Indonesia visa HELP!

[kkinaus]

On 6/25/2024 at 2:51 PM, Happietraveller said:

When I tried to do it on my iPad, it kept telling me my passport number was wrong!  Nope, that’s my passport number!  That’s when I gave up!

Hello Happytraveller. We are on Orion this coming October from Hong Kong to Sydney. We are at the point of applying for Visa's for the Asian countries on this cruise. Have seen some of your messages about applying for visas and would love to be in touch and find out more about your experiences and any hints you might have..We live in Forster and are not far away from you !!!

my email is

karenk_gz at hotmail dot com

Hope to hear back from you. Thanks Karen

[Happietraveller]

6 hours ago, kkinaus said:

Hello Happytraveller. We are on Orion this coming October from Hong Kong to Sydney. We are at the point of applying for Visa's for the Asian countries on this cruise. Have seen some of your messages about applying for visas and would love to be in touch and find out more about your experiences and any hints you might have..We live in Forster and are not far away from you !!!

my email is

karenk_gz at hotmail dot com

Hope to hear back from you. Thanks Karen

Hi Karen.  Viking Sydney office were little or no help!  We used the agent they recommended CIBT for one visa…think it was Vietnam…at a hefty price when we did all the work and they just submitted it!  Had huge problems with Indonesian visas, to the point I decided we may jus5 hav3 to stay on the ship!  It was impossible.  BUT, when we joined the ship in Sydney, the first question they asked was name, second question ‘which visas do you have and which ones do you need help with?’  Seriously!  That easy!  Not sure about you joining in HK but can’t stress enough how helpful the Viking crew were.  Hopefully you will have the same experience.  Can I also give you a tip.  A lot of the cities are an hour or two away from the port.  So in some places we left the ship on the 2 day change over and took a hotel in the city.  Then we did smaller, private tours.  The best was Ho Chi Minh City.  Might sound a bit extravagant but we found a really funky hotel near the opera house and next to the markets.  It wasn’t expensive and included breakfast, and we had dinner there also.  We then did the Cu Chi tunnels with a small tour.  Was definitely the best part of our trip.  Good luck.

[kkinaus]

16 hours ago, Happietraveller said:

Hi Karen.  Viking Sydney office were little or no help!  We used the agent they recommended CIBT for one visa…think it was Vietnam…at a hefty price when we did all the work and they just submitted it!  Had huge problems with Indonesian visas, to the point I decided we may jus5 hav3 to stay on the ship!  It was impossible.  BUT, when we joined the ship in Sydney, the first question they asked was name, second question ‘which visas do you have and which ones do you need help with?’  Seriously!  That easy!  Not sure about you joining in HK but can’t stress enough how helpful the Viking crew were.  Hopefully you will have the same experience.  Can I also give you a tip.  A lot of the cities are an hour or two away from the port.  So in some places we left the ship on the 2 day change over and took a hotel in the city.  Then we did smaller, private tours.  The best was Ho Chi Minh City.  Might sound a bit extravagant but we found a really funky hotel near the opera house and next to the markets.  It wasn’t expensive and included breakfast, and we had dinner there also.  We then did the Cu Chi tunnels with a small tour.  Was definitely the best part of our trip.  Good luck.

Thank you Happytraveller for your message. Will see how we go with the Visa's...Yes we are not sure we would get the same treatment in Hong kong that you got in Sydney. A good idea about staying over night in the city. Might have to do some more searching about hotels. Thank you again for responding...Karen 

[Happietraveller]

On 7/29/2024 at 8:42 AM, kkinaus said:

Thank you Happytraveller for your message. Will see how we go with the Visa's...Yes we are not sure we would get the same treatment in Hong kong that you got in Sydney. A good idea about staying over night in the city. Might have to do some more searching about hotels. Thank you again for responding...Karen 

I can totally recomend Silverland Ben Than hotel in HCM.  The ship shuttle dropped off at the Opera House and it was about a 5 min walk to the hotel.  The hotel is on the next corner to Ben Than markets.  We did the Cu Chi tunnel tour in a group of 9.  The ship shuttle picked up at the same drop off place.  We stayed 2 nights.  Very affordable.  Breakfasts included and we had dinner there also.  We also did the dinner cruise.

