pbd456

i took a bus from durban to manzini (swaziland) and then just make it to maputo using a bus and obtained a visa on arrival at goba entry. i paid 900 swaziland rand without receipt. (i spend 2 days in swaziland.) there is direct bus from durban to maputo but would need to transit in swaziland...

TopGunner

Not for the fainted hearted, but ever since Moz announced no more VOA for American and other passport holders, truth is they will still take your money and give you a VOA because there is no benefit to them keeping people out. You may have to go back and forth with someone telling you that you should have a visa, but they will take your cash and stamp you in.

Worse comes to worst, they will do transit for you, collect your bags, have the airline check them in and escort you to international departures. And you get an escort all the way. It isn't like Western Europe, the Americas or some of Asia, they still have accommodation for misinformed or chance taking travelers.

My advice, get the VoA and take a day in Maputo, enjoy the Indian ocean view, some peri-peri chicken or fish and a place that will be different the next time you come back!

pbd456

check in at mpm is uneventful. lounge does not have good food... cost me 200 mzn for tuk tuk to airport. may be able to negotiate down

Cashew1977

We arrived in Maputo yesterday from JNB. Queues at immigration leaving JNB were fine - not as bad as others have had. The visa on arrival desk was open at MPM but a power cut as we arrived meant that their system was down. They took our passports telling us to come back in the morning to collect them when they would issue the visa. We went in to town to our hotel... In effect we were let into the country! When we turned up this morning, walked straight back into arrivals hall but no immigration officers in sight. Eventually found one at departures immigration and explained what had happened, he came and assisted and issued visas. Visas were 98usd or 2610 MZN or 690 ZAR ... so much cheaper in local currency. Needed to be a little assertive to ask for help as there were lots of people we asked who couldn't help.
All in all a risk but if it weren't for the power cut / system outage expect would have been without incident... oh and this was on Australian passports .
.

thois

I will share my experience starting my exMPM DONE ticket. Sorry for the long post, I think that at least some information could be useful for fellow travelers. I visited MPM for some days, so didn’t actually transited there, but had a stopover. Moderators, feel free to move to more appreciate place.
I ended my previous DONE5 in CPT. So, I needed to travel from CPT to MPM. I found cheap flights from CPT to JNB, but flights to MPM for my dates were bit expensive. I was feeling bit adventurous as there was cheap bus connections from JNB to MPM available. I booked bus ticket from Citiliner, who advertised to have “semi-luxury coaches”.

I was planning to try to get visa on arrival as my home country doesn’t have Mozambiqan embassy. However, after booking the bus tickets I got notification from the bus company, that I wouldn’t be allowed to board the bus without a visa, because per the bus company, visas on arrival are not offered anymore. I decided to apply visa in CPT to avoid later problems. Applying visa was easy, but it needed multiple visits to the embassy. The embassy in CPT take visa applications only between 8-12am. I was there first time in afternoon so I needed to come back on next day. It was same person who took my visa application on next day who said that I need to come back in morning, so it was bit weird why they couldn’t receive the visa application on afternoon. Cost of the visa was 600ZAR. It needed to be paid in their bank in cash, the embassy didn’t take any payments directly. I needed to go to specific bank branch to make the payment and bring the receipt back to the embassy. The whole process took around 2 hours.

Problems arise on afternoon, when I got a call from the embassy that they couldn’t give the visa because my passport was too new. In addition, the passport didn’t have South African entry stamp that was also told to be problem. The embassy figured out that I had double passport (although both are from same country, so that I can travel while processing visa with another passport). So, they demanded that I needed to provide my other passport to the embassy, otherwise they would have denied the visa. I swapped passports at the embassy following morning. It’s only possible to collect passport with visas between 14:00-16:00. There was delay getting the passport back as the embassy was open for last day before festive season. I got my passport back around 14:15. I had flight to JNB on 16:00. Because I needed to collect my luggage on the way from embassy to airport, I almost missed my flight, but fortunately the flight was bit delayed, so I could catch the flight. It didn’t help that I had oversize baggage with me. Don’t except to skip queues in South-African airports, there was no priority queue, I also asked if I could skip the queue because my flight was leaving in 5 mins, security just directed me to the end of queue and said that I should have come earlier. In the end, I just got on to the JNB flight just before closing the door, because the flight was so late.

