India visa requirements confusion

[hwbolingbroke]

We’re going on Marella Discovery November 2019 from Muscat and stopping at four Indian ports - Mumbai, Goa, Magalore and Kochin.

The Marella recommended Visa company (CIBT) sent us an application pack for e-Visa (£80 plus their fee) because that is what Marella told them to do.

The Indian High Commission in London say it has to be a regular tourist visa. (£120 plus visit to Embassy.) With train fares etc, this would cost about £300 in total, unless we paid CIBT to do it all, which would add about another £200.

The five ports all now have e-Visa processing desks, so it would seem to be OK, but has anyone out there had a problem with multiple ports on an e-Visa. We don’t know who to trust on this one.

[Max011]

We are just applying for our for March 19. We have applied for regular multi entry visa at a cost of £122.18 each plus photos and a visit to Manchester. Don't know where about in the UK you live but if you google indian consulate and put in the nearest major city to you, it will find a place to take it to.

Also you may find this website very useful.http://www.vfsglobal.com/india/uk/contact_us.html

 

Have a great cruise.

[hwbolingbroke]

Many thanks for that.

Marella Cruises use and recommend CBIT to do the various visas, so I went onto their website and downloaded the pack for this particular cruise, on the actual date, with it’s four stops in India.

That pack includes e-Visa application and not Regular Muti Entry visas.

I rang CIBT and they said that the e-Visa was perfectly fine - it was actually Marella themselves that had uploaded the pack to their website - and everyone is going to be given e-Visas (£84.15 consular fee) CIBTcharge £79.20 per head to do the work. And thats just India. Add on Oman (Consular fee £10.74) CIBT £52.80 and Sri Lanka (Consular fee zero)  CIBT £26.40

 

I then looked at loads of reviews from people who have just come back from India cruises in the last few months. e-visas are fine and nobody’s had any problems going ashore with them at Mumbai, Goa, Mangalore or Kochin.

One ship had 200 people with e-visa and 1800 with regular. They were all treated the same and the queues at the ports are not a problem now, apparently. It seems that the four stops are treated as one entry because the ship doesn’t leave Indian waters. I think this is why the lady at the High Commission thought that we needed regular multiple entry visas. I now don’t believe we do.

I have also copied the declaration from the Indian Government, stating that e-Visas will no longer require biometric processing at the four ports that can now process them. This means they can be processed on the ship.

Now if there is a problem with using an e-Visa, Marella won’t let passengers board at the start of the cruise. So, since they instructed CIBT to process e-Visas and not regular Visas for this trip, I guess they are confident with that, and we’re going to go along with it.

I have now logged a help email with the agency we booked with, asking them just to confirm, but either way, we will go for e-Visa. It’s £40 a head cheaper and no visit to London (our nearest  Indian Consulate - £30 return train journey each) 

We will not be using an agency because it is not complicated - especially since I have their wonderful pack with all the guidance of the various questions.

Doing it ourselves will save £316.80p.

When I spoke to the lady at the Indian High Commission in London, she said she was shocked by what these agencies charge when there is so much help available from the people who they outsourced the Visa work to and the website is so easy to use. (Indiaavisaonline.go.in)

If I can do a power of attorney online, and my tax return, I should be able to handle a visa application. (he said, confidently 🙂)

 

Well now, I hope you have a great cruise, the next thing is currencies!

Kind regards

Edited January 8, 2019 by hwbolingbroke

[Vitalsign]

Do you need a Visa for Oman? when we cruised on Celebration Jan 2017 from Dubai and visited Oman we didn't need to apply for visas at all for any of the countries visited Anything required was arranged by Marella

Well done on your research for the Indian Visas it will be a great help to everyone going on these cruises

[brian1]

In Sri Lanka iast year,Cunard informed us at the last minute that we needed an intransit evisa,which we downloaded free of charge.There were people boarding who didn't know this,but the ship processed them free of charge anyway.Not relavent to India I know,but may be of use to people doing both countries.

