Passports in Europe

[tangles00]

I have been reading another thread and it was stated that some cruise lines take the passports of passengers and keep them until the last night of the cruise.

 

Does anyone know if MSC practice this?

 

As stated elsewhere, My passport, my responsibility, which I have to agree with. I would be concerned if I did have to give over my passport and not have it with me when I am in various cities especially if something happened to me.

[Davinababe]

Hello

 

this happened to us on our Costa Cruise at Christmas. They photo copied the passports and we walked around everywhere with a photocopy. It didn't cause us any problems

 

Davina

[moveup]

MSC Orchestra took our passports and obtained our visas for Egypt which were stamped into our passports. MSC returned our passports to us the evening before our Egypt port call, took them back the day after Egypt, and returned them to us the morning of disembarkation, after the ship cleared immigration and customs. In my experience, it is not uncommon for European hotels to keep a guest's passport (as our hotel in Genoa did the night before our cruise), so this did not bother me. No passport is needed when traveling from country to country in most of Europe (EC plus the Schengen treaty countries). Out of an abudance of caution, my partner and I always carry photocopies of our own and each other's passports, and I also emailed them to myself at my hotmail account so I could access the photocopies from any computer connected to the Internet. A US embassy or consultate can replace a passport very quickly if you have a photocopy. Make sure at each port call that you (and your traveling companions) each take with you the ship's daily program, which gives the name and phone number of MSC's agent in that port. If for some reason you miss the ship's sailing, the agent will help get you back on track.

[PersistenzaretiniKa]

absolutely never heard this nor on msc or costa. they take the passport of course and in certain areas they do a photocopy ( russia for example)but since i cruise ( 1990) i've always gone around with my passport in whatever area ( egypt,israel,russia and so on). i think that when u board your passport will be available again even the same night.. anyway let us know.

[American-in-Belgium]

On NCL, they copied our passports and handed them right back.

 

I agree, my passport is property of the US Gov't and my responsibility to keep safe. Word here is a US passport is worth $20K on the black market.

 

Most European hotels ask for your passport when you check in. If you let them, they will hold it. I always get it back as soon as reasonable. At a hotel in Croatia, I was amazed to see hundred of guest passports in the slot for their room key. While the desk was manned 24 hours, I imagine it would not be hard to steal a few dozen very quickly.

 

I will be on MSC soon, so I will let you know.

 

Also, some countries in Europe require you to have a passport or national idenity card on you. I would not be comforatble going ashore without one.