When do we go through Customs/Imagration?

[mattR]

Will be on the Zuiderdam Dec 11th Ft Lauderdale-St Thomas-Tortola-Nassau-Ft Lauderdale. As a Canadian when will I be required to clear customs/Imagration?

[sail7seas]

When the ship disembarks in FLL, everyone goes through U.S. Customs and Immigration. I assume you go through Canadian customs when you re-enter your country.

[Esme]

Matt - you won't have to go through Customs/Immigration until you get back to FLL. This is because you are going from a US port (FLL) to another US port (St. Thomas) & then to 2 non-US ports so you won't see the US C/I people until you disembark in FLL. Fortunately everyone has to go through C/I in FLL, including the US citizens.

 

 

Now if you had gone to a non-US port when you left FLL then to a US port, you would have to go through I/C in that US port. It's a darn nuisance not only for us Canadians (or as they used to call us "Aliens") & non-US Citizens but for everyone else on the ship if a ship goes from a US port to a non-US port back to a US port other than the port of disembarkation. Hope this makes sense. :eek:

 

Then when you get back to Canada, you have to see those smiling faces at C/I again!!!!!! :D

 

Have a great trip. Hear they had snow in Calgary the other day. What is up with this weather we are having all across the country. Peterborough, Ont. had a tremendous flood the other day.

[MandyGirl]

Matt -

 

I understand that if the Zuiderdam switches the St Thomas and Tortola ports... putting Tortola before St Thomas... then we will be clearing Immigration the morning after Tortola (before disembarking for St Thomas) since now coming to a US territory from BVI. But as previous posters stated, the way the schedule is currently displayed, we won't have to clear it in St Thomas. Either way, Customs happens at the very end in FLL, but Immigration can happen in the middle of the cruise due to sequencing of ports (Customs and Immigration are technically two separate things - you don't fill out a form declaring all of your purchases for Immigration - that's only with Customs).

Even when vacationing in that area and taking a daysail or ferry to the BVI, you get to clear Immigration coming back to USVI.

[Krazy Kruizers]

:)

 

You got that right.

It so so much easier before 9/11, but we are all adjusting.

One time when we left Ft Lauderdale, our first stop was HMC. The nest stop was St Thomas and we all had to go through immigration before we could leave the ship. There was, of course, some poeple who didn't listen to announcement. And it was the better part of an hour before the ship was cleared as they had to keep calling and calling the names and cabin numbers of those people.

:)

[sail7seas]

Yes, Mandy....you are correct. If the last port the ship calls at prior to returning to FLL is a U.S. port, you will have cleared Immigration (but not Customs) at that port and will not have to do clear again.

[Globaliser]

It so so much easier before 9/11, but we are all adjusting.

No, it was always like this for non-US citizens. Especially the 6 am start in the middle of the week when you arrived in St Thomas after a non-US port.

 

A member of cruise staff once told me the true answer to the question "When do you go to see US immigration?". The answer is "When they get on the PA and call you by name, that's when you go to see US immigration." But if you do that, you should do it smartish when you get called - keeping the entire ship waiting is juts plain selfish.