[Max011]

Thanks for all your advice. The reason we did not go for e-visa was the TUI said a muli entry one was required. But when we checked the e-visa form, our first entry into India is the Andaman Islands, we could not see this as an option on the pull down menu.

Anyway, visa all paid for now and looking forward to March..

 

Cheers all.....

[LINCS GIRL]

I did my e-visa yesterday on line for the 4 Indian ports. It's not as difficult as first thought. Your photo needs to be a jpg I just took my photo on my iPad and used a free app to covert to jpg of 350kb x 350kb saved and uploaded to e-visa and cropped on the form. Must have chin to top of head including hair. Has to be white or light back ground with no shadows. The passport I photographed again with iPad and used the same app to convert to PDF again uploaded to visa. Paid the PayPal for security £84 in total. Got my granted email this morning. Less than 24hrs!  Sent hubbys today now we know we are doing the right thing. There is a crib sheet on tripadvisor which we used. It also has a link to the apps we used for photos and passports. 

Cant do Oman visa until mid March as our cruise is April but I am led to believe it's not too bad. Remember to print off several copies of Indian visa including the photograph pages. I am printing one for every port !! Just incase. 

[hwbolingbroke]

That’s encouraging, thank you. I’ll fish around on Trip Adviser for the crib sheet. I hope you have a great trip.

[LINCS GIRL]

If you go on Asia forums then India forum. It's called Warning on Indian E-visa it was written on 8th August 2017 12:19. The person who wrote it is EvelynEngland.

the post is spot on except the latest prices. If you follow this and click on the links, read all of them and you will be fine. Not all the questions are mandatory just the red astrixs have to be answered. You get a reference number, write this down and you can go in and out as you wish. If you try to do it all in one go it does time you out. So keep saving it and don't rush. 

[Hopo84]

On 1/8/2019 at 12:17 AM, hwbolingbroke said:

Many thanks for that.

Marella Cruises use and recommend CBIT to do the various visas, so I went onto their website and downloaded the pack for this particular cruise, on the actual date, with it’s four stops in India.

That pack includes e-Visa application and not Regular Muti Entry visas.

I rang CIBT and they said that the e-Visa was perfectly fine - it was actually Marella themselves that had uploaded the pack to their website - and everyone is going to be given e-Visas (£84.15 consular fee) CIBTcharge £79.20 per head to do the work. And thats just India. Add on Oman (Consular fee £10.74) CIBT £52.80 and Sri Lanka (Consular fee zero)  CIBT £26.40

 

I then looked at loads of reviews from people who have just come back from India cruises in the last few months. e-visas are fine and nobody’s had any problems going ashore with them at Mumbai, Goa, Mangalore or Kochin.

One ship had 200 people with e-visa and 1800 with regular. They were all treated the same and the queues at the ports are not a problem now, apparently. It seems that the four stops are treated as one entry because the ship doesn’t leave Indian waters. I think this is why the lady at the High Commission thought that we needed regular multiple entry visas. I now don’t believe we do.

I have also copied the declaration from the Indian Government, stating that e-Visas will no longer require biometric processing at the four ports that can now process them. This means they can be processed on the ship.

Now if there is a problem with using an e-Visa, Marella won’t let passengers board at the start of the cruise. So, since they instructed CIBT to process e-Visas and not regular Visas for this trip, I guess they are confident with that, and we’re going to go along with it.

I have now logged a help email with the agency we booked with, asking them just to confirm, but either way, we will go for e-Visa. It’s £40 a head cheaper and no visit to London (our nearest  Indian Consulate - £30 return train journey each) 

We will not be using an agency because it is not complicated - especially since I have their wonderful pack with all the guidance of the various questions.

Doing it ourselves will save £316.80p.

