Weird Document Trend - Parents Bring Birth Certificates for Kids, but just DLs for Adults

[Charles4515]

20 hours ago, cruiseryyc said:

BINGO!!  Unfortunately it’s almost always your fellow Americans who for some reason don't want to get passports.

Americans have the option of taking some cruises without passports. When you have options you have choices. It is understandable that some will make that choice. Since it is a legal choice they are doing nothing wrong. You don’t understand the reason because you don’t have a choice. If Canadians had a choice I have no doubt they would be just like Americans. 

Edited Monday at 12:55 PM by Charles4515

[sparks1093]

3 minutes ago, Keksie said:

I thought the first post was about people showing up and being denied boarding due to not having proper documentation or having to scramble to get the proper documentation. Over the years people have posted all kinds of stories about not having a certified birth certificate and having to scramble.  On our train trip out of Ketchikan the border official gave one poor guy a really hard time for just having a birth certificate.  I tend to err on the side of being prepared since I don't want to be the one in a million that has an issue.  I get that you are a big cheerleader for no passport, while I am of the opinion of just get one and you are all set - they really don't cost that much.

But none of those people have come on here complaining about their experience (that I've seen, anyway, it is a big board). Yes, I have seen some posts over the years where people showed up without a birth certificate but none of them were in the "I'm whining because I was wrong" category, more of "here was my experience, learn from it". As the OP points out, many that do show up without the requisite birth certificate are able to obtain a copy from someone at home, just as in the threads that I've read. There is a lot of confusion in people's minds about REAL ID and Enhanced Drivers Licenses, even though DMV websites explain the difference as do cruise line websites.

 

I am actually a cheerleader of people using the travel documentation that suits their travel needs, whether that is a passport or a government issued ID and birth certificate or anything in between. For some reason it seems to stick in some people's craw that US citizens are allowed a choice at all (or more specifically, that some US citizens actually choose something they have the legal right to choose).

[Mary229]

2 hours ago, sparks1093 said:

Because for US citizens we are given choices for what travel documents to use. I can travel to your country with my Enhanced Drivers License, properly issued by my state. Why would I want to incur the expense of a passport if I didn't need it? 

 

Yes, there are long threads on Cruise Critic because US citizens who travel have a choice to make regarding what documentation they use for their travel. Affordability can certainly be a driving factor, but so what? It's not your choice or your money. When we started cruising it would have set us back around $850 for passports for a 4 day cruise. We knew that we wanted to travel internationally by air at some point (and would absolutely need passports for that) but we didn't know when that day would be. We did the research and determined that while passports might be a nice thing to have they weren't actually necessary for the travel we were taking so we decided to wait to get them until we actually needed them for the travel we were undertaking. So, whether you like it or not, yes, US citizens can absolutely get by without a passport.

 

The take away from the OPs post is to make 100% sure that you have the documents you need to board the ship. It doesn't matter what a TA might tell you, it's still the traveler's responsibility to possess the correct document(s) to board. 

You get very excited about this topic.  It is not about what I like or don’t like it is about the advice I would give to others.  I advise people to get a passport.   Period, stop Period.  It is  good financial advise as is travel insurance .  

[sparks1093]

3 minutes ago, Mary229 said:

You get very excited about this topic.  It is not about what I like or don’t like it is about the advice I would give to others.  I advise people to get a passport.   Period, stop Period.  It is  good financial advise as is travel insurance .  

When someone says "if you can't afford a passport you can't afford to travel", yes, it does excite me because it's hooey. If you had left that out and just advised that the best course of action then I probably wouldn't have quoted you, unless it was only to point out that travel is not one size fits all. (Case in point- one of the families that traveled with us on our cruise in April obtained passports because it made their overall trip less. It was so much cheaper to fly to Florida from Montreal that even with the cost of the passports they saved money on their flights. Certainly not a situation that applies to many travelers.)

Edited Monday at 01:44 PM by sparks1093

[Keksie]

Not having a passport does limit people.to only take closed loop cruises.  Our favorite cruises all required passports.  Two Alaskan cruises and a Norwegian fjord cruise.  

[sparks1093]

8 minutes ago, Keksie said:

Not having a passport does limit people.to only take closed loop cruises.  Our favorite cruises all required passports.  Two Alaskan cruises and a Norwegian fjord cruise.  

There are a great number of people who can only cruise on closed loop cruises for any number of reasons personal to them.

[Flatbush Flyer]

1 hour ago, Keksie said:

To all the people choosing not to get passports.  That is your choice however, don't come on here to cry when something goes wrong.  Don't blame the cruise company for not letting you on.  Don't cry to the national news media how poorly you were treated, how you were abandoned in a foreign port and couldn't catch a plane back home immediately.  Just suck it up a realize that maybe you should have gone ahead and gotten that passport.

