Galanb Posted December 10, 2023 #1 Share Posted December 10, 2023 (edited) We are going on a Celebrity Singapore to HK cruise in mid-January 2024, with stops in Thailand and Vietnam. After a lot of online checking to see what is required for Canadian tourists, it appears we need a tourist visa to land in Vietnam. However, there seems to be two options: a paper visa and an e-visa. The paper visa can be obtained from the Vietnamese Embassy/Consul and appears to cost CDN $110 per (a lot!). It also seems that an e-visa, according to forums, is much cheaper at around USD $25. [Note: we are not interested in the Visa On Arrival (VOA) options available via various unknown third parties.] I contacted the Vietnamese Embassy in Ottawa and got the following canned response: Good day, 1. E-visa is issued by Immigration Department of Viet Nam, not linked to the system of Viet Nam Embassy. E-visa is used normally for air travel, because many seaports and land border gates do not accept e-visa; while regular physical visa issued by Vietnam Embassy is good for air travel, sea cruise and land travel. 2. If you want to apply for an e-visa, you need to apply at the website of the Immigration Department of Vietnam. If you have applied for e-visa and have any problems/questions, you need to contact the Immigration Department because Viet Nam Embassy can not assist you in those cases. 3. If you have problems with e-visa and want to re-apply for a regular visas issued by Viet Nam Embassy, you can apply at Viet Nam Embassy website:https://vietnamembassy.ca/consular-services/visa-application. Sincerely, Consular Section This response states that e-visas are normally used for air arrivals and not sea arrivals, and that they may not be accepted at some, or all, seaports. Has anyone got any recent experience whether e-visas are accepted at the seaports Celebrity uses for its Vietnam ports of call? Secondly, does anyone have the official Vietnamese government website URL for e-visas? I have tried the following links, all of which fail: https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/ https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/web/guest/home https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/en_US/web/guest/khai-thi-thuc-dien-tu/cap-thi-thuc-dien-tu Thank you for any help. Edited December 10, 2023 by Galanb 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare mahdnc Posted December 10, 2023 #2 Share Posted December 10, 2023 We (American citizens) are going on the Singapore to Hong Kong 12 night cruise in less than 2 weeks. We successfully applied for our e-Visa using the 3rd link in the list at the bottom of your post. It took about 4 business days to get our e-Visa (download from the website). What failure did you experience? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare mahdnc Posted December 10, 2023 #3 Share Posted December 10, 2023 Check out this roll call where the Vietnam e-visa was discussed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare mahdnc Posted December 10, 2023 #4 Share Posted December 10, 2023 I would also advise that you join the roll call for your sailing. Here it is: These people will be on your cruise and will be happy to answer all of your questions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare NMTraveller Posted December 10, 2023 #5 Share Posted December 10, 2023 Is a visa required for Thailand in Dec. 2023 ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare mahdnc Posted December 10, 2023 #6 Share Posted December 10, 2023 (edited) No (for American citizens) Edited December 10, 2023 by mahdnc 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galanb Posted December 10, 2023 Author #7 Share Posted December 10, 2023 17 minutes ago, mahdnc said: We (American citizens) are going on the Singapore to Hong Kong 12 night cruise in less than 2 weeks. We successfully applied for our e-Visa using the 3rd link in the list at the bottom of your post. It took about 4 business days to get our e-Visa (download from the website). What failure did you experience? Thanks mahdnc for replying. Here is the response from the URL: This site can’t be reached evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn unexpectedly closed the connection. Try: Checking the connection Checking the proxy and the firewall Running Windows Network Diagnostics ERR_CONNECTION_CLOSED Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare mahdnc Posted December 10, 2023 #8 Share Posted December 10, 2023 (edited) This is what I get when I click on the 3rd link in your post. Try a different web browser. You can see the URL: Edited December 10, 2023 by mahdnc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galanb Posted December 10, 2023 Author #9 Share Posted December 10, 2023 16 minutes ago, mahdnc said: This is what I get when I click on the 3rd link in your post. Try a different web browser. You can see the URL: Great idea! I had used Google Chrome (my regular browser). On your advice I tried another browser - Microsoft Edge - and the page loaded. So did the other two links. Considering HTML 5 is the current standard, Chrome should have worked properly. I guess that site is likely old and uses Microsoft web extensions. Now I am still looking for confirmations that e-visas are accepted at the Vietnamese ports of call. Thanks again for your help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galanb Posted December 10, 2023 Author #10 Share Posted December 10, 2023 53 minutes ago, mahdnc said: I would also advise that you join the roll call for your sailing. Here it is: These people will be on your cruise and will be happy to answer all of your questions. Thanks again mahdnc. I'll check it out... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galanb Posted December 10, 2023 Author #11 Share Posted December 10, 2023 21 hours ago, Galanb said: We are going on a Celebrity Singapore to HK cruise in mid-January 2024, with stops in Thailand and Vietnam. After a lot of online checking to see what is required for Canadian tourists, it appears we need a tourist visa to land in Vietnam. However, there seems to be two options: a paper visa and an e-visa. The paper visa can be obtained from the Vietnamese Embassy/Consul and appears to cost CDN $110 per (a lot!). It also seems that an e-visa, according to forums, is much cheaper at around USD $25. [Note: we are not interested in the Visa On Arrival (VOA) options available via various unknown third parties.] I contacted the Vietnamese Embassy in Ottawa and got the following canned response: Good day, 1. E-visa is issued by Immigration Department of Viet Nam, not linked to the system of Viet Nam Embassy. E-visa is used normally for air travel, because many seaports and land border gates do not accept e-visa; while regular physical visa issued by Vietnam Embassy is good for air travel, sea cruise and land travel. 2. If you want to apply for an e-visa, you need to apply at the website of the Immigration Department of Vietnam. If you have applied for e-visa and have any problems/questions, you need to contact the Immigration Department because Viet Nam Embassy can not assist you in those cases. 3. If you have problems with e-visa and want to re-apply for a regular visas issued by Viet Nam Embassy, you can apply at Viet Nam Embassy website:https://vietnamembassy.ca/consular-services/visa-application. Sincerely, Consular Section This response states that e-visas are normally used for air arrivals and not sea arrivals, and that they may not be accepted at some, or all, seaports. Has anyone got any recent experience whether e-visas are accepted at the seaports Celebrity uses for its Vietnam ports of call? Secondly, does anyone have the official Vietnamese government website URL for e-visas? I have tried the following links, all of which fail: https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/ https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/web/guest/home https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/en_US/web/guest/khai-thi-thuc-dien-tu/cap-thi-thuc-dien-tu Thank you for any help. Further to my post yesterday, after a subsequent follow-up with the Vietnamese embassy in Ottawa, the embassy sent me a link to the government e-visa site: https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/en_US/web/guest/trang-chu-ttdt Also on that webpage is a link to a PDF file (see attachment to this post) of the ports of entry, including seaports, where an e-visa is accepted. (The [current] direct link to the PDF file is: https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/documents/20181/117155/List-of-evisa-port.pdf/c774e24b-1ab8-4fb6-9ac1-dcdfaccecf8e ) Again, as noted in another post below, neither of the above links opened in Google Chrome browser: they will only open, for me, in Microsoft Edge browser. Vietnam List-of-evisa-port.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanger727 Posted December 11, 2023 #12 Share Posted December 11, 2023 Paper visas are very expensive and difficult to get. We had to get those for a trip last year. E-visa is by far the best option if your arrival location is on the list of allowed entry points. You should be fine at a seaport. We were unable to use an e-visa at a river crossing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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