Question re visas

[bazzaw]

Going on 2x ""half" World cruises later this year - Oriana and Arcadia.

 

The "official" advice that I mostly see is that it is passengers responsibility to get visas - but yesterday, my TA said for me not to worry about it and they would in time receive advice from P & O about visas required. Today, on another posting here, there was mention about "ship" visas being supplied for some shore tours.

 

So, all in all, a bit confused about the whole situation re visas.

 

The visas we will need are for India, Eqypt and Vietnam.

 

Any thoughts please??

 

Thanks

 

Barry

[albertb]

Indian vias you will definitely need to arrange yourself in good time - there are no special arrangements for cruise ships, although P&O may well offer the services of a visa agent (at extra cost). Go to this site:

 

http://in.vfsglobal.co.uk/

 

On two cruise visits to Vietnam (P&O and Princess) the ship organised the visas and charged them to our OBC.

 

Don't have up to date info on Egypt.

 

Albert.

[AF-1]

Barry, u may want to post your question under the "ports of call" board; u can list the countries you are going to and may get more replies than on this thread.

[Merlin7]

Our TA arranged our Indian visas at far less cost than the cruise operator.

 

Egypt, no visas as far as I remember but do check, things change.

 

Vietnam, envious, but sorry cannot help.

[jeanlyon]

The ship does the visa for Egypt. We went last year.

[Aussie One]

Barry i will be on the Oriana world cruise. make certain that you have

six months validation on your passport allso six empty pages

some countrys insist on this. Asian visa take up a full page see you onboard.

[bazzaw]

Thanks Grumphy

 

Yes - we will certainly make sure of that. I asked our TA about the 3 visas that we will need - and he told me to hang on for a while. Apparently P & O do some of them. The Indian one should be easy to get as they have an office here in Brisbane - but the Vietnamese and Eqyptian ones will be more difficult. Vietnam has the procedure nicely detailed on their website - but the Egyption website is pretty well hopeless.

 

Barry

[jeanlyon]

Barry, did you see my post above. The ship did the visas for Egypt whilst on board.

[bazzaw]

Hi Jean

 

Yes - thank you for that. As I said, we are now waiting to hear from our TA about the others. When you say "on the ship", which one was it? I guess the P & O procedures would be the same across the fleet?

 

Barry

[feebee_71]

Barry,

 

I visited Egypt on Arcadia's world cruise this year and the visa will be done in this way.....

 

When you board the ship your passport will be retained for checks and addition of any visa's needed that are arranged by the ship - in our case the visa stamps for Oman, Dubai, Sharm el Sheik and Suez/Port Said were all added to the passport at various times between our embarkation in Mumbai and our departure from Port Said.

 

Then, a few days later there was an announcement that passports were to be collected from reception using the receipt we had been given at embarkation.

 

Finally during the last few days of the cruise we had to present ourselves with passport and immigration invitation (a little card similar to Portunus invites) to the UK Borders Agency team who swiped our passports and said we were free to return into the UK.

 

I have also visited Egypt on Oriana (in 2008) and the same process was followed for the visa then, we handed over our passports on embarkation and were given a receipt then, after being stamped by Egyptian immigration officials on our ship we were free to collect them a few days later.

 

Can't help with the Vietnam visa as not visited there but for the Indian Visa we were hoping to 'get away' a 3 day transit visa - arriving in India early hours of the morning leaving approx 15 hours later after boarding the cruise ship - but we were informed that we would need a 6 months visitors visa to be able to travel.

 

Hope the info helps and that you get the answers you need from P&O soon enough to put your mind at rest.

 

Feebee_71

[Steppinup]

Hi Barry,

 

We will also be on the 2 ship (Oriana, Acadia) round the world cruise from Brisbane later this year :) From what I can glean from various government websites and reports from previous world cruisers from Australia we will only need to organise our own visas for India and complete the ETSA online form for the US visa waiver. The latter is still free but fees may be introduced midyear. As you have already discovered the Indian one is straightforward, it is expensive though! You need to get it 3 months before entry so a while to wait.

 

As for Egypt, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Australian citizens are not on the list of visitors who need pre-arrival visas and "Foreigners arriving in Egypt on board of ships are granted a permission to visit the port of arrival for 24 hours and catch their ship at the same port. They can also be granted a permission to enter the country for a visit not exceeding a period of 3 days before catching their ship at the port of arrival or at any other port. As Feebee_71 explained it doesn't look like we need to do anything in advance.

 

I don't have my research to hand but I think the reason we are exempt from needing visas for short visits to Vietnam is to do with our membership of an APEC country.

 

Cheers

Zsa

[bazzaw]

Hi Zsa

 

Thanks for that - we have booked through a "cruise specialist" TA - the one at Portside in Brisbane. We have to pay the final full payment in early August (at least for the Oriana leg, which is the one with the Visa "problems" )- so I will put pressure on them then to make sure we have the correct info.

 

My research has led me to much the same conclusion as yourself.

 

We can keep in touch via this Forum.

 

Regards

 

Barry

[Steppinup]

Hi Barry,

 

 

My apologies for not replying earlier, had a health hiccup and typing is somewhat of a trial at the moment. Perhaps in the short term we could set up a day/time to exchange the fruits of our investigations via Skype? Not surprisingly we seem to be researching similar questions and have similar concerns :)

 

Cheers

ZsaZsa

[bazzaw]

ZsaZsa

 

No probs - a little while yet before we need to do anything (if anything). I have been researching the EXACT places where we berth/anchor/dock during the cruises. Have pretty much worked out where the stops are on Oriana - will start researching the stops for Arcadia soon.

 

Here is a link to Google Maps which shows the results of my research so far. You can ZOOM in on any of the points to see where I reckon we will dock.

 

Barry

[Steppinup]

Wonderful, thanks Barry :) ..... will post more info soon...

 

Cheers

Zsa