Visa Requirments

[Hooperman1960]

Hi, hoping some can provide a query that MSC cannot confirm.

So, i am planning a cruise booking on MSC Musica departing Kusadasi in June next year, myself and partner have UK passports however, i plan to invite some friends to come with us who are Turkish nationals, bearing in mind the cruise departs and returns to Kusadasi before i book i wanted to be sure of any visa requirements for my Turkish friends visiting Greek islands/Cyprus and Israel.

MSC confirm that if ones papers are not in order then you will be denied boarding so, they must know what is required relevant to your nationality, when i call them they have stated its not down to them to confirm what is required which, seems quite strange bearing in mid they would not allow boarding, of course they understand that until i know this information i cannot make the reservation so, my question is does anyone know the visa requirements for Turkish nationals departing from their home country and returning to same?

 

Thanks

[hallasm]

Welcome to Cruise Critic.  
Visa rules are individual for the different nationalities and can often be changed.  
You cannot expect cruise lines to know all current visa regulations.  

Your friend must contact the embassies or consulates in Turkey for the countries to be visited (Cyprus and Israel). Check also for other ports of call in order to ensure that he gets the right visas.  

Something many often misses is that in certain cases a multi-entry visa may be necessary.
It is the responsibility of the passenger to arrange for the correct visas. If not the person in question will be denied boarding.

Edited November 7, 2022 by hallasm

[Hooperman1960]

Appreciate that however, as you say, if the passenger does not have the required visas they will be denied boarding so, my question to MSC was, what are the current requirements, which they must be aware of in order to allow boarding, its this information they would not provide me with.

[hallasm]

I understand your frustration but you must ask your friend to check with relevant consulates/embassies in Turkey which visas are required for Greece, Cyprus and Israel.  The MSC port agent in Kusadasi knows the requirements when the ship is due to set sail in June, but it is not the same as the MSC sales office having this information today.

Edited November 7, 2022 by hallasm

[sanger727]

You'll never get the cruise line to confirm this information. It's not their responsibility to know it. And much more importantly, If the sales office gives you the wrong information or outdated information, you still won't be able to board. As @hallasm stated, There's a huge difference between what the port agent knows on the day that you board and what the shoreside staff knows today. Plus, it could always change between today and the day you board. You are the one responsible for seeking out this information.

[GeezerCouple]

Google is your friend here, and also your friends' friend.

 

If we are heading to a "new country" ("new to us"), we'll check using a few key search terms until we get a link to what looks good.  We ONLY use official country websites, and definitely NOT any website offering to "sell Visas"!

 

For US citizens, the USA state dept website has a list of what Visas are needed, if any, to visit other countries.  However, although we'll look there, too, we prefer to learn this from the source:  the actual country to be visited.

 

They could also call the Embassy or Consulate of the other country, in their own country, but we prefer to have it is writing (a copy).

 

Like your friends and you, we do not want to be turned away at a dock or airport or sent back home! 

 

GC

[LHT28]

They can check the Countries you are visiting to see if they need a VISA

https://www.mfa.gr/en/visas/visas-for-foreigners-traveling-to-greece/countries-requiring-or-not-requiring-visa.html

https://www.guideconsultants.com/turkish-passport-visa-free-countries-list-2022/

 

It is up to the pax   to do their due  diligence

I often check the VISA service site  to see what is required   then go to the  site of the Country we are going to  & see  if  we can apply online  or not

[Zach1213]

49 minutes ago, GeezerCouple said:

definitely NOT any website offering to "sell Visas"!

 

Eh, I disagree with this...if I understand what you mean by "sell visas". There are companies that act as "visa couriers" for lack of a better term. You basically send everything needed to them (your passport, invitation letter, application, etc.) and they do all of the work with the Embassy/Consulate to procure the visa and send it back, with an extra fee of course. These folks are usually great, if you do your research ahead of time. 

 

My company does a lot of international travel and needs to procure business visas regularly; however, we don't live anywhere near embassies/consulates. So, we use these services many times each year and have good success. 

