Parental permission for cruise

[Aunt Jo]

I hope someone out there has experience with this or knows it this is true. My DSis, DBIL, their son and his daughter are going on a Disney cruise in June. Their son is divorced and has full custody of his daughter. The mother is only allowed supervised visitation twice a month. The TA has told them they must get signed consent from the mother to take her on this cruise. That seems really ridiculous to me. It gives the mother an opportunity to retaliate for not being able to get custody of the child. Looks like the divorce papers would be sufficient. Does anyone know?

 

[ducklite]

I hope someone out there has experience with this or knows it this is true. My DSis, DBIL, their son and his daughter are going on a Disney cruise in June. Their son is divorced and has full custody of his daughter. The mother is only allowed supervised visitation twice a month. The TA has told them they must get signed consent from the mother to take her on this cruise. That seems really ridiculous to me. It gives the mother an opportunity to retaliate for not being able to get custody of the child. Looks like the divorce papers would be sufficient. Does anyone know?

If he's got full legal and physocal custody, and it says so in the divorce papers, bring them along and you'll be fine.

Anne

 

[Esmerelda]

Ditto the above poster. I too was a single mom and did 2 different cruises with my boys. I only had to show my divorce papers stating I had full custody (and actually they stayed in the envelope, the cruise line didn't even have me physically show them).

Reminder: in order to cruise after 2006, you MUST have a passport for all that are cruising. I am already working on all of ours.

have fun!
Esmerelda

 

[Belle0101]

I have sole custody of DS10. I can't speak for other areas of the country but my attorney explained to me that my ex can't give permission for anything because of that, everything falls on me.

I'd show the divorce papers and if that fails ask the attorney to draft a formal letter to the TA explaining the law.

 

[laginog001]

We've taken other people's children (nephews and Godson) on cruises several times. Every time, we've been told to bring permission slips from the parents so we did. There's a free one the legaldocs .com website if anyone goes that route. We have not taken Disney Cruiseline, only Princess and RCI. Only once out of probably five times did they ask to see the paperwork from the parents. However, I would not have wanted to be turned away at the port if I didn't have the correct paperwork. I have heard of other people (on cruiseline chat boards - cruisecritic) getting letters from judges stating that they have sole custody so they don't need the paperwork signed.

 

[Aunt Jo]

Thanks so much for the replies. It just didn't make sense to me that this mother should be able to give permission for anything involving this child. I will pass this along to the father.

 

[pezpam]

Make sure you distinguish between legal and physical custody. If he has full legal custody, it should be fine. If he has physical custody, but they share legal custody, he may need that permission......

If he does need permission and really thinks it will be a potential problem, have him ask and get an answer ASAP. If she refuses without a good reason, he should talk to his lawyer. A judge is not likely to look on her refusal without reason in a good light and her lawyer will know that.......

I know how wrenching this is. So far, my ex has been reasonable about these permission slips. DD and I had a family wedding in Canada we would not have been able to attend without one and BOY did the Canadian border guards look over that permission letter and ask a mess of questions to be sure I wasn't kidnapping my daughter...... Better to be 100% sure than to be turned back at the gate. (He specified in our divorce papers that I could take her and MOVE overseas, but apparently a VISIT still needs permission. Love beaurocracy......)

All good thoughts to them.

 

[2Princes2Princesses]

Everything everyone has said sounds correct to me. I have full legal custody of my 2 older kids....I let their dad take them whenever he wants, so he never bothered with contesting my custody.

If he has full legal custody, he will not require her permission to take her. I would, however, be cautious if her visitation falls during the cruise. Is the visitation court ordered?? If it is, he may get in trouble for not producing the child for the court ordered supervised visitation. But that is something he may be able to get permission for from the court, rather than his ex.

He may be able to go in, see the judge and request that the dates of visitation be changed for this circumstance. Then she cannot prevent him from going.

What a terrible situation for that poor child.....that her mother would make her miss a great trip just for revenge.

My ex makes me mad, but I would never penalize my kids for it. As long as their safety is not in question, I always let them go places with him or stay at his house when he asks to have them.

Good luck to them with this...hopefully there will be no problem.

 

[Aunt Jo]

The situation has been resolved. My BIL (the grandfather of the little girl) asked the mother to sign the release and she did without quibbling. My nephew, the father, has been more than generous with allowing the maternal grandmother to have the child on weekends whenever she asks. Of course, she winds up with her mother which is not supposed to happen but he turns a blind eye to that. It's a troubling situation. But in reality, the woman has no rights at all when it comes to the little girl except what he allows.

I just didn't want them to have to ask her to sign a release and I'm sure now that they didn't have to but they didn't want to take a chance.

Thanks again to all of you.