+1 😎

[Mary229]

32 minutes ago, sparks1093 said:

When someone says "if you can't afford a passport you can't afford to travel", yes, it does excite me because it's hooey. If you had left that out and just advised that the best course of action then I probably wouldn't have quoted you, unless it was only to point out that travel is not one size fits all. (Case in point- one of the families that traveled with us on our cruise in April obtained passports because it made their overall trip less. It was so much cheaper to fly to Florida from Montreal that even with the cost of the passports they saved money on their flights. Certainly not a situation that applies to many travelers.)

It is the advice I give.  I give it to all of my friends and family. I give them similar advice about tips 9n cruises and restaurants. It is my opinion. I don’t stand outside the terminal checking passengers so I don’t care if someone gets left behind that is their problem.  

[sparks1093]

2 minutes ago, Mary229 said:

It is the advice I give.  I give it to all of my friends and family. I give them similar advice about tips 9n cruises and restaurants. It is my opinion. I don’t stand outside the terminal checking passengers so I don’t care if someone gets left behind that is their problem.  

Advice is fine. Post #19, the one that I quoted, was not advice.

[Keksie]

16 minutes ago, sparks1093 said:

There are a great number of people who can only cruise on closed loop cruises for any number of reasons personal to them.

Can't imagine any number of personal reasons but okay.  When asked about passports or no passports you give your thoughts and I will give mine.

[sparks1093]

8 minutes ago, Keksie said:

Can't imagine any number of personal reasons but okay.  When asked about passports or no passports you give your thoughts and I will give mine.

Available vacation days and the total cost of the trip are two reasons that immediately come to mind for taking a closed loop cruise and I am sure there are others but whatever the reason is the traveler is choosing to sail on a closed loop cruise. As for your last sentence, of course, that's how public forums work.

[Charles4515]

26 minutes ago, Mary229 said:

It is the advice I give.  I give it to all of my friends and family. I give them similar advice about tips 9n cruises and restaurants. It is my opinion. I don’t stand outside the terminal checking passengers so I don’t care if someone gets left behind that is their problem.  

I advise friends and family to get passports because I think travel will broaden their life and experiences but some are not interested. Many can’t for one reason or another. It seems arrogant to demand one size fits all. I am not talking about you but some posters on the board sound arrogant and elitist. 

[Flatbush Flyer]

3 hours ago, sparks1093 said:

“….Sure, there might be some expenses incurred if something goes wrong…..”

When it comes to unexpected problems while traveling abroad, a better observation might be “pay now or pay later.”

(hopefully not followed by that other observation: “we told you so.”😳)

 

Seriously: Have you ever given any thought to the reason why most (if not all) premium/luxury cruise lines require ALL passengers on ALL itineraries to have a valid passport? Could it be because their travel abroad knowledge/experience demonstrates that doing so eliminates all sorts of related and potentially significant problems for their passengers? 

[sparks1093]

1 minute ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

When it comes to unexpected problems while traveling abroad, a better observation might be “pay now or pay later.”

(hopefully not followed by that other observation: “we told you so.”😳)

 

Seriously: Have you ever given any thought to the reason why most (if not all) premium/luxury cruise lines require ALL passengers on ALL itineraries to have a valid passport? Could it be because their travel abroad knowledge/experience demonstrates that doing so eliminates all sorts of related and potentially significant problems for their passengers? 

I thought it was because they couldn't be bothered to help repatriate a passenger who got separated from the ship without one but who knows😉 (and yes, I am only kidding with that). Are you really suggesting that all of the other cruise lines don't have the same level of experience or knowledge as the premium/luxury lines? 

 

Pay now or pay later for what, exactly? It costs the person without a passport the exact same amount of money to fly home if something should happen to cause them to leave the ship before the end of the cruise as it would for a person with a passport. The only option they lose by not having a passport is flying to the next port to catch up to the ship (which may or may not even be possible because of the itinerary). 

[ontheweb]

3 hours ago, Keksie said:

To all the people choosing not to get passports.  That is your choice however, don't come on here to cry when something goes wrong.  Don't blame the cruise company for not letting you on.  Don't cry to the national news media how poorly you were treated, how you were abandoned in a foreign port and couldn't catch a plane back home immediately.  Just suck it up an realize that maybe you should have gone ahead and gotten that passport.

And one could write the exact same post substituting travel insurance for the word passport.

[MacMadame]

6 hours ago, sparks1093 said:

 Here is the definition of "pennywise and pound foolish": careful about small amounts of money but not about large amounts 

 

—used especially to describe something that is done to save a small amount of money now but that will cost a large amount of money in the future.

