Carnival's customs procedure/St Thomas?

[moonmom]

My cruise in April goes from Nassau to St. Thomas...from what I understand each passenger must clear customs upon arrival in St. Thomas...I have not done this on previous cruises because it has always been the first Port...can anyone explain the procedure to me? and what kind of time frame I should expect? I will be on the Glory...we are supposed to dock at 10am...if we arrive on time what is the latest I should be allowed off the ship? Thanks in advance!

 

jane

[tnsail]

Depending on the time that the port of St. Thomas lets the Glory dock your time to debark will be about 30 minutes.... A real painless experience, aline with US citizens snaking along.... You will be called to the 5th level by levels then you pass thru Immigration with passport/BC and DL in hand... From there you will pass a desk where they will give you a sticky label that you will put on your shirt to insure the crew that you have passed thru Immigration and off the ship you go if you so choose.....

 

Have a great cruise......:D

 

Joey

[moonmom]

Thanks Joey...doesn't sound so bad....I seem to remember hearing horror stories about the process.....Does that mean that you need to bring your passport with you for the day? Do you need to show it to return to the ship?...or just your DL/ship ID? And thanks...I plan to have a great time!;)

[I Am Canadian, Eh]

You never NEED your passport to get back on ship - ship id & photo id is all that is required.

 

I personally always carry it with me (I'd rather not have a problem in port and my passport is sitting on the ship), but many people leave it in the safe and/or carry a copy with them.

 

The process really is painless (other than it prevents you from really sleeping in that day!). Stand in line, show passport & ship id, say hi to immigration officer, get on with rest of the day.

 

Have a great cruise!!!

[mzloolue]

We did it on the Glory this summer.

It took forever.

The ship was late getting into port anyway.

We even went and got sandwiches and ate lunch while we were waiting for our deck to be called.

We were late for our pick up time for Sunny Liston and decided not to wait any longer for them to call our deck and just went down and got in line.

We later found that some people on Sunny's truck with us were on our deck didn't wait at all and were off the boat an hour before us...and had the nerve to make a crack about people who were "late" and holding things up...

[moonmom]

mzloolue: wow that doesn't sound like fun at all...hope the rest of your day went well there! Since you were on Glory also...do you remember the order they called the decks in by any chance? I need to try to arrange private transportation due to traveling with my mom (she "drives" a scooter) and wondering where in the scheme of things the Empress deck is called? Thanks for any info you may have.

 

I Am Canadian, Eh: Thanks for the advice!

 

jane

[mzloolue]

mzloolue: wow that doesn't sound like fun at all...hope the rest of your day went well there! Since you were on Glory also...do you remember the order they called the decks in by any chance? I need to try to arrange private transportation due to traveling with my mom (she "drives" a scooter) and wondering where in the scheme of things the Empress deck is called? Thanks for any info you may have.

 

I Am Canadian, Eh: Thanks for the advice!

 

jane

 

I don't remember exactly, but they started near the middle and then called one deck higher and then one lower alternately...that day anyway.

Something like 4, 3, 5, 2, 6, 1, 7...

 

If I had it to do again I would just go when I got ready.YMMV

[Quench]

My cruise in April goes from Nassau to St. Thomas...from what I understand each passenger must clear customs upon arrival in St. Thomas...I have not done this on previous cruises because it has always been the first Port...can anyone explain the procedure to me? and what kind of time frame I should expect? I will be on the Glory...we are supposed to dock at 10am...if we arrive on time what is the latest I should be allowed off the ship? Thanks in advance!

 

jane

 

I'm confused. If you leave from San Jaun and go to St Thomas will you have to clear customs?

[mzloolue]

I'm confused. If you leave from San Jaun and go to St Thomas will you have to clear customs?

 

No I don't think so because San Juan is in the United States.

But if you go from Nassau, then yes, you will have to clear customs.

[MonaCK]

I was actually wondering about this - we should be okay because our ports of call are, in this order:

 

San Juan

St. Thomas

Tortola

 

Since Tortola is the only one that is not a US property, we shouldn't have to clear customs until we get back to the states, right?

[tnsail]

mzloolue: wow that doesn't sound like fun at all...hope the rest of your day went well there! Since you were on Glory also...do you remember the order they called the decks in by any chance? I need to try to arrange private transportation due to traveling with my mom (she "drives" a scooter) and wondering where in the scheme of things the Empress deck is called? Thanks for any info you may have.

 

I Am Canadian, Eh: Thanks for the advice!

