Excursion Questions

[18sprint]

Will be sailing to Tortola and St. Thomas soon. Question: do we need to take our passports with us, I am assuming so. Next, for all you folks that have done excursions, how do you carry your passports and ship card? I am not comfortable taking my billfold, besides the passport won't fit in it anyway! Next question: We are doing a snorkeling excursion (through Disney) off a boat. How do you stow your valuables when in the water? Sorry if these are dumb questions.

 

[Mommb]

In most ports, Disney Cruise will tell you is not necessary to carry a passport -- your Key to the World card (for everyone) and government-issued ID (for those 16 and older) are sufficient to reboard the ship. (There are a few ports, particularly in Europe, where passports are required -- those will be noted in Personal Navigators and during Cruise Director presentations.) Some people feel more comfortable carrying passports anyhow; others feel it is safer to leave your passport onboard.

I have never taken an excursion that involves being in the water, but I'm sure someone who has can provide information on how to carry valuables.

 

[Mainsail Minnie]

We had a DCL excursion on Tortola (B.V.I.) and were advised by DCL to keep passports locked up onboard. We explored St. Thomas (U.S.V.I.) on our own and it was the same thing. Everyone takes their ship KTTW card and adults also carry photo ID, not a passport. I recommend carrying a color photocopy of your passport with you whenever you are out of the U.S.A., though.

 

[abdgeek]

Will be sailing to Tortola and St. Thomas soon. Question: do we need to take our passports with us, I am assuming so. Next, for all you folks that have done excursions, how do you carry your passports and ship card? I am not comfortable taking my billfold, besides the passport won't fit in it anyway! Next question: We are doing a snorkeling excursion (through Disney) off a boat. How do you stow your valuables when in the water? Sorry if these are dumb questions.

As OP have said, leave your passport in your room safe unless DCL says to take it ashore. You don’t need it for just walking around. I always make a copy of the first page and keep it with me when I am off the ship. I also leave a copy at home with my emergency contact in case it is lost or stolen while I’m on vacation. You can also take a picture of it and keep it on your phone. While none of these replaces the original, it should make getting a replacement easier if you find that you need to.

When I go on snorkeling excursions, I always minimize the valuables I take with me. I usually only take my drivers license, key card, and some cash or a credit card. These I put in a waterproof case that I clip to my swimsuit and wear in the water. There are also waterproof cases that you can put your phone in and use in the water, but in my experience they don’t allow you to take pictures underwater. That being said, I have also left my phone in my bag on the boat and no one has bothered it. Typically, only the crew are on the boat while everyone is in the water—unless a member of the tour group isn’t swimming. The key is to do what makes you comfortable and have fun. You want to have cash in case you need to pay for specific drinks on the excursion or want to leave a tip for the tour operator.

 

[kylaura]

Keep passport in your safe. Get a waterproof case you can put your phone and credit cards in. Your bag is usually safe on the boat.

 

[dvcgirl1]

We have been on several snorkeling excursions, and, like you, we wondered about leaving our valuables back on the boat while we were in the water. You can get one of those dry box things that you wear while in the water, but no one wanted to really have that thing hanging on them while swimming. We just put our trust in the reputable boat crew and left our backpack on the boat. We didnt bring much with us anyway, but there was cash and phones. We just shoved the valuable stuff to the bottom, stuffed a towel on top (making it a tiny bit harder to steal out of unless you stand there and rummage through it.)There were only 2-3 crew on the boat, and a few other passengers, so we just had to trust that no one would bother it. We've been fine so far.

 

[Calantha]

While we minimized the valuables we brought with us when out and about, we also got a SAFEGO Portable Indoor/Outdoor Lock Box Safe from Amazon. It fit in our bag - and I used it everywhere - on excursions, on Castaway, and at the pool.

 

[MomOTwins]

I would absolutely not take my passport off the ship--as someone who has had her passport stolen in another country and had to deal with the very very inconvenient fallout, the risk of theft is simply too high and too out of my control for me to be comfortable with it. On the remote possibility that we might miss the boat (which we minimize by only booking DCL excursions), I have heard that DCL will retrieve your passport from your room safe and leave it with the ship's agent onshore so you can travel to the next port to catch the ship.

I take my driver's license, KTTW card, a credit card, cash, and phone with me in a lanyard. I plan to use a high-quality waterproof phone case for our resort day so I can swim with it. But in your case, I would just leave my items on the excursion boat while snorkeling. I trust DCL to hire reputable excursion agents, and I would check that my items had not gone astray immediately upon re-boarding the boat (even then, my concern would be theft by other passengers, not the boat staff; but if anything was missing the cruise passengers are a "captive audience" and presumably could have their bags searched for my missing items).