Millennium Spice Route land tour/cruise Feb 2024

[Kymmy999]

Confused regarding visa requirements for entry via cruise ship to Sri Lanka and India as part of the Spice Route cruise from Singapore.  A couple of stops within each country - is that multiple entry?  When disembarking in Canada, however, on another Celebrity ship, we are told we don’t require a visa if entering by sea!   The visas will cost a lot of money so I don’t want to then discover they weren’t actually necessary.  Has anyone done this trip or similar?

[emmas gran]

You definitely need an visa for India but cannot apply until 120 before your first port in India, I am waiting to apply 20th July for November 2023

 

[Kymmy999]

Thanks Emma. I’d be grateful if you could feed back to me how it all went once you have obtained your visa.

[jelayne]

We needed a e- visa for Sri Lanka, was easy to do online.

[Kymmy999]

Thanks.  I’d better double check as we are U.K. citizens so it may be different.

[michellep89]

Very much looking forward to this holiday, 8 days India tour, 12 day cruise then 3 days in singapore

hoping we can find a trip that includes a visit to elephant sanctuary in Phuket but doesn’t seem to be one on the tours booked through the ship

[michellep89]

Interested in feedback as also travelling from UK 

[ela123]

When I went before needed 30 day tourist e visas for both India and Sri Lanka the are not expensive. You can do them online I believe about a month before you go.

[Kymmy999]

6 hours ago, ela123 said:

When I went before needed 30 day tourist e visas for both India and Sri Lanka the are not expensive. You can do them online I believe about a month before you go.

Thanks Ela. Are you a UK citizen? We continue to read up about and try to make sense of it all.

[Kymmy999]

8 hours ago, michellep89 said:

Very much looking forward to this holiday, 8 days India tour, 12 day cruise then 3 days in singapore

hoping we can find a trip that includes a visit to elephant sanctuary in Phuket but doesn’t seem to be one on the tours booked through the ship

Sounds as though you are doing the reverse of us - we fly to Nepal from UK for 4 day land tour then onto Singapore where we joint the cruise which disembarks in Mumbai where we stay for 4 more days doing land tours.  
 

the confusion lies in the fact that on previous cruises (to other destinations) as part of the ships passenger list we didn’t need visas for any port of call. We u derstand the need for Nepal and India because of the land tours.

[ela123]

Yes from the UK all visa applied for online ….needed quite a bit of info if I remember correctly but all approved quickly once submitted.

[calabaykid]

We are from Essex, UK.  Have a 2 day transit visa for Celebrity Millenium in February 14th&15th February, some posts on t/a / internet say transit visit ok, others say needs to be a 30 day transit visa in Sri Lanka?  Will be applying for a 30 night transit evisa for India, which now costs a lot less than 5 years ago, any comments re the Sri Lanka one?  ps:  our US friends have been informed that a transit visa will suffice for this trip?   

[Kymmy999]

Hi. We join the cruise on the Millennium from Singapore on 8th February and have applied for and been granted a 30 day multiple entry tourist visa for Sri Lanka (available on line from 3 months before).  We now have to wait to be able to apply for a multi entry Indian visa because you can only apply 30 days before arrival.  I hope that helps.

[billc23]

6 hours ago, Kymmy999 said:

Hi. We join the cruise on the Millennium from Singapore on 8th February and have applied for and been granted a 30 day multiple entry tourist visa for Sri Lanka (available on line from 3 months before).  We now have to wait to be able to apply for a multi entry Indian visa because you can only apply 30 days before arrival.  I hope that helps.

I'm from the USA. The Indian Visa is much more time consuming to complete. I will be traveling in January and then going to India in February so I decided to apply for the one year visa option for India. Cost was an additional $25 USD per person but it relieves the stress of the 30 day deadline - highly recommend you look into this option. The Sri Lanka visa was the easiest visa I ever applied for and my approval was in a few minutes. 

[Kymmy999]

Great suggestion, thanks.  We are also stressing over the 30 day window along with the section about listing all countries visited in the last 10 years because our list is 45 countries long and we don’t think it’ll fit in the space provided!

