Am going on Celebrity Summit on 11-14-08 and ran across a section on VISA's in info book. Visited the state dept. site, which said tourists must have one and they can be purchased for $20 upon arrival. Is this true for cruise ship passengers? Info unclear on website. Can someone help with this? Haven't checked out the rules for Greece yet? Thanks for any info.
Lyn, Thanks so much for the info. I did check Greece and they only require a passport either way. This should be made more clear on the State Dept. page. Thanks again.
Turkey is not in the EU yet. So the cruise lines have to handle the visa issues for all the guests. You will have already paid the fee in your cruise fare.
On Carnival, they took our passports the first day and retained them until after we left Turkey to return to Greece (EU). They had customs come on board and stamp Visas on all the passports so we wouldn't have to wait in line to get off the ship in Turkey. Then then gave us our passports back. It was actually a fairly good system for doing it and worked well.
I guess what I am saying is you shouldn't have to do anything "special".
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Originally posted by Pineapple:
Lyn, Thanks so much for the info. I did check Greece and they only require a passport either way. This should be made more clear on the State Dept. page. Thanks again.
Lyn, I did not go to the first link you sent, "Turkish Embassy," until I saw your last remark. After linking to your site, I see that it is spelled out clearly for cruise ship passengers. On the travel.state.gov site, I could not find where cruise passengers were addressed at all. The info on Greece just stated that US citizens only needed a passport and not a visa, so that was more clear. The other person who wrote about the cruise line taking up passports to get visa stamps makes sense. Seems I have heard of this. Thanks to all.
Originally posted by Jim C.:
On Carnival, they took our passports the first day and retained them until after we left Turkey to return to Greece (EU). They had customs come on board and stamp Visas on all the passports so we wouldn't have to wait in line to get off the ship in Turkey. Then then gave us our passports back.
Jim, that is an excellent system. It prevents lines and it provents anger at the gates when someone is trying to disembark.
We just returned from a Princess cruise and the Visas were provided by the cruise line at no additional charge. We used a local tour co and were pleasantly surprised. Same price as the cruise line excursion, but two people instead of 32. www.ekol.com
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