Norwegian Sky Havana Disembarkation Question

[MichelleLiebler]

Hello!  My husband, young son, and I will be on the Norwegian Sky and visiting Havana on June 11. We've purchased the visa through an outside company instead of through NCL, so we won't need to do that through the cruise line.  Can anyone with experience tell me how long the disembarkation process is, and what the steps are?  What are the checkpoints we should expect to go through?  Is there a difference in steps and time if you didn't get your visa through the cruise line?  I'm trying to estimate when I should book our tour for.

[amyaacc]

it was very quick when we got off April 30.  Security screening like airports.  Stamp passport and go on to money exchange and out.  We got off the ship early--like 8a--and don't think it took 15 minutes and that was mostly the walking from point a to point b.  Don't know about the difference in Visa's --didn't see different lines.  It may depend on if there is more than one ship in port and how many are getting off for early tours--but we had no issue.  We got off a second time at 3pm and same story.

 

[cruisencrazy]

We got our visas through NCL and needed them with our passports to enter the terminal.  Not sure how you do it with using another company.  It was super easy and painless through NCL, so unless you are saving a lot of money that's what I would suggest.  Getting off the ship and into the terminal was less than 15 minutes.

[pinkie60]

3 hours ago, MichelleLiebler said:

Hello!  My husband, young son, and I will be on the Norwegian Sky and visiting Havana on June 11. We've purchased the visa through an outside company instead of through NCL, so we won't need to do that through the cruise line.  Can anyone with experience tell me how long the disembarkation process is, and what the steps are?  What are the checkpoints we should expect to go through?  Is there a difference in steps and time if you didn't get your visa through the cruise line?  I'm trying to estimate when I should book our tour for.

Do you mind me asking you how much you paid for your visa? We paid $75 per person.  

[MichelleLiebler]

27 minutes ago, pinkie60 said:

Do you mind me asking you how much you paid for your visa? We paid $75 per person.  

I think it was like $80, so definitely not cheaper.  Unfortunately I previously thought that the affidavit was tied to the visa, so we initially thought if we did the visa separately, we could avoid doing the P2P affidavit through NCL - so that's why we did it that way.

[FitchburgWIFamily]

We were there in March.   You need your passport and your visa.  You wait in a line to go through passport control.  At passport control, they staple and stamp a few things and push you through.  You go through an airport like security screening.  There are currency exchanges (same rate everywhere) for you to convert your money.   And you are out.   It goes pretty quickly...maybe 15 or 20 minutes depending on lines at each of the steps.