Pat317

Thank you all for your response to my inquiry. I just arrived home to CA from visiting Turkey. I finally got thru to Princess after waiting on hold for half an hour. Princess confirmed that the cruise line will issue the Vietnam Visa for $56 for every cruiser unless informed not needed. It doesn’t matter if the cruiser books independent excursions or Princess excursions, Princess will help issue a temporary Visa. My TA was wrong and caused unnecessary worries—I need to tell him so. Once again, thank you.

Thank you all who responded to my question. I will call Princess next week when I come home in CA. And I will let you know the response from PCL. I was just caught off guard when I heard about the visa situation. Fortunately we have 3 months to either apply for our own visa or have Princess do it. Thanks all.

I will call Princess to verify when I return home. 

I just posted this topic under “PrincessCruises” but afterwards decided it is best to ask the cruisers on “Asian Ports” forum instead:

“Hi, my group of 8 will be cruising  2 weeKs on Diamond Princess Asian cruise this coming January 6th.  One of the group traveler was just informed by the TA that because we booked independent shore excursions in Vietnam (with Tours with Xuan) that we will need to get our own Vietnam Visas b/c Princess will apply short term visa for us ONLY if we booked the ship excursions with Princess. Is this true? I am currently in Turkey, so I can’t call Princess to verify. We were hoping to get our visa through Princess b/c it is cheaper (?) and more convenient. Thank you in advance for any info you can help me with.”

Hi, my group of 8 will be cruising  2 weeKs on Diamond Princess Asian cruise this coming January 6th.  One of the group traveler was just informed by the TA that because we booked independent shore excursions in Vietnam (with Tours with Xuan) that we will need to get our own Vietnam Visas b/c Princess will apply short term visa for us ONLY if we booked the ship excursions with Princess. Is this true? I am currently in Turkey, so I can’t call Princess to verify. We were hoping to get our visa through Princess b/c it is cheaper (?) and more convenient. Thank you in advance for any info you can help me with.

It depends on where you're docking.

http://www.oslohavn.no/no/?template=cruise_list_no

 

Most of Royal Princess's calls are docking at Akershuskaia, and the city hall is 7-10 minutes' walk straight towards town from the pier. However, if you are on the 26 June port call that's docking at Filipstad, it will be a tight call, because that port facility is 20-25 minute's away. (You can find the port locations on the map in my signature.)

 

As for disembarkation, if you're ready to go shortly before the official arrival time, you should be able to be off the ship quite quickly. We've never had to wait more than a minute or two if we were at the gangway right after the permission to go ashore was announced.

kaisatsu, thank you for your reply. I booked the 10:30am tour, feeling confident that I will make it to the meeting place on time.

Hi,

This is my 1st time posting a question on CC and I hope that you can help me with my question. My Royal Princess cruise docks in Oslo at 10:00am and I want to book an independent sightseeing tour that starts at 10:30am-- meeting place is at City Hall. Do you think I can get off the cruise ship and walk to City Hall by 10:30am? I am afraid that I won't get off the ship in time. How long does it usually take for passengers to debark the cruise ship and how far a walking distance is the cruise dock to City Hall?

Thank you in advance.