philippetheriault

Adding more details after the cruise ADDITIONAL INFO ON THE TRANSIT VISA FOR SAUDI (KSA) You need a hard copy of your visa (the PDF you'll receive by email approx 48 hrs before arriving in Dammam) but the customs officer did not look at ours and only scanned and stamped our passports. A smooth process IN and OUT since you have to cross Saudi customs on your way back as well. It might be different for other nationalities but, no pictures or fingerprints for Canadiens here. One of the last steps when completing the online form to get the transit visa is listing all the countries you have visited in the previous five years. Since I have more than 100 stamps in my passport, entering the whole list was not an option for me. I have entered ten random visits, essentially what was on the first two pages of my passport. Zero problem getting in KSA with that shortcut. KSA IS A DRY COUNTRY The minute the ship is in Saudi territory, there is no alcohol served onboard. All aboard is 16:00, but since many will return from excursions far from Dammam, the ship leaves the port at 18:00 and alcohol service resumes around 20:00. GETTING TO THE PORT AND THE SHIP IN DUBAI MSC says the ship is in Port Rashid. If you are taking an app like Uber to get to the ship, it's better to enter Dubai Cruise Terminal 3 which will resolve with "Hamdan Bin Mohammed Cruise Terminal 3"

As mentioned above, "it's impossible to explore the city on your own here since no taxi or Uber are allowed in the port". IN or OUT. That said, from Khobar you can take a taxi or Uber to anywhere you want as long as you come back to the Corniche Bus Stop by 15:00 to hop on the last bus.

No. Excusions were leaving at 7:30, way to early for us. It's impossible to explore the city on your own here since no taxi or Uber are allowed in the port. It's MSC-organized excursions or MSC Complementary bus to the corniche in the nearby town of Khobar (30-45 min ride).

The email contained a PDF file that is the visa. That's the document you need to leave the ship. You need a hard copy. We got it printed at the Yacht Club. No ideal how passengers who are not on Yacht Club can get it printed. I would guess that you can go to the Business Center on Deck 6.

Perhaps that could help a few here. We are abord MSC World Europa. Departed Dubai on Jan 14th. We applied for the Saudi Arabia Transit Visa for via https://visa.mofa.gov.sa/ as instructed 2 weeks prior and nothing happened. The cost for us as Canadians turned our to be $ 26.85 taken via 3 distinct credit card payments. I picked the basic insurance package. Our applications were visible on the website right away and remained "Under Process" and in fact are still showing "Under Process" as I'm writing this note despite the fact that we have received our visa by email earlier today during the stop at Sir Bani Yas Island. That is approximatively 48 hours before arriving in Dammam. Interesting fact, we also just got our passport back. We had to give them to the MSC crew during the check-in process. Useful information. 1) For those who can't find Dammam in the drill down list, there is something called Google that can help you for those kind of things. "Port of Dammam" in Google or Google Maps will return King Abdul Aziz Seaport, Dammam 32211, KSA. 2) In the form, at one point you need to enter your address in KSA and other information. I put my phone number (no + before the country code), and the address of King Abdul Aziz Seaport in the address fields. That worked. 3) For the picture, we have uploaded a low resolution picture, 200x200, in front of a white background. If you have a Mac, you can use the Preview app, open the picture and "Resize" and enter 200x200. Good luck and Bon voyage.