 

jane

 

I guess you see that every sailing has its ups and downs Jane.... Ours was painless, but as you can see stuff can happen at sea..... As for carrying around you passport, St Thomas is one of the best places to go back to your room and put it in your safe.... Ships s/s card is the only thing needed to reboard but we always carry our D/L for ID in case we use a CC to purchase an item.....

 

St Thomas being part of the USVI does not require a Passport to re-enter the US if you need to fly back from there.....:)

 

Joey

[tnsail]

One thing that I forgot to mention was that the first people off the ship are those who have booked excursions THRU CARNIVAL.... If the excursion begins say at 10:30 ish till 11:00ish.... They announce it over the ship intercom for those people to proceed to the Immigration station, then they start calling the floors....

 

Part of the problem that the Immigration process has is when folks start to the area before they are called.... Instead of hurrying it along it ends up slowing down the whole process.... Too many folks start crowding the Immigration station and they shut it down till they can clear the area then it starts again....:(

 

Joey

[mrsjbm]

One thing that I forgot to mention was that the first people off the ship are those who have booked excursions THRU CARNIVAL.... If the excursion begins say at 10:30 ish till 11:00ish.... They announce it over the ship intercom for those people to proceed to the Immigration station, then they start calling the floors....

 

Part of the problem that the Immigration process has is when folks start to the area before they are called.... Instead of hurrying it along it ends up slowing down the whole process.... Too many folks start crowding the Immigration station and they shut it down till they can clear the area then it starts again....:(

 

Joey

 

Hello TN cruiser,

We are fellow TN cruisers. We are sailing on the Glory 9/27/08 to ST Thomas/St Marten for our sons beach wedding in St Thomas! This is the first time We have been on the Glory. We have always sailed the Fantasy/Imagination fleet, and were wondering, Do you like the bigger ships better? We LOVE the Fantasy! We have heard lots of good things about the GLory. Any insights???:) THANKS

[tnsail]

Hello Cindy,

 

Its great to chat with a fellow TN cruiser....:) ..... Wow, a St Thomas wedding, what a great reason to travel there.... You will enjoy the Glory, but you better get out a map... This is a huge ship compared to anything that you have sailed.... It took us a couple of days to locate things and be able to get back to them with out a twist and a turn....:eek:

 

We really liked the aft pool, bar and grill..... The Conquest class of ships have many little amenities that make cruisin' different....

 

The other side of the coin is that being so big you don't seem to see the same people everyday and you miss building the cruise frienships that cruising on a smaller ship seem to offer.... I know that you'll enjoy your cruise (especially the reason for it....:D ) Oh, one of the things for you to fret about till cruisin', you don't get to spend a lot of time on St. Thomas so I hope everything goes with a hitch....;)

 

Joey

[buddyjo143]

When we were on the Carnival Glory for Christmas 2006 it was a nightmare to debark in St. Thomas since we had been in Nassau. Even though they called those with Carnival excursions first, there were many people in line without tickets and no way in (you know what) were they letting anyone through. I actually got ugly and yelled at a guy (not my best moment).

 

I think they should do it like the did on our Inspiration trip. They had times posted on your excursion ticket and we met in the show lounge at a certain hour to be taken off the ship. I don't know why they can't do this on the St. Thomas excursions. No ticket, you don't get into the lounge and off the ship in the first round.

[Knights on the Beach]

When we were on the Carnival Glory for Christmas 2006 it was a nightmare to debark in St. Thomas since we had been in Nassau. Even though they called those with Carnival excursions first, there were many people in line without tickets and no way in (you know what) were they letting anyone through. I actually got ugly and yelled at a guy (not my best moment).

 

I think they should do it like the did on our Inspiration trip. They had times posted on your excursion ticket and we met in the show lounge at a certain hour to be taken off the ship. I don't know why they can't do this on the St. Thomas excursions. No ticket, you don't get into the lounge and off the ship in the first round.

I totally agree with you. We had to go through Immigration in St. Thomas on the Triumph last June and it was a mess. We had an early excursion and I was afraid we were going to miss it. We had to stand in the line for about an hour before we finally made it off the ship.

[nybumpkin]

I was actually wondering about this - we should be okay because our ports of call are, in this order:

 

San Juan

St. Thomas

Tortola

 

Since Tortola is the only one that is not a US property, we shouldn't have to clear customs until we get back to the states, right?

Mona - we did this itinerary 2 years ago from NYC, and you're fine. Since San Juan and St. Thomas are U.S., you haven't left the country. We had to fill out a form for Tortola that was collected when we boarded, but I'm not sure whether they're still using that form.