Edited July 30 by Happietraveller

[Tom Crews]

I just lost 2 days of my life (that I will never get back), trying to get Indonesian B1 Tourist Visas for 4 people as we are passengers on the Celebrity Solstice stopping to Bali for 2 days.  Getting this visa is like riding a bucking Bronco, you likely will need multiple attempts,

 

I have researched this online and EVERYONE says don't put yourself through ths living hell and just apply at the port if you don't mind waiting in line and don't have an early excursion (we have an early excursion, so not an option for me)

 

 

Here is what helped me apply on line and worked after multiple attempts.

 

1. Put aside a couple hours to prepare the documents and get the information together.

2. Use the right device. No iPhone or Apple (some report it's possible with additional software but I didn't pursue when it got rejected once)..   Don't use Google Chrome.  I used Microsoft Edge to apply based on a tip I saw online and it worked.

3. Scan your passports using your printer or a printer and save as .jpg files labeling them e.g. Mary passport.jpg etc

4. Open each passport and save a second time as a .pdf file and make sure that .pdf file is less than .999 in size.   I used MS WORD to save as .pdf and resize my .pdf files.  Label these as Mary passpt.pdf etc.

5. Do the same thing with your cruise itinerary (you have to show that you ar leaving Indonesia) and save as .pdf files labeling for each passenger cabin.

6. Go the the web site  (which is absolutely positively is the WORST website I have ever used bar none, I'm 70) which is molina.imigrasi.go.id and set these up BUT DON"T DO UNITIL less than 90 days from the last day you will be in Indonesia.    Your Indonesia visa will be good for only 30 days in the next 90 starting the day that you get it issued online..

7. Now if you were traveling in a group, you would think you should put the group together in a batch and/or set up an account to pay for all of the at once.  AND YOU WOULD BE WRONG!  NO!   DON'T DO THIS.  Something will go wrong and you will lose the whole batch of work..  Process one at a time, pay, then download each one and relabel so you know what is in each file and print to printer. 

8. Rinse and repeat for each person in your party.   You have to pay the visas one at a time even if you set up an account (don't do this, I got 2 this way then the Indonesian Vsa folks locked my account.   I set up a 2nd account and input the infor for 2 other people only to see the visas were "waiting for payment" but there was no button to take my credit card.  You WILL have big issues so apply for these online (no account) and be ready with all of your information and labeled files on your computer to upload. 

9. After the first visa payment, call your credit card company and tell them it's legit so they don't block your credit card when subsequent payments are charged for other visas.  Be sure to try to upload every pdf file at least twice because sometimes (???) they don't upload and you will have no idea why until you see a message as the web site is kicking you off (so you have to start all over)..

 

10. Bali only tips.  if you are going to Port Benoa then describe the Indonesian address as Port Benoa - Celebrity Solstice (or whatever the name of your ship).  Input postal code 80362 and accept the information (then edit the postal code to 80222 leaving the other 80362 defaulted information) ...sounds strange to me and might work with 80362 but this was recommended from several sources on Celebrity Boards...

 

Good luck

 

[Tom Crews]

There are two other filings you must make for indonesia, a tax and a arrival declaration but you make them later in the process and these go to different web sites.  (They don't make it easy.perhaps they are trying to stop tourism).   

 

See post #453 on Roll call for Celebrity Solstice October 19, 2024 for details.  Thanks to that poster for detailing the web sites and regulations.  Go to that board and look for indonesia visa posts.  There are other posters with helpful hints as well.   

 

New Zealand (best), Australia, Singapore (need arrival card) all have good easy to use web sites.

Indonesia really, really needs help.  Even if you get the information in and visa approved, there often is no way to pay Indonesia unless you do the visas individually and pay one at a time.  If you are a web developer with e-commerce experience, that is a perfect opportunity to grow your business.

 

Good Luck

Edited August 16 by Tom Crews

[FredZiffle]

Had me worried after reading all these posts, but it actually was a piece of cake.  I already had my picture and passport in JPG format from applying for a Vietnam Visa for this same cruise, so it took about 15 minutes total to complete.  Had my approved Visa back in less than an hour.