Passport requirements for carnival spirit Alaska cruise.

[sparks1093]

14 hours ago, Ferry_Watcher said:

 

When it comes to the Canadians, I find it better not to question 'Why?.  LOL

 

On a more personal note, did I read that you are considering an Alaskan cruise in a year or so?

It's on the radar but DW prefers cruises going to warmer climes so we will have to see. I hate to say it but the airfare to Vancouver from Montreal is a lot less expensive than to Seattle, so even if we made it out there Seattle might not be on the itinerary 😞. As for the passport thing, the nickel dropped when I was looking at the railroad's website, this might be a case of the company requiring it even though the governments involved don't (similar to luxury lines requiring passports for everyone on a closed loop cruise). (And living 8 miles from the border I fully understand what you mean 🙂.)

Edited February 21, 2023 by sparks1093

[Ferry_Watcher]

5 hours ago, sparks1093 said:

As for the passport thing, the nickel dropped when I was looking at the railroad's website, this might be a case of the company requiring it even though the governments involved don't (similar to luxury lines requiring passports for everyone on a closed loop cruise)

 

From a work perspective, I totally understand why they want the passport as proof of citizenship - it's straightforward, it has the RFID chip so it's scannable, and it's a much faster and secure way of getting a lot of folks thru a process.  There is no arguments with passports, unlike folks from states other than (MI, MN, NY, VT, & WA) who try to explain to you that their TN driver's license really is an Enhanced driver's license.    And even birth certificates take time to read because each state has a different format.  At check-in, the state that the BC was issued from has to be recorded, as well as the state that issued the current photo ID also needs to be entered into the system.  Not that long ago, we would even have to enter the DL number - all of which took time.

We get statistics every cruise day and generally speaking, the percentage of passport holders is at least in the high 80's % range.  And for online check-in, it's usually 95-97% (which is wonderful)

[sparks1093]

3 hours ago, Ferry_Watcher said:

 

From a work perspective, I totally understand why they want the passport as proof of citizenship - it's straightforward, it has the RFID chip so it's scannable, and it's a much faster and secure way of getting a lot of folks thru a process.  There is no arguments with passports, unlike folks from states other than (MI, MN, NY, VT, & WA) who try to explain to you that their TN driver's license really is an Enhanced driver's license.    And even birth certificates take time to read because each state has a different format.  At check-in, the state that the BC was issued from has to be recorded, as well as the state that issued the current photo ID also needs to be entered into the system.  Not that long ago, we would even have to enter the DL number - all of which took time.

We get statistics every cruise day and generally speaking, the percentage of passport holders is at least in the high 80's % range.  And for online check-in, it's usually 95-97% (which is wonderful)

The passport cards and authentic EDLs are machine readable as well, but I can see it being helpful to the staff to only worry about one form of documentation.