jonesing

If you want a stamp as a cheap souvenir (and to not have a totally blank passport) then you'll have to ask one of the ship's officers when you disembark. Usually there's an immigration stand or office near the dock or at the end of the pier.

One thing to consider for cruises is the passport card. It's the same size as a DL and is just as easy to carry (unlike the traditional passport book). It's a passport so it satisfies the WHTI requirements. It's a plastic card so you don't have to worry about the pages getting wet while on the beach. It's also cheap--$20 if you alread have a passport book, $45 if not.

There are a some drawbacks however:

• It's only valid for land or sea border crossings into the US from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda
• Not valid for air travel (Some would say that's not good for an emergency evacuation by air from Aruba. Or if you just miss the ship in St. Maarten and need to fly to the next port.)
• You won't get immigration stamps from the countries you visit

Personally, I'm getting the cards for the whole family as I'm usually the "keeper o' documents" for our entire party which will be 7 people for our next cruise. I managed to stuff 4 passports into my inside the waist hidden pouch but 7 passport cards should be a snap!

kebosabi

On my Greece-Turkey cruise with my ex-fiancee last year, we had to hand over our passport to the ship. We got them back at the end of the cruise, but they stamped our passports horridly. My passport has never been "clean" ever since

Greece EU entry stamp ATH page 9
Greece EU exit stamp at port of Mikonos page 11
No Turkish entry/exit stamp
Greece EU entry stamp at port of Patmos page 9
Greece EU exit stamp at ATH page 13

Why do EU officers stamp things so randomly? I love how countries in Asia and Latin America keeps it so clean.

And seriously, EU stamps needs more variety. Some of them are so shallow stamped it is barely legible to read!

6rugrats

I'm not sure why anyone would get a passport card. They seem pretty useless; you can just use a driver's license and your birth certificate instead. I don't understand why someone would not just go ahead and get a regular passport.

Also, why would you carry your passport around with you onshore while on a cruise? I never have. The only time I needed it, and a copy worked just fine, was to get a VAT refund while making a purchase in France.

skofarrell

Birth cert won't work after June 1, 2009.

The card iss only valid for land/sea. If you cross the border into Canada or Mexico on a frequent basis, a card is a lot easier to carry than a passport (or your birth cert!).

cruisemates

Passports are not yet required for entering the US from Mexico, Canada or most of the Caribbean until June 2009. After that, they will be mandatory for sea entrances unless you have a suitable alternative: the passport card or an Enhanced Drivers License.

Look up the WHTI for more information.

CaptainMiles

You can leave your passport with the purser's desk, and ask them to ask the immigration officials of Mexico and Belize to stamp your passports when they clear the ship. It works most of the time. On a recent cruise that stopped in five different countries I got all five stamps without ever handling my passport. The purser did it all.

Tenerife

Glad you said "sea entrances" (bold print is mine). On cruisecritic and elsewhere there are several postings about families having to leave their ship because of illness (or being thrown off by the captain). Those without passports encountered major expense by having to have a passport arranged in one of the caribbean (non U.S.) countries in order to fly home. Perhaps a bit less of a problem if they had been in Mexico or Canada at the time!

apw2886

When we cruised the Baltic Sea on Holland America last summer, they collected all passports at check-in "as a convenience" for us in order to make copies for the ports which would require them. Not being comfortable with turning over my passport - and having followed the pre-sail instructions and brought 2 copies with me - I offered a color photocopy. It was refused and I was told that I must hand over my passport in order to board the ship. Needless to say, I did so despite my reservations, and retrieved it in a somewhat chaotic return process the next day. No one from our 29 member party had problems in having their passport returned.

The only port where we were required to show our passport was St. Petersburg, Russia. There, grim-faced matrons examined everyone's paperwork closely, carefully matching faces to photos, and stamped the passports on entrance and exit each of the days that we toured there. We were with a private guided tour, so also needed to provide a paper from the tour company. If you are touring on your own, you need a Russian visa. It was funny to be greeted by a band attempting to play New Orleans jazz - we would have loved to be treated to some traditional folk music instead! It was not funny when armed guards boarded our tour bus to check paperwork as we re-entered the port on the second day, but our tour provider made that all flow smoothly.

In Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Germany and Denmark no one worried about paperwork. They greeted the cruise ship - and our tourist dollars - with big smiles! We did show passports flying in and out of Copenhagen and on entering the US.

cordelli

Wow, we cruised the baltics with the Russian trip in 2000, and it sounds like we had the same matron you did. I remember commenting how much her neck must have hurt from looking down at the passport, and back up at your face, down and up, over and over again.