Disembark passport control?

[Moby_Spout]

Our first European cruise covers Scandinavia and BI - so some EU and some not. When disembarking at the various ports, is there a passport check? If so, what's involved and how congested does that get (generally)?

 

 

[wolfie11]

No, not normally. You surrender your passport on embarkation and immigration comes on the ship and checks them before your first landing. If they want to see the person with passport in hand, they set up a passenger “parade” in one of the lounges.  Only occasionally do they do it shoreside.

[CDNPolar]

If you are referring to a cruise like Viking Homelands, then no, there was no passport control at the various ports.  If there was any checking done it was behind the scenes and did not involve us physically.  For Homelands, we did not surrender our passports, we had them in our control through the whole cruise.

[TayanaLorna]

On a cruise from Norway to Scotland we had to do the passport parade.  On another cruise from the West Indies to Brazil, we had 2 choices:  Surrender your passport to Guest Services the day before ships arrival or report at 4 am with your passport on morning of arrival.  Some cruises like around South America, we surrendered our passports for the entire cruise.  It depends.

[Frisky070802]

On BIE last August we did the "parade" in the lounge early on.

I've heard some say it can be useful to keep your passport with you in the (hopefully very unlikely) event something causes you to miss the ship and you have to travel.

[Moby_Spout]

All useful input to better understand what might occur, thank you.

 

We've heard varying thoughts on keeping passports with us on-shore or leaving in room/safe. Sounds like we just remain flexible (truly the universal travel advice).

 

A side question - are there no more covid vaccine/negative test paperwork requ's? (EU, Scandinavia, specifically.)

[philw1776]

No more Covid checks based on my last 4 cruises in both areas

[CDNPolar]

On 3/12/2024 at 12:29 PM, Moby_Spout said:

All useful input to better understand what might occur, thank you.

 

We've heard varying thoughts on keeping passports with us on-shore or leaving in room/safe. Sounds like we just remain flexible (truly the universal travel advice).

 

A side question - are there no more covid vaccine/negative test paperwork requ's? (EU, Scandinavia, specifically.)

 

For us, unless the ship states that we need to have our passport physically with us on shore - which does happen from time to time - we leave the passport in the safe.  We do carry ID with us - but ID that we can afford to lose or have stolen/pickpocketed.  This would be drivers license.  Other than the DL we carry credit cards only.  

 

We have pictures of our passport on our phones, as we have pictures of all ID.

 

We were on an Eastern Europe River Cruise not too many months ago, when the passports of two guests on our ship were taken by pickpockets.  A street vendor recognizing the Viking lollypop of our tour guide came over and asked if perhaps anyone in our group recognized the passport owners.  Many of us did.  The tour guide called our Cruise Director, she took the passports, and we got them back to the owners at a meeting point.  (They were on the same excursion but with a different group).  The thing was that at the point of the passports being returned to them they did not even realize that their passports were missing.  The street vendor said that he found them on the ground just to the side of his booth and they were likely discarded because the thieves were after money and wanted nothing to do with the passports.

[FlyerTalker]

15 minutes ago, CDNPolar said:

they were likely discarded because the thieves were after money and wanted nothing to do with the passports.

 

Failing to recognize the value of a genuine passport on the black market.  Worth thousands.

 

It's amazing to me how some folks are so cavalier in safeguarding them.

 

 

[Murt22]

In Italy, you must use your passport for ID when picking up tickets, etc. if you booked anything on your own. Not sure about other countries - but a photocopy or driver's license is not sufficient.

[CDNPolar]

6 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

Failing to recognize the value of a genuine passport on the black market.  Worth thousands.

 

It's amazing to me how some folks are so cavalier in safeguarding them.

 

 

 

We asked that question and the response was that cash was cash and not traceable but if someone was dealing in stolen passports it was a whole new and bigger game that they were playing.  The accepted scenario was that the pickpockets thought they were lifting folders that might contain cash and when they found that cash was not there, they just tossed the passports aside.