(Emphasis added.)

 

Someone forgoing the expense of getting a passport for a closed loop cruise are not necessarily trying to save a small amount of money now, and it won't cost them a large amount of money in the future if they decide to get a passport later.

IMO, pennywise and pound foolish is not paying for a passport now because it's not absolutely required for a cruise and then having a medical emergency in port in a country that won't let you fly out without a passport so you are stuck there paying for hotels and meals, possibly missing work, for an indefinite amount of time, until you can get an emergency passport -- which also costs more than if you'd just gotten it before the cruise.

 

Yes, you saved $130 and the cost of a passport photo by not getting the passport now but you are going to spend way more than that down the line if you do have such an emergency.

[klfrodo]

No matter how much I agree with what you just said, I'm going to continue pounding on this table expressing how much more right I am than you. 🤯

[Charles4515]

32 minutes ago, MacMadame said:

IMO, pennywise and pound foolish is not paying for a passport now because it's not absolutely required for a cruise and then having a medical emergency in port in a country that won't let you fly out without a passport so you are stuck there paying for hotels and meals, possibly missing work, for an indefinite amount of time, until you can get an emergency passport -- which also costs more than if you'd just gotten it before the cruise.

 

Yes, you saved $130 and the cost of a passport photo by not getting the passport now but you are going to spend way more than that down the line if you do have such an emergency.

I would not travel on those cruises without a passport but the odds of that happening are pretty low. When the government made the rules that allowed using a birth certificate on closed close loop cruise they did an analysis and concluded that there wouldn’t be major problems and there have not been. Most problems are that people can’t get on the ship because they didn’t bring the right document. I wouldn’t want the hassle but people do get through it if they have an emergency. 

Edited Monday at 05:34 PM by Charles4515

[sparks1093]

33 minutes ago, MacMadame said:

IMO, pennywise and pound foolish is not paying for a passport now because it's not absolutely required for a cruise and then having a medical emergency in port in a country that won't let you fly out without a passport so you are stuck there paying for hotels and meals, possibly missing work, for an indefinite amount of time, until you can get an emergency passport -- which also costs more than if you'd just gotten it before the cruise.

 

Yes, you saved $130 and the cost of a passport photo by not getting the passport now but you are going to spend way more than that down the line if you do have such an emergency.

Overlooking the fact that the regulations that give us the closed loop exception also give the authorities the ability to waive the passport requirement for emergencies. In the few cases that I've read about the port agent/cruise line worked out the details with CBP and the traveler was put on a direct flight back to the US where they were cleared in secondary inspection. In all of the years since the regulations were enacted I haven't read of a person a closed loop cruise having significant difficulty returning home in an emergency. And again, this only applies IF something goes south to begin with. 

[ldubs]

16 hours ago, Mary229 said:

Yet there are long threads on Cruise Critic concluding that one can get by without a passport.  I consider it like a tip in a good restaurant, if you can’t afford the tip you can’t afford the meal, likewise if you can’t afford the passport, you can’t afford to travel.  

 

I suspect most people who exercise the option can afford a passport.  

[Flatbush Flyer]

14 hours ago, sparks1093 said:

I thought it was because they couldn't be bothered to help repatriate a passenger who got separated from the ship without one but who knows😉 (and yes, I am only kidding with that). Are you really suggesting that all of the other cruise lines don't have the same level of experience or knowledge as the premium/luxury lines? 

 

Pay now or pay later for what, exactly? It costs the person without a passport the exact same amount of money to fly home if something should happen to cause them to leave the ship before the end of the cruise as it would for a person with a passport. The only option they lose by not having a passport is flying to the next port to catch up to the ship (which may or may not even be possible because of the itinerary). 

It appears that you seem to think that folks without a passport will get an automatic (and immediate) OK to their request to CBP et al. to fly home to the US without a passport.

Not as easy as you may think. There can be significant time and associated expense to the unprepared passenger in making that “pass”  happen (if it happens at all). Add to that the reality that there’s not a US embassy/consulate readily available in every port city.  Worse still, the rest of us may experience delay of the ship because of one person’s bad travel choice (e.g., no or inappropriate passport for someone wanting/needing to leave the ship, fly home, etc.). And, yes, requiring all passengers on all itineraries to bring a valid passport actually does save ship’s personnel normally unnecessary support efforts to accommodate the ill-prepared passengers.

 

And it’s that “worse still” scenario that is one of the main reasons why premium/luxury lines require them. It avoids the creation of potentially negative delay consequences for all the other rules-abiding passengers as well as for their staff.

