Visas and Immigration

Prior to the cruise, we had to obtain visas for China and India ourselves. This involved mailing our passports to a visa agency and paying about $150 each for each of the two visas. This process took 4 to 5 weeks. (Passengers who live in a city with embassies can handle in one day by going directly to the embassies.)

If you go to Russia (Leningrad for those on the Dover to Stockholm add-on to the cruise) and you plan a excursion on your own, you need to get a visa for Russia. If you go on a ship’s excursion, you do not need a visa.

For all of the other destinations, Princess gets the visas for you and bills your account.

We also need to clear immigration at each new country. This is done on the ship. Typically immigration agents come on board after the ship reaches port and sets up in one of the lounges. It usually takes about 1-1/2 hours to clear everyone. Princess has our forms about 90% completed for us. We have to add some info, sign and wait in line. There is some anxiety among the passengers who want to get off the ship as quickly as possible.

In Australia the immigration agents came out to the ship a day or two early and stayed on the ship. This allowed us to clear immigration prior to the ship’s arrival. This provided welcome additional time on land when the ship arrived.

The Japanese immigration was interesting. They must have pre-cleared our passports (which Princess holds for us). We presented a one-page form. They had a wine-box size box that took an electronic finger print of both index fingers and took our photo. This whole process took about 20-30 seconds per passenger. We were impressed at how efficient this was done. Afterward we noted that not a single passenger expressed any concern about infringement of our privacy rights by the finger printing. We all were just delighted that the process was so quick. A bit eye-opening given the fuss that happens whenever the US talks about any identification verification program in our country.