Question for Eastern Caribbean itineraries

[lulucornbread]

What ports require passports for you to disembark? I always thought you just needed a photocopy with you instead of your actual passport.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

What ports require passports for you to disembark? I always thought you just needed a photocopy with you instead of your actual passport.

AFAIK, none of the ports require a passport to debark. Most ports we just used our KTTW card and a driver's license to gain admittance to the port area when returning to the ship.

What ports does your cruise go to?

Now, some people feel more comfortable taking their passports with them off the ship, but, in most cases, it's not required.

 

[lulucornbread]

Ah ok.. thank you. I thought someone suggested a photocopy of your passport in case you missed the ship & it made leaving the country easier. I would not want to carry our passports around if possible.

We are going to St. Maarten, St. John/St. Thomas & Castaway Cay

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Ah ok.. thank you. I thought someone suggested a photocopy of your passport in case you missed the ship & it made leaving the country easier. I would not want to carry our passports around if possible.

We are going to St. Maarten, St. John/St. Thomas & Castaway Cay

St. Thomas, St. Maarten and Castaway Cay do not require a passport while in port. However, you are required to have your KTTW card and a photo ID for admission back into the port area to reboard the ship.

In case you miss the ship - well, yes you would need your passport to fly out, but, in all the reports that I've read when someone misses the ship, they will go to your room (if you haven't boarded by the time they are departing) and open the safe to search for passports for everyone. And leave them with the port agent for your retrieval.

 

[lulucornbread]

If I have children, do I need their passports as their ID?

 

[PrincessShmoo]

If I have children, do I need their passports as their ID?

No, only their KTTW card (under 18).

 

[tvguy]

Passports are not REQUIRED. But Passports are always a good idea when you (and your children) are traveling out of the country because if there was an emergency and you had to fly home, THEN you would need a Passport. And I always take my Passport with me when I leave the ship in a foreign port, and leave the color copy in the safe on the ship. The copy is for if you lose your original. Your original is what you would need in a foreign port in an emergency.

And Passports come in handy in everyday life at home for getting a new job and needing to prove citizenship, or signing your child up for school, or Little League, or Soccer or getting their first Driver's License or for that school trip out of the country with the band, or choir or for a special education program..

 

[lulucornbread]

We have passports.. just makes me nervous in carry them around casually on a beach. Sorry, probably being too paranoid

 

[Club Disney Chandler]

I never carry a paper copy of ours but my wife, kids and I all have a picture of all of our passports on our phones just in case

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

We did the eastern and passports were not required.

 

[Tonka's Skipper]

WE HAVE done the eastern and western cruises and were not required to have a Passport.

However we had them and strongly recommend everyone sail with a passport for all the reason listed in other threads.

AKK

 

[bumbershoot]

We are people who take their passports off the ship. We haven't yet done a beach excursion apart from castaway and coco cays (and for those we do NOT take passports off the ship because we are confident that Disney and Royal know where we are lol) and keep our stuff as secure as possible. I have zero interest in trusting that an employee will go to our stateroom in time should we have a problem.

 

[katiep8203]

Kids need the passports to go on the trip. We had to buy them and enter them during online check-in. I know some folks just do the cards but we didn't want to take chances, just purchased passports for all of us (my passport and my husbands were both expired). We did not take our passports off the boat. Disney's got it together. I think though, if you book excursions that are NOT through Disney, I'd find a way to take at least a copy of your passport, because you're not guaranteed to get back in time to the boat. Even when we were in Jamaica and did not have a particular Disney excursion planned, the folks at the port/giving us rides to Montego Bay had to take down our stateroom numbers, etc.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Kids need the passports to go on the trip. We had to buy them and enter them during online check-in.

What trip are you talking about?

 

[katiep8203]

I mean to get on the ship in the very beginning, to start your trip, we had to have their passport numbers when we did the online check-in before we arrived to get on the boat.

 

[bumbershoot]

I mean to get on the ship in the very beginning, to start your trip, we had to have their passport numbers when we did the online check-in before we arrived to get on the boat.

If they are US citizens and you're going on a closed loop cruise leaving from the US, they didn't. If a card *would* have been allowed, you could actually have just used birth certificates (passport *card* gives you nothing that BC doesn't). That's why the question of "which cruise" was important.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

I mean to get on the ship in the very beginning, to start your trip, we had to have their passport numbers when we did the online check-in before we arrived to get on the boat.

As noted, closed-loop cruises do not require a passport of US citizens. The minimum necessary is a birth certificate and (for those 16 and over) a government-issued photo ID.

When doing your online check in, you can select that you are using passports or other ID.