On the other hand, the practice of/incentive to those (mostly mass market) cruise lines that don’t require passports of all passengers on all itineraries is obvious. They don’t want to lose the revenues created by every last passenger - particularly those struggling to afford their product. And their concern for the burden it may place on their staff may not be all that important to the line’s management  (after all, just look at their unfavorable crew:passenger ratios  for evidence of that reality).

[sparks1093]

4 hours ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

It appears that you seem to think that folks without a passport will get an automatic (and immediate) OK to their request to CBP et al. to fly home to the US without a passport.

Not as easy as you may think. There can be significant time and associated expense to the unprepared passenger in making that “pass”  happen (if it happens at all). Add to that the reality that there’s not a US embassy/consulate readily available in every port city.  Worse still, the rest of us may experience delay of the ship because of one person’s bad travel choice (e.g., no or inappropriate passport for someone wanting/needing to leave the ship, fly home, etc.). And, yes, requiring all passengers on all itineraries to bring a valid passport actually does save ship’s personnel normally unnecessary support efforts to accommodate the ill-prepared passengers.

 

And it’s that “worse still” scenario that is one of the main reasons why premium/luxury lines require them. It avoids the creation of potentially negative delay consequences for all the other rules-abiding passengers as well as for their staff.

On the other hand, the practice of/incentive to those (mostly mass market) cruise lines that don’t require passports of all passengers on all itineraries is obvious. They don’t want to lose the revenues created by every last passenger - particularly those struggling to afford their product. And their concern for the burden it may place on their staff may not be all that important to the line’s management  (after all, just look at their unfavorable crew:passenger ratios  for evidence of that reality).

Automatic? No. It will take time, but from what I've read it's a matter of a couple of hours. Why? Because while a closed loop cruise is happening CBP is already at work, verifying all of the passenger's identities and info. Remember, we are talking a closed loop cruise involving the Caribbean, Bermuda, Canada or Mexico- our backyard. Shipboard personnel being involved? Maybe a couple, but more likely the onus falls on the cruise line's port agent to sort things out with CBP. For an individual passenger this would be a unique experience, but for the port agent and CBP it's something they handle often and they simply follow the procedures that have been laid out to deal with the situation. From what I've read the port agent contacts CBP, CBP does their thing and issues a waiver allowing the passenger to return home, port agent communicates this to the passenger and the airline, passenger boards flight to US, upon landing passenger goes to secondary inspection to verify identity. The passenger has no role in any of this and I'm sure that would be quite upsetting for a type A personality. I have no issues at all accepting that it is that easy, even if others want to think that the process would be akin to moving a mountain. I have thought about doing a FOIA request to obtain the procedures used in such situations (if only for my own education) but since they impact the national security I would think they would be exempt from disclosure (or at least I would sincerely hope they are exempt from disclosure). 

 

In any event, this is all just something someone needs to take into consideration when making the decision to travel without a passport. Whether they actually consider any of this or not is outside of my control. They absolutely should be verifying that they are using the correct documentation and not confusing REAL ID with an EDL, that they aren't bringing a hospital certificate in place of a government issued birth certificate, that their document hasn't expired, etc. etc. But the fact remains that they are legally able to choose something other than a passport for a closed loop cruise. Whether or not it is a prudent decision (which is what we are currently debating) depends on a lot of factors and is going to vary from traveler to traveler. You say just get a passport. I say choose wisely. 

[Charles4515]

5 hours ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

Not as easy as you may think. There can be significant time and associated expense to the unprepared passenger in making that “pass”  happen (if it happens at all).

You are exaggerating. You and some others just hate that there is an exception to having a passport. The CBP and cruise line have personal and procedures in place or they would never allow the birth certificate as a valid document. They are prepared for that and of course they make it happen. 

[Flatbush Flyer]

1 hour ago, Charles4515 said:

 

1 hour ago, Charles4515 said:

You are exaggerating… The CBP and cruise line have personal and procedures in place or they would never allow the birth certificate as a valid document….

And, yet, there are plenty of cruise lines that actually “would never allow the birth certificate as a valid document” (for all of the obvious reasons).

 

It appears that you are the one who may be “exaggerating” with a baseless claim.

 

in any case, International cruise travel without a passport, travel/medical insurance and adequate credit card limits remains a recipe for disappointment and inconvenience to self and others.  

[Flatbush Flyer]

2 hours ago, sparks1093 said:

Automatic? No. It will take time, but from what I've read it's a matter of a couple of hours. …

You say just get a passport. I say choose wisely. 

And yet, with very few exceptions, the bulk of two entire cruise industry segments (premium and luxury) steadfastly refuse to accept a passenger (on any itinerary) without a passport even though your “reading” says there’s “no problemo.”