Is a transit C visa sufficient for a passenger on a cruise ending in the USA?

[italnsd]

Hello, I am new to the forum, brought here by a question about one of the many subtleties surrounding visas that cruise passengers end up knowing better than anyone else. I am looking at the feasibility of going on a cruise that starts in Brazil and ends up in Cape Liberty, NJ with a friend that has a Venezuelan passport.
Would  a type C visa (transit non-immigrant) be sufficient for my friend to go on the trip (possibly in combination with an outbound flight ticket showing a very short stay on US soil) or is a B2 visa (tourism non-immigrant) necessary when leaving the ship at the final harbor?
This is not just an academic question, but it really makes or breaks the trip because (independently of the inherent difficulty in getting one visa vs. the other) the site of the US embassy shows waiting time of 6 days for a C visa and, as absurd as it sounds, a whopping 752 days for a B2 visa.

Any guidance on the best course of action is highly appreciated.

Edited March 6 by italnsd
wrong arrival harbor

[Ferry_Watcher]

I would certainly do your due diligence on this.  I work checking in passengers for cruises sailing to Alaska, and I know that I would be looking for the B1/B2 visa page in a Venezuelan passport.  

If a US B1/B2 visa is required, and if your friend doesn't have one at embarkation, then your friend will be denied boarding.

 

You really need to look into this asap.

 

I will share a story from a check-in experience I had   A couple were sailing to Alaska.  He was a US citizen (passport) and she was his fiancée or new wife and was traveling with a passport from a South American country (I forgot which country).  Her passport was recently renewed and she did have the required Canadian visa she needed to board the ship sailing to Alaska, with the port-of-call in Victoria, BC.  Sadly, her current/valid US visa was in her expired passport that was home in Florida - she had not brought both passports with her.  Not seeing the US visa, I had to involve a supervisor and the ship's Documentation Officer who ended up denying the woman boarding.

 

Please do your due diligence to save possible heartbreak (and if someone is denied boarding due to a document issue - there is no refund).

[chengkp75]

Where is the person wanting to go to get the visa?  What city/country?  That affects the wait/process time.  It appears to me that a C visa would be sufficient, but I feel that a call directly to the State Department would be the safest bet.

[italnsd]

Thanks for both your replies.

 

@chengkp75: The waiting days for an appointment that I reported (6 days for a C-type visa and 752 days for a B2-type visa) were taken from the State dept website for the US Embassy in Bogota, Colombia, the country of my friend's residence. I could not find any indication that visas are also processed by any consulate in other major Colombian cities. Would you recommend sending the  application to a US Embassy in a third country, other than that of citizenship (all US diplomatic offices in Venezuela are shown as inactive) and that of residence? 

@Ferry_Watcher: In my view the only way that this is doable is if a C-visa is sufficient. The State dept. website presents as  one of the typical use cases for a C visa that of a temporary stop on a cruise, when the passenger is expected to return on board, but does not talk about the case of an initial or final stop, which means that either a C-visa  is not sufficient or at the very least the situation is complicated with various possible scenarios.
This situation without a crystal clear answer makes me extremely pessimistic, especially after reading the story of your personal experience That tale, in fact, made me fully realize how risky this situation is by bringing back to my memory one of the most absurd situations encountered throughout all my travels, related to the twin problem of the necessary documentation for a flight. In that situation, despite having done an extensive research before my trip, by looking at the entry requirements for each country directly on their official government's websites and despite the website of Avianca reporting exactly the same information, at the airport I was denied boarding by the Avianca check-in rep because I did not have a yellow fever vaccination card that neither the Colombian govt nor Avianca website showed as necessary. Even more absurdly, after the fact Avianca denied any responsibility for its website saying one thing and its airport rep enforcing another and even denied a refund with the absurd line of defense "it's the passenger's responsibility to know the requirements". Considering that I had done my research and provided them a printout of the requirements from the Colombian govt website, what does this exactly mean? There is only one possible answer, which is the worst possible for the passenger. The key point is that despite the claim made by airlines and cruise companies alike that they are not responsible for the advice they provide on these matters, the truth it is that they are those who make the final decision to allow or deny boarding through their personnel, the check-in rep in my case, the ship document officer in your tale.
In other words, I came out of that experience convinced that in these situations that are not fully black or white, there is absolutely no way for a passenger to be on the safe side, because the  travel industry has managed to frame them in such a way that the passenger always loses. One could do in advance all the research in the world looking at all the official sources available, but in the end the only way that would guarantee safety would be reading the mind of the airline/cruise company rep in charge of the decision.

