SolandBud

We visited on Celebrity Edge about a month ago. We organised our own visa via the Sri Lankan government website. We used the transit visa which was free and it worked fine. Some people paid for the tourist visa which I think was $50 but based on our experience it's not necessary if you're only there, like us, for 24 hours.

Update - we did actually just manage to apply for 2 transit visas via the Saudia visa website - https://visa.mofa.gov.sa/ You need to create a profile and then submit an application. Choose E on the top left to switch to english and one of the visa options is transit. It cost us about £45 which is $50. The status is showing as 'sent to embassy' (we chose London as the 'mission' to send it to), I'll post back on here if it's succesful.

In regards to the original poster, yes, it appears to be very difficult to actually find access to the Transit e-visa mentioned in MSC's e-mail dated 4th November. We have seen several mentions of the $50 transit visa online but actually submitting an application seems near impossible. I was in London on Thursday and actually went to the embassy - the guy there said don't worry, you can buy one on arrival for 200. Assuming he meant 200 SAR then that would make sense as this equates to $50. Anyone actually managed to obtain a visa in advance?