When I spoke to the lady at the Indian High Commission in London, she said she was shocked by what these agencies charge when there is so much help available from the people who they outsourced the Visa work to and the website is so easy to use. (Indiaavisaonline.go.in)

If I can do a power of attorney online, and my tax return, I should be able to handle a visa application. (he said, confidently 🙂)

 

Well now, I hope you have a great cruise, the next thing is currencies!

Kind regards

I have to agree with your recommendation. We are sailing in March from Cochin and we were informed that we only need an e-visa. TUIs written guidance recommends an evisa. We did our's ourselves and  I have to say there were several questions I struggled with on the online form..... 

[AlRajul]

On 1/8/2019 at 12:17 AM, hwbolingbroke said:

Many thanks for that.

Marella Cruises use and recommend CBIT to do the various visas, so I went onto their website and downloaded the pack for this particular cruise, on the actual date, with it’s four stops in India.

That pack includes e-Visa application and not Regular Muti Entry visas.

I rang CIBT and they said that the e-Visa was perfectly fine - it was actually Marella themselves that had uploaded the pack to their website - and everyone is going to be given e-Visas (£84.15 consular fee) CIBTcharge £79.20 per head to do the work. And thats just India. Add on Oman (Consular fee £10.74) CIBT £52.80 and Sri Lanka (Consular fee zero)  CIBT £26.40

 

I then looked at loads of reviews from people who have just come back from India cruises in the last few months. e-visas are fine and nobody’s had any problems going ashore with them at Mumbai, Goa, Mangalore or Kochin.

One ship had 200 people with e-visa and 1800 with regular. They were all treated the same and the queues at the ports are not a problem now, apparently. It seems that the four stops are treated as one entry because the ship doesn’t leave Indian waters. I think this is why the lady at the High Commission thought that we needed regular multiple entry visas. I now don’t believe we do.

I have also copied the declaration from the Indian Government, stating that e-Visas will no longer require biometric processing at the four ports that can now process them. This means they can be processed on the ship.

Now if there is a problem with using an e-Visa, Marella won’t let passengers board at the start of the cruise. So, since they instructed CIBT to process e-Visas and not regular Visas for this trip, I guess they are confident with that, and we’re going to go along with it.

I have now logged a help email with the agency we booked with, asking them just to confirm, but either way, we will go for e-Visa. It’s £40 a head cheaper and no visit to London (our nearest  Indian Consulate - £30 return train journey each) 

We will not be using an agency because it is not complicated - especially since I have their wonderful pack with all the guidance of the various questions.

Doing it ourselves will save £316.80p.

When I spoke to the lady at the Indian High Commission in London, she said she was shocked by what these agencies charge when there is so much help available from the people who they outsourced the Visa work to and the website is so easy to use. (Indiaavisaonline.go.in)

If I can do a power of attorney online, and my tax return, I should be able to handle a visa application. (he said, confidently 🙂)

 

Well now, I hope you have a great cruise, the next thing is currencies!

Kind regards

 

[AlRajul]

We have just got our Visa, we needed a full Tourist visa as we were doing a land tour prior to our cruise. A couple of things which caught people out in the queue ahead of us are photo sizes, you do need 2" x 2" head and shoulder shots, the UK booths are the wrong size. Our local photo shop, was able to use their software to process the photo we supplied on a USB stick, so it matched the requirements, it only cost us £1 for printing. VFGlobal, who handle visa application for the consulate were really helpful, if your photo is not the correct size/standard they will take a photo and print out for you for £10.00. Another thing to be aware of, if you are supplying your own Special Delivery envelope, it must be a plastic one, they refused to take a padded envelope put did sell the couple a suitable one. Our passports were returned within 7 days. 

[AlRajul]

We have just got our Visa, we needed a full Tourist visa as we were doing a land tour prior to our cruise. A couple of things which caught people out in the queue ahead of us are photo sizes, you do need 2" x 2" head and shoulder shots, the UK booths are the wrong size. Our local photo shop, was able to use their software to process the photo we supplied on a USB stick, so it matched the requirements, it only cost us £1 for printing. VFGlobal, who handle visa application for the consulate were really helpful, if your photo is not the correct size/standard they will take a photo and print out for you for £10.00. Another thing to be aware of, if you are supplying your own Special Delivery envelope, it must be a plastic one, they refused to take a padded envelope put did sell the couple a suitable one. Our passports were returned within 7 days. 

