Egypt Visa -- Please give your experience!!

[Wakkyj]

I know you've had a lot of responses, but here:

 

 

 

 

 

1. When did you cruise to Egypt and on what cruise line? NCL, 2009

 

2. What is your nationality? Canadian

 

3. Did the cruise line provide a "quick stay" visa? If not, please give details. It is a "Quick Trip" visa, last page of my passport. Well stamped, too. Very clear. One of my treasures from traveling.

 

4. If the ship provided your visa, was there any charge for it? The ship took my passport away, and returned it day prior to egypt. no charge to us.

 

5. Did you take a ship-sponsored tour, a private tour, or go on your own? Private tour from alexandria overnighted in cairo. pyramids are awesome privately. people who took the ships tour were mixed at best. spend the $$. do it private.

 

 

Feel free to provide any other details of your visa experience that might be helpful to others.

 

Thanks!

[Brooke from San Francisco]

Thank you very much, CruiseMom42. We're booked on NCL Jade to Egypt in November, and you've satisfied us that, as US citizens, we do NOT need to get visas in advance.

Brooke from San Francisco

[Fblack]

Egypt has just changed their Visa policy. I don't know if or how it will affect cruise passengers.

 

9.9.2011: Egypt's new tourist visa policy raises concern

 

CAIRO: Tourism officials are concerned with a Cabinet decision to change Egypt’s visa regulations, requiring visitors to obtain visas before arrival.,,,Visitors from Europe, the United States, or Gulf countries were given visas upon entry at the airport; this however, is set to change from now on. Visitors will be required to obtain visas from Egyptian embassies and consulates abroad.

 

“I was told by the minister of tourism that this won’t be applied right away,” Elhamy ElZayat, head of the Egyptian Tourism Federation, told Daily News Egypt....The new rules will affect citizens from the United States, Europe, Australia, the Gulf, Africa, Latin America, and Asia, Cabinet spokesman Mohamed Hegazy told The Associated Press.

 

http://thedailynewsegypt.com/other-top-stories/egypts-new-tourist-visa-policy-raises-concern.html

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904103404576560971371481098.html

[cruisemom42]

Egypt has just changed their Visa policy. I don't know if or how it will affect cruise passengers.

 

9.9.2011: Egypt's new tourist visa policy raises concern

 

CAIRO: Tourism officials are concerned with a Cabinet decision to change Egypt’s visa regulations, requiring visitors to obtain visas before arrival.,,,Visitors from Europe, the United States, or Gulf countries were given visas upon entry at the airport; this however, is set to change from now on. Visitors will be required to obtain visas from Egyptian embassies and consulates abroad.

 

“I was told by the minister of tourism that this won’t be applied right away,” Elhamy ElZayat, head of the Egyptian Tourism Federation, told Daily News Egypt....The new rules will affect citizens from the United States, Europe, Australia, the Gulf, Africa, Latin America, and Asia, Cabinet spokesman Mohamed Hegazy told The Associated Press.

 

http://thedailynewsegypt.com/other-top-stories/egypts-new-tourist-visa-policy-raises-concern.html

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904103404576560971371481098.html

 

That decision has now been put on hold due to the extremely negative effects on the tourism industry in Egypt, according to this news article:

 

http://thedailynewsegypt.com/tourism/changes-to-egypt-visa-regulations-revoked.html

 

It certainly is a volatile situation that bears watching.

[icat2000]

I'm not cruising to Egypt. However, I am doing a three week land based tour in December/January. I have to watch the situation to see how it develops. I think they are going to have elections soon.

 

Even though I live in Australia, I travel on an NZ passport. That country is not listed in that article.

[Mooder]

Thank goodness for this thread! I love the format as a mini-FAQ that addressed every question I have. It's so much easier to see the patterns than having people just free-form individual narrative responses about visa experiences, and the format assures that the same info comes out in almost every post.

 

If anyone wants to answer with recent info, it would be appreciated - that's why I wanted to bump the thread. I interpreted the requirement the same way as most have answered here, but just got a different response on the phone directly from NCL.

 

Regarding Egypt, NCL's website says: "All guests who wish to go ashore require a visa and will receive a Quick-Trip stamp which is issued in passports upon the ship's arrival at no cost." The NCL rep said that this means you need a visa AND a Quick Trip stamp, so you have to get the visa ahead of time. She also said that the QT stamp on board was only for those on ship-sponsored SE's. I am taking the train from Alexandria to Cairo - not a ship-sponsored event - so I was all ears for that.

 

Updates welcome and appreciated. Much thanks to the OP for starting one of the most organized threads I've seen yet! Now I have to go over and look for a similar thread for Turkey - not sure I got the correct information there either.

 

J

 

I really that to say this since I love NCL, but never call them for questions like this. Training of phone reps is their greatest weakness in my opinion. Last year, I couldn't find out whether they had a shuttle from Venice to the port and have had many similar experiences with them on the phone. Much better to trust the experiences of recent cruisers. Sad but true.

[adaminaby]

Has anyone had the experience of ending a cruise in Egypt, disembarking and staying in Cairo for two days , and then departing the country from the Cairo airport?

 

Was an individual visa required?

Have you been to Egypt yet if so how did you go with the visa situation,we are disembarking in safaga then going to luxor,cairo for 10 days independantly then departing from cairo airport would be more than interested in your information,from what i read on cc the quick stay visa is only for 72 hrs so did you get a tourist visa at the port ?:confused: