Passports

[donag 13]

I am doing Aurora's South American cruise in Jan. It has 23 ports of call, 7 are Caribbean islands. Do any of the Caribbean islands require you to produce your passport for stamping. If they do I will have to get a replacement  passport, I will run out of empty pages.

[Land Ahoy 797]

Hi  I can't remember the last time I had my passport stamped in the Caribbean, so the answer is no you won't run out of pages.   Many islands now advise that you take your passport ashore, if you are visiting any of the USA Virgin Islands (eg St Thomas) you have to take your passport with you, it will be inspected.

[Davybe 529]

The ship will tell you at each port what you need to take with ,sometimes you need a passport and other times a copy of your passport will do.I its a fly Cruise You need to take care Flying back ,but P&O will give you any info you need...Davybe

Edited May 24, 2017 by Davybe

[june63 107]

In some of the Caribbean ports depending on your age - we found our 'bus pass' was equally acceptable

[BobTroll 43]

I assume you will be travelling on a UK Passport.

I experienced a similar problem last year, when I had to renew my passport two years early, because my jumbo 48-page passport had insufficient blank pages for the visas required for a cruise from Lisbon to Cape Town.  And my new one is filling far too quickly!

You haven't listed the countries you will visit but as far as I am aware, your itinerary to and from Southampton will include:

Portugal (Madeira), Cape Verde Islands, Brazil, Uruguay, the Falkland Islands, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Panama (you may go ashore at one end of the Canal), Colombia, Netherlands Antilles, Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Maarten, St. Kitts, and the Azores (Portugal).

Madeira and the Azores will not stamp your passport, because they are part of Portugal and are within the EEC.

I have visited all of the countries on your itinerary (at different times), with the exception of Colombia and Trinidad & Tobago.

I entered Barbados, Chile, Peru and Ecuador by air, so not surprisingly, officials at their airports stamped my passport.  I visited all of the other countries by sea.  As a cruise passenger, you might avoid a passport stamp in Barbados, but there is no guarantee.   Uruguay, Panama, Cape Verde Islands, and the various Caribbean islands did not stamp my passport. 

You should expect that all of the South American countries, with the exception of Uruguay, will stamp your passport.  None of the Caribbean Islands, with the possible exception of Barbados, will usually stamp passports of cruise passengers, who arrive and depart by sea.

At the time of writing, British citizens do not require visas for any of the countries on your itinerary.  That is good news, because each visa would require a full page.  Furthermore, it is not uncommon for several countries to share space on the same page of your passport.  But only you can decide whether you have sufficient space for all the stamps you will collect.

If in doubt, I would renew your passport.  You have spent a lot of money on this cruise and it would be a calamity, if P&O denied boarding, because your passport was full.  A new passport would be valid for ten years from the date of renewal, plus the unexpired validity from your old passport (up to a maximum of nine months unexpired validity). 

Edited July 24, 2017 by BobTroll

[Pesky Pirate 168]

In the past I have had two even three stamps put on one page. Not sure if they still do that though.

[Oldworldtraveller 2217]

20 minutes ago, Pesky Pirate said:

In the past I have had two even three stamps put on one page. Not sure if they still do that though.

On one of my pages I have 5 stamps Khasab, Muscat, Dubai in and out and Abu Dhabi. Another has 4, one of which is Barbados, the others are Al Massira, The Gambia and Senegal.