Naturalization Documents and Online Check-in

[Lady_S]

I'm traveling to the Caribbean (closed-loop) with a family who uploaded naturalization documents as identification. The children are adopted and don't have birth certificates. The website says they are accepted, but the online check-in was rejected (with no specific reason included). I can only assume it's because we couldn't choose "naturalization" as a drop-down option with online check-in (which is odd). The options were birth certificate, passport, consular certification of birth, etc.

Has anyone used naturalization documents either at online check-in or the port? It looks like they should be accepted at the port and online check-in just has flaws, but it would relieve some anxiety if we could confirm this before leaving. Thanks!

 

[MomOTwins]

I'm traveling to the Caribbean (closed-loop) with a family who uploaded naturalization documents as identification. The children are adopted and don't have birth certificates. The website says they are accepted, but the online check-in was rejected (with no specific reason included). I can only assume it's because we couldn't choose "naturalization" as a drop-down option with online check-in (which is odd). The options were birth certificate, passport, consular certification of birth, etc.

Has anyone used naturalization documents either at online check-in or the port? It looks like they should be accepted at the port and online check-in just has flaws, but it would relieve some anxiety if we could confirm this before leaving. Thanks!

I agree it says Original Certificate of Naturalization issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is accepted, so if that is what they provided it should suffice. sometimes pictures are rejected because they are not clear so I would retake all pictures—both security pictures of each person and naturalization certificates—and upload again and resubmit. Most rejections we are seeing in our cruise group are from the security photo—bad lighting in the profile photo or people wearing hats that cover faces or not doing shoulders up, so do double check thise security photos too.

Note: It does say original not copy (birth certificate can be copy) so I’d make sure to bring the original to port.

 

[Lady_S]

I agree it says Original Certificate of Naturalization issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is accepted, so if that is what they provided it should suffice. sometimes pictures are rejected because they are not clear so I would retake all pictures—both security pictures of each person and naturalization certificates—and upload again and resubmit. Most rejections we are seeing in our cruise group are from the security photo—bad lighting in the profile photo or people wearing hats that cover faces or not doing shoulders up, so do double check thise security photos too.

Note: It does say original not copy (birth certificate can be copy) so I’d make sure to bring the original to port.

Thank you so much for this feedback! We uploaded a color scan of the document which probably made it appear as a copy and not original. We will try again with a color photo of the original.

 

[TinkLoverSam]

Thank you so much for this feedback! We uploaded a color scan of the document which probably made it appear as a copy and not original. We will try again with a color photo of the original.

I've also seen people mention that PDFs are being rejected and all documents need to be jpegs

 

[Clarkson U]

So I got an email 14 days out from our sailing that there was a problem with one of the photos for our online check in. When I logged into the account, I can see that DCL rejected my wife's photo. What is interesting is that they told me it looks similar to the photo on the govt ID and it has to be a different photo (both are correct - it is the same photo and it says has to be different). What I couldn't tell DCL is this is the 4th cruise we are sailing since October 2021 and I have already successfully used that exact same photo for my wife to sail in Oct 2021, Nov 2021, July 2022 and now for Oct 2022 they decide to tell me it doesn't meet policy. I find it funny and of course DCL needs a better QA/QC process.

I know people often wonder what happens when they reject something. So when I logged in, it told me that my port arrival form was not available and that my port arrival time was not available. Once I added a DIFFERENT photo of my wife for the process to check, it made those items available again. Also, it did not change anything of mine that I had already received. So my PAT stayed the same and my boarding group stayed the same also. So wanted to pass this along to provide some comfort to folks if it happens to you. I haven't heard about the new photo but it is a different photo of my wife (it's actually one from our July 2022 sailing and she is wearing her DCL lanyard in this photo)

 

[Strawvbry]

I’m actually about to do my online check-in two days from now and I’m worried because my partner has her naturalization documents and a state issued identification card. I wanted to know how your experience went with the online check-in after it got rejected and if everything was resolved

 

[Clarkson U]

I’m actually about to do my online check-in two days from now and I’m worried because my partner has her naturalization documents and a state issued identification card. I wanted to know how your experience went with the online check-in after it got rejected and if everything was resolved

We had no issues. About three days before sailing they approved her photo and we had a great cruise.

We are also checking in for our next cruise in two days - are you on the 8 nighter out of San Juan by any chance?

 

[RedHead0186]

So I got an email 14 days out from our sailing that there was a problem with one of the photos for our online check in. When I logged into the account, I can see that DCL rejected my wife's photo. What is interesting is that they told me it looks similar to the photo on the govt ID and it has to be a different photo (both are correct - it is the same photo and it says has to be different). What I couldn't tell DCL is this is the 4th cruise we are sailing since October 2021 and I have already successfully used that exact same photo for my wife to sail in Oct 2021, Nov 2021, July 2022 and now for Oct 2022 they decide to tell me it doesn't meet policy. I find it funny and of course DCL needs a better QA/QC process.

Well, it's a human that reviews all of those photos, so there is going to be some variation because, well, humans are humans. It is a little odd that a photo that worked previously didn't this time, but apparently whoever reviewed it this time took a stricter approach.

 

[katedrew94]

Just to save a hassle later- you can file for a state certificate of foreign birth and it is the same as a birth certificate. You can do that without readopting here. It has helped us at the DMV because the order of the name of my child’s Vietnamese birth certificate is in a different order than her American name and they were really being awful about it. They also didn’t trust the translation of my daughter’s documents, which is beyond ridiculous.