[brian1]

UK booths do Indian visa compatible photos.Look for the indian flag on the side of the booth along with the US flag.

[davecttr]

P&O recommend CBIT for visa applications as well. I was going to China and filled in their forms, actually the Chinese forms. The photo was a different size as well but  a local photo shop provided me with several correct copies in a couple of hours. It turned out we did not get to see china as we were caught in a storm for 2 days. Luckily P&O refunded the cost of the visa.

[DarrenFS]

We're just looking into obtaining our Visas for Secrets of Asia 2 in March. CIBT have said that we need full visa's for this as the maximum entry on an e-visa is 2 times. But then, Sri Lanka and The Andaman Islands both have their own visa requirements therefore meaning we would only use the Indian Visa to enter Cochin on arrival and then the following day for our flight back to the UK. It's really confusing so I've emailed the Indian High Commission in London and will ring CIBT tomorrow for further guidance. 

[shonab]

On 1/8/2019 at 12:17 AM, hwbolingbroke said:

Many thanks for that.

Marella Cruises use and recommend CBIT to do the various visas, so I went onto their website and downloaded the pack for this particular cruise, on the actual date, with it’s four stops in India.

That pack includes e-Visa application and not Regular Muti Entry visas.

I rang CIBT and they said that the e-Visa was perfectly fine - it was actually Marella themselves that had uploaded the pack to their website - and everyone is going to be given e-Visas (£84.15 consular fee) CIBTcharge £79.20 per head to do the work. And thats just India. Add on Oman (Consular fee £10.74) CIBT £52.80 and Sri Lanka (Consular fee zero)  CIBT £26.40

 

I then looked at loads of reviews from people who have just come back from India cruises in the last few months. e-visas are fine and nobody’s had any problems going ashore with them at Mumbai, Goa, Mangalore or Kochin.

One ship had 200 people with e-visa and 1800 with regular. They were all treated the same and the queues at the ports are not a problem now, apparently. It seems that the four stops are treated as one entry because the ship doesn’t leave Indian waters. I think this is why the lady at the High Commission thought that we needed regular multiple entry visas. I now don’t believe we do.

I have also copied the declaration from the Indian Government, stating that e-Visas will no longer require biometric processing at the four ports that can now process them. This means they can be processed on the ship.

Now if there is a problem with using an e-Visa, Marella won’t let passengers board at the start of the cruise. So, since they instructed CIBT to process e-Visas and not regular Visas for this trip, I guess they are confident with that, and we’re going to go along with it.

I have now logged a help email with the agency we booked with, asking them just to confirm, but either way, we will go for e-Visa. It’s £40 a head cheaper and no visit to London (our nearest  Indian Consulate - £30 return train journey each) 

We will not be using an agency because it is not complicated - especially since I have their wonderful pack with all the guidance of the various questions.

Doing it ourselves will save £316.80p.

When I spoke to the lady at the Indian High Commission in London, she said she was shocked by what these agencies charge when there is so much help available from the people who they outsourced the Visa work to and the website is so easy to use. (Indiaavisaonline.go.in)

If I can do a power of attorney online, and my tax return, I should be able to handle a visa application. (he said, confidently 🙂)

 

Well now, I hope you have a great cruise, the next thing is currencies!

Kind regards

Looks like we are on the same cruise in November. I have only just started looking at the visa situation, so many thanks for the advise. Would be grateful for any advise on the visas for Oman and Sri Lanka when you start to look at these. Is a 2 day transit visa OK for Sri Lanka do you know? Thanks again.

[shintaro]

regarding Chinese Visas We merely went to the Chinese Embassy in Manchester and had our Visas within 30 minutes.