[GeezerCouple]

31 minutes ago, Zach1213 said:

 

Eh, I disagree with this...if I understand what you mean by "sell visas". There are companies that act as "visa couriers" for lack of a better term. You basically send everything needed to them (your passport, invitation letter, application, etc.) and they do all of the work with the Embassy/Consulate to procure the visa and send it back, with an extra fee of course. These folks are usually great, if you do your research ahead of time. 

 

My company does a lot of international travel and needs to procure business visas regularly; however, we don't live anywhere near embassies/consulates. So, we use these services many times each year and have good success. 

 

There was a reason I put the two words - sell visas - in quotes ("sell Visas". rather than just... sell Visas...), because that's what they may appear to do, but.... they actually don't do it.  It's not limited to visas.  

 

They take the money, and then do something like (if one is lucky!) direct you to the actual site to get the visa, with no "credit" for the money they just took for "selling the visa information" or such - but the fact that it wasn't the actual visa itself is not at all obvious.  Or, worse, they pretend they've sold you the visa - or whatever - but... you never get anything.  But that latter method can be handled with a chargeback.  If one ends up buying the "visa information" then one did indeed get "visa information".  It's usually somewhere in the "fine print", of course.

Again, there was a definite reason for my use of the quotes.

 

Of course there are legitimate companies selling all sorts of things, or adding value by expediting delivery of something or some services, and we sometimes use those, for various purposes.  NO argument at all about those services!  They can be incredibly useful.

 

I'm very sorry that I was not more clear about that.

 

GC

[mom says]

4 hours ago, Hooperman1960 said:

my question to MSC was, what are the current requirements, which they must be aware of in order to allow boarding, its this information they would not provide me with.

Nor should they. The combinations of international passengers with passports from hundreds of countries going to dozens and dozens of different ports results in numbingly huge combinations and permutations of requirements. Perhaps a couple of the luxury lines have the staff with the time and knowledge to handle this due to the comparatively smaller number of pax they have to deal with. But no major line wants to devote that much manpower, and possibly risk liability exposure, to do this. They make it clear that it is the responsibility  of each passenger  to seek out the correct information  from the source countries they want to travel to.

[Hooperman1960]

Interesting comments by all and i thank you for this, i fully understand the responsibility factor going forward but i still find it hard to grasp why they cannot tell me the "current" visa requirement for a Turkish passenger, boarding today from Turkey (the cruise is from Kusadasi and returning to Kusadasi in 7 days), i am sure they must know in order to ensure said passenger has the correct visas prior to boarding. Each time i do a google search all i get is tourist visa info for say 90 days etc, i know that some visiting countries allow visa requirements to be handled by the cruise line, for example USA citizens require a visa to visit Turkey but not if they are on a cruise and visiting only for a day.

 

[John Bull]

I understand the OPs frustration. but there are about 195 different countries in the world, which about 195 different nationalities may wish to visit - that makes  about 38,000 possible combinations. Added to that there are different requirements depending on the purpose of travel, the applicant's criminal or political record etc, and any requirement can change from time to time.

So it'd be unrealistic to expect any cruise line head office to know the requirements for all the different combinations, or even to look up the requirements on the passenger's behalf. Providing incorrect information would drop the cruise line into the doo-doos, so you are very unlikely to get such information from them in writing.

As an aside, beware of "the answer's no, now what's the question" syndrome. That can happen if the person who answers the phone at head office immediately says this or that is required - what they really mean is "I don't know, but I'll play it safe"

 

If the ship does this itinerary frequently, the crew are likely to know but it's difficult or impossible to contact them, and again you're likely to get the response that it's your responsibility.

That is particularly frustrating when you know that sometimes for a given port the cruise line applies for visas - or more accurately a substitute for visas - on behalf of passengers.

 

The OP is correct in saying that no visa or e-visa is required for cruise passengers' port-of-call visits to Turkey, they're only required when arriving or departing by other means.

Coincidentally involving Turkey, we took a cruise from Greece thro the Black Sea and ending in Istanbul with coach travel for all passengers to the airport and a chartered flight home. On the last day the crew provided authority (I don't recall whether it was an e-visa, a group visa, a transit visa or whatever) to disembark & board the coach to the airport, and they charged the minimal cost to passengers' on-board accounts. Some passengers had already bought e-visas for the cruise, we had still-valid e-visas from a previous visit to Turkey, so that was unnecessary expense because the cruise line didn't tell folk of their arrangements. 