[chengkp75]

I don't know how the entire visa process works, but I see that for a B1/B2 interview required visa, the wait in Rio de Janiero is 45 days.  Maybe your friend could take a short vacation to Brazil to have the interview.  Or shop around for nearby countries to see what the wait times are like there.  If the cruise is important enough, maybe the cost of the flights to get the visa would be worth it.  But, again, I would recommend calling the State Department directly, having set aside many hours for waiting, and get the answer directly from the horse's mouth.

[italnsd]

19 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

I see that for a B1/B2 interview required visa, the wait in Rio de Janiero is 45 days.

Thanks for looking that up. I feel that would only compound the difficulties of the situation. I'm not sure about Brazil. but surely traveling with a Venezuelan passport makes planning travel much more difficult as even countries one would not suspect, like Chile for example, impose very onerous visa procedures that I have never experienced traveling either with my Italian or my US passport (the second exposing more to the practice of reciprocating entry fees, especially in South America).

My hope with this post was to get a very convincing unanimous answer that a C-visa, the only time compatible option, is a surefire solution. That did not arrive. I can definitely call the State dept. and ask the official position. However, based on the experience I mentioned, I would not feel safe even if the State dept. confirmed that it's ok, because the simple fact that there is so much uncertainty on this topic exposes us to the possibility that the officer on board, who probably has not called in any recent time the State dept, might decide to enforce what he believes to be rule, i.e., that a B2 visa is needed.

There should be a better solution for these kind of uncertain issues, but I feel that as long as the decision is left to the unquestionable discretion and knowledge of the person who physically processes the check-in, even having the exact information might not matter.

[Ferry_Watcher]

7 hours ago, italnsd said:

The State dept. website presents as  one of the typical use cases for a C visa that of a temporary stop on a cruise, when the passenger is expected to return on board, but does not talk about the case of an initial or final stop,

 

Looks like you found your answer. It's not the answer that you want, but it is an answer.

 

Think of what you are experiencing right now is one of the stages of grief (not being able to share this cruise with your friend due to a visa issue).  There is Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.

At the pier, we see folks who are denied boarding go thru these stages within a very short time frame.

A person is denied boarding:

Denial - "Wait, what do you mean I can't board the ship?"

Anger - "No one told me I needed this Visa

Bargaining - "I will stay on the ship at that port" Or, "I will fly out of the country the same day"

Depression - "I can't believe this is happening"  "Why didn't anyone tell me I needed  ___?"

Acceptance  -  "Okay, maybe we can do this cruise next year when we have the needed paperwork"

 

I think you are in the bargaining stage, hoping for that a transit visa will get your friend on the cruise.

Hang in there.  Encourage your friend to apply for a B1/B1 visa, and  keep looking ahead to future cruise opportunities.

 

Take care.

[italnsd]

On 3/7/2024 at 1:19 PM, Ferry_Watcher said:

Looks like you found your answer. It's not the answer that you want, but it is an answer.

Sorry for the late reply, I just logged into the website after a while and saw your post. Honestly, it wasn't such a big deal, but just a last minute attempt that I made to see if we could take advantage of the incredible low prices of the Celebrity cruise at the end of April from Rio de Janeiro to New Jersey. As I expected, the rules around US visas are never that simple, so we stuck to the original plan of going on the previous segment traveled the same ship from Buenos Aires to Rio, a cruise we are currently on. Less of a deal (one week at a higher price than two) but without any visa issue.

 

I just wanted to touch on a point you made. I do not think that the example of use case shown on the State Dept website that I quoted provides an answer to the case that I was interested in, rather it leaves it in a sort of gray zone. It's the nature of examples to be chosen very clear cut and generally away from the boundary region, to avoid the risk of making them needlessly complicated. 

[Ferry_Watcher]

FYI, since you first posted, Canada now requires Mexican passport holders to have a Canadian Visa. This means any Mexican passport holder sailing to Alaska - which includes a port-of-call in Canada - must have a Canadian Visa or they will be denied boarding. 

Exception would be if the individual was a US Permanent Resident (Green Card holder).