St. Petersburg on July 20-22. We were required to fill out the Immigration Form to go ashore,and they were provided a couple of days before with a sample of how to fill it out.

However, we were docked at English Embankment and not the main cruise terminal. So, I'm wondering if some of the inconsistency we are hearing is due to where the ships are docked.

Our procedure was that they took Part A when we went ashore on Day 1, stamping our passport. Then, when we returned on Day 1, they took Part B and stamped the passport again. For Days 2 and 3, they just checked our stamps and our tour tickets.

Thanks but I wish someone would confirm my experience on May 12th, I'm beginning to wonder if I imagined it. :confused:

 

So it would appear that the only rule is that there are no rules! Or at least that they change with the weather. :rolleyes:

 

In that case you can only do as we did and go along with what you are told on the day :)

 

Happy cruising

Anni

Confirmed! We did not need to fill them out for our July 8th sailing on Celebrity.

You will need to print out your tour ticket (not the confirmation) for each passenger and present that and passport each time through. At times they may not ask for the ticket, but they may. Always keep that with you. We were on a huge ship and lines were never longer than 5 to 10 minutes. St Petersburg is a beautiful city and Nevsky is about a 20 minute drive from the cruise terminal.

We visited St Petersburg on 20 June and were booked on a P&O two day excursion. We had to present our tour tickets and passport. Our passports were checked and stamped and I think we were given a slip of paper to hand in on our return to the ship.

The next day was much easier - just presented passport and tour ticket and they looked at the stamps and then let us in. Going back to the ship at the end of the second day was almost no formality and even a smile from one official - but I guess they were getting rid of us!

We docked right in the mkiddle of the city (VIP parking according to our guide).

Other ships I noticed were miles out (at the ship terminal?).

Maybe that makes a difference.

If we were allowed to just walk off the ship we could have walked to many of the sights.