[Strongbox]

On 11/19/2023 at 9:09 AM, Kymmy999 said:

Hi. We join the cruise on the Millennium from Singapore on 8th February and have applied for and been granted a 30 day multiple entry tourist visa for Sri Lanka (available on line from 3 months before).  We now have to wait to be able to apply for a multi entry Indian visa because you can only apply 30 days before arrival.  I hope that helps.

We're on the same cruise but got our Indian visas last week (cost $42 each). Are you using the official site - https://indianvisaonline.gov.in/evisa/tvoa.html

[billc23]

On 11/19/2023 at 12:07 PM, Kymmy999 said:

Great suggestion, thanks.  We are also stressing over the 30 day window along with the section about listing all countries visited in the last 10 years because our list is 45 countries long and we don’t think it’ll fit in the space provided!

I think that you can only put in 20 countries max so I put in the last 20 we visited and it was accepted.

[passionfortravel]

One of the drop down choices for countries visited is "others", having input 45 countries because I didn't notice the "maximum 20" until I had done so, I deleted 26 and chose "others" to cover all of those without exceeding the 20!

[Kymmy999]

1 hour ago, passionfortravel said:

One of the drop down choices for countries visited is "others", having input 45 countries because I didn't notice the "maximum 20" until I had done so, I deleted 26 and chose "others" to cover all of those without exceeding the 20!

Yes, annoying that the ‘maximum 20’ note doesn’t appear until the end.  We have been successful with our visa application having taken advice to get a one year visa to allow it to be completed in plenty of time so we can now relax!  Not long now until our trip.

[passionfortravel]

Hi everyone! Having applied for, and received the 1-year, multiple entry Indian tourist visa on Monday (We are staying on after the cruise), I applied for the free, 48-hour transit visa for Sri Lanka and it was confirmed within 36 hours. I called Celebrity today and spoke to an assistant called Louise, to verify that the transit visa was sufficient for the two ports of call in Sri Lanka; she immediately said yes and asked if I would like her to double check, which I did! She put me on hold and then came back to me having confirmed with colleagues that the free transit visa is fine for the cruise visiting Sri Lanka and further said that Celebrity recommend getting the transit visa (I guess because it is free). So I am happy and confident that we have everything we need. FYI we are UK passport holders but clearly this would also apply to the vast majority of travellers, with some national exceptions.

 

[Kymmy999]

Thanks for the update. We read it that we need a multi entry visa for Sri Lanka so have applied for and received that. However, there was a cost. 
 

We now just have to apply for an entry visa for Nepal (we start there before the cruise but can’t apply until a fortnight before arrival) plus the entry visa for Singapore as we are staying one night. Lots of dates marked in the calendar including the Celebrity Health Check 2 days before boarding. It would be so much easier if we had a check list to follow!

[nijh]

31 minutes ago, Kymmy999 said:

Thanks for the update. We read it that we need a multi entry visa for Sri Lanka so have applied for and received that. However, there was a cost. 
 

Read it the same as you.  I got a Transit visa back in 2020, but that cruise was cancelled so never got to test it.  I read it both ways, then and now, on official and unofficial sites, so decided to just spend the $50.

 

This post seems to confirm a full visa, might be worth confirming what their experience was.

 

 

[nijh]

Having said that they were going in the other direction, and that has 3 days in Sri Lanka.  So no idea🫤

[Strongbox]

1 hour ago, Kymmy999 said:

Thanks for the update. We read it that we need a multi entry visa for Sri Lanka so have applied for and received that. However, there was a cost. 
 

We now just have to apply for an entry visa for Nepal (we start there before the cruise but can’t apply until a fortnight before arrival) plus the entry visa for Singapore as we are staying one night. Lots of dates marked in the calendar including the Celebrity Health Check 2 days before boarding. It would be so much easier if we had a check list to follow!

You shouldn't need entry visa for Singapore from UK

[passionfortravel]

Agreed re Singapore, Brits (and many other nationalities) don't need visas, you just need to complete the SG arrival card three days before arrival in Singapore https://eservices.ica.gov.sg/sgarrivalcard/