MAASDAM Montreal to Boston Inmigration process

[mitchdew]

Hello, I am going to take this itinerary and i would like to know if the ship is cleared in Canada before entering american waters like when we fly from Canada to the USA.

I have some friends traveling with me that are not us citizens(visiting from Argentina and France).

Any bosy knows if the program US Visit(fingerprinting and pothographing passengers while entering USA) is in place while sailing back to the us on the Maasdam?

Thanks for the information that you could provide.

Regards and happy thanksgiving everyone.

Mitch DEw

[Benjy]

The ship was not pre-cleared by US authorities in Canada. All passengers were cleared by US authorities before disembarking at Bar Harbor, Maine. It was done in an orderly fashion with US and Canadians going through one line in the card room and other citizens reporting to a different inspector in a different room. Passengers were not allowed to tender ashore without having a special card stamped. I believe passengers were called according to room number.

Disembarking in Boston only involved returning a Customs declaration when leaving the ship. The entire process worked quite well.

It is a great itinerary. Enjoy.

[tomc]

Very quick process.

[sail7seas]

I agree.....easy and fast.

[mitchdew]

Thank you for your help. I was thinking that it was going to be like flying back to the US. Glad that they make the process simple and fast.

[sandydownunder]

We have avoided being photographed and fingerprinted twice while entering the US since the new requirements came in. The first was in May this year on the Sapphire Princess, Osaka to Seattle. Immigration officials boarded the ship in Dutch Harbour, Aleution Islands and the process was carried out manually onboard. This did not surprise me as I would not have expected them to have finger printing and photographing equipment for such a small group of foreigners in a remote location.

However, three weeks ago when disembarking in Miami we went through immigration in the Miami Cruise Terminal and again were not photographed or fingerprinted, and we were staying on in the US for another 14 days.

Hope this helps.

Does anyone know if the process is only done at airport entries?