But hey-ho, that's the way it is. 

 

The best, and only guaranteed, source for information about visa requirements has to be the country visited, not the passenger's home country.

So in this case it's Greece - not Turkey or the UK.

LHT28 has kindly linked the Greek govt website, which tells us that UK citizens do not require any visa, but Turkish citizens need a visa - an e-visa is not available to Turkish citizens.

 

In most cases, especially for e-visas, I agree with GeezerCouple that you should get your visa direct from the government website. Applications are usually simple & don't require help from a visa agency, so using an agency is no quicker or easier and simply fills the agency's pockets with unnecessary commission. Beware that some agencies' websites look very official in order to con folk into thinking they're the official government website.

But Zach 1213 is correct in a minority of cases, for instance for US citizens applying for Russian tourist visas (which subject to limitations haven't been necessary for most cruise visits) or for many nationalities applying for Indian visas. When an application is complicated and requires confirmatory paperwork it's easy to foul-up, and a consequent refusal can massively delay an application.

IMHO, in the first instance the OP's Turkish friend should apply direct to the Greek govt website, and only switch to using a visa agency if the requirements are unclear.

 

All just MHO as always

 

JB 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

[sanger727]

20 hours ago, GeezerCouple said:

 

There was a reason I put the two words - sell visas - in quotes ("sell Visas". rather than just... sell Visas...), because that's what they may appear to do, but.... they actually don't do it.  It's not limited to visas.  

 

They take the money, and then do something like (if one is lucky!) direct you to the actual site to get the visa, with no "credit" for the money they just took for "selling the visa information" or such - but the fact that it wasn't the actual visa itself is not at all obvious.  Or, worse, they pretend they've sold you the visa - or whatever - but... you never get anything.  But that latter method can be handled with a chargeback.  If one ends up buying the "visa information" then one did indeed get "visa information".  It's usually somewhere in the "fine print", of course.

Again, there was a definite reason for my use of the quotes.

 

Of course there are legitimate companies selling all sorts of things, or adding value by expediting delivery of something or some services, and we sometimes use those, for various purposes.  NO argument at all about those services!  They can be incredibly useful.

 

I'm very sorry that I was not more clear about that.

 

GC

 

Any company that sells visa information but doesn't assist you in getting a visa is a scam. So sure. I have always thought in most cases that visa services that you get visas are a bit of a scam; until recently. We are traveling to Vietnam in December. We are entering on a riverboat cruise and were advised by our cruise company that we are not eligible for e-visas. After researching it, there is no other way to get a Vietnam visa right now besides using a visa service. Vietnam requires either e-visas or a letter of approval. The only way to get a letter of approval is through a travel service like this. Annoying, but yes, in some cases they are essential.

 

There is a company that quite annoys me for selling you "information". I attempted to get a yellow fever vaccine last year and the ONLY place I could find locally that offered them is "Passport Health". The catch is that to receive a vaccine from them, you must book a travel consultation for hundreds of dollars where they print out the CDC's recommendations to inform you about the recommendations for your location. 

[LHT28]

4 hours ago, Hooperman1960 said:

Interesting comments by all and i thank you for this, i fully understand the responsibility factor going forward but i still find it hard to grasp why they cannot tell me the "current" visa requirement for a Turkish passenger, boarding today from Turkey (the cruise is from Kusadasi and returning to Kusadasi in 7 days), i am sure they must know in order to ensure said passenger has the correct visas prior to boarding. Each time i do a google search all i get is tourist visa info for say 90 days etc, i know that some visiting countries allow visa requirements to be handled by the cruise line, for example USA citizens require a visa to visit Turkey but not if they are on a cruise and visiting only for a day.

 

They need  a VISA

So  if they have not  started the process  they better  try to get it done today or cancel the cruise

Did you read any of the links posted above?

 

 

 

[*Miss G*]

Sherpa will help you with specific travel restrictions.  LINK

 

If you click on the “See Details” link for “Visitor Visa”, after you input your info in the above link, it tells you to visit the government website.  See example pic below.