The bus station in JNB Park station is completely zoo experience. The Greyhound and Citiliner buses are boarding only from one gate and there is multiple of night bus departures. Local people try to get as much as possible luggage on board, as the price level in South Africa is cheaper than MPM. People are queuing to bus with loads of groceries; fruits, onions and so on. I was forced to check my cabin bag, because the cabin shelfs was already full of eggs and the staff thought that the eggs were more fragile than my bag, even though I complained that I had fragile electronics in it.

The bus very new Volvo, but it had very packed 2-3 seat configuration with more narrow seats and less leg space than even cheapest low cost carriers’ planes that I have flown. I was hoping the get some sleep during the trip, but they screened movies with high volume until 3am and other passenger were very loud, so I didn’t get any sleep. Moreover, the bus driver wasn’t the best, it seemed that he didn’t remembered sometimes that he had trailer full of luggage when he accelerated after speed bumps. Crossing the land border is also very different experience compared to airport immigration.
And thanks for everyone here that helped with my DONE tickets, my just ended DONE5 was wonderful experience. I couldn’t have found that deal without help of Flyertalk. I hope the next trip will be as nice as the previous.

pbd456

can you please let me know which border crossing you used for entering mozambique. k had no problem getting visa on arrival.when k took a bus from manzini to mapita (goba ? is the crossing, i think.)

thois

The bus used Lebombo border crossing. It was the bus company that was demanding to have visa before travelling and they told the requirement only after booking. They checked visas before boarding the bus in JNB and made list of passport and visa numbers for border officials. Don't know if they really would had denied boarding the bus without visa, I just didn't wanted to take risks.

I also assume that Mozambican border officials would still have issued visa on arrival, even that it's not officially available, as other have been able to get.

pbd456

thank you. i think it rules out my second try to mozambique from jnb via bus. (i have another ticket in july.) since i have visited swaziland in this trip, i probabaly will issue an award ticket to mpm directly and get voa at mpm

beardoc

I have done two international to international MPM transits, and both times, I've just gone to immigration desk, explained I am going international to international, and they ask you to wait at the seats near the Medical Check Post prior to immigration. Then someone takes you upstairs to departures level. In both cases, I had already checked and didn't have luggage to check onwards with QR, but I got the impression that they would have walked me round to check in desks and then up to departures level.

On one occasion I had luggage to collect from after immigration, to take with me onboard with QR, and it wasn't an issue. They let me walk through immigration to retrieve the bags and then bring them back pre-immigration.

If you're lucky enough to have HLO and are at the right place, they have an elevator as you get off the aerobridges (just before the escalator down to immigration) that takes you to a security desk and makes international transits really easy, but it's not always open so you have to head down to immigration.

They don't ask you for visas or money for visa on arrival.

ksuckow

I have just arrived in Maputo on a flight from JNB. I am a US citizen, did not have a visa and had no difficulties at all in getting a visa on arrival. It was processed in 10 minutes. We will overnight here and begin our Emerites booking tomorrow. I was asked for the following: proof of hotel booking,copy of ticket for tomorrow's flight, and application for visa which we had filled out but they had forms available if you did not. The cost was 400 zar or $31.38. I was a bit anxious about this entry into Mozambique as I have read conflicting reports but our experience today was very smooth.

allset2travel

Thanks for sharing your transit experiences at MPM. Very helpful.
My bold. When you transited intl to intl, do you recall how much time that it took? From off the first flight to arriving at the boarding gate of the next flight.

Same question as above. Thank you.

allset2travel

Thank you for sharing! Very helpful. ^

skunker

If you can time it right, I would recommend just doing a transit or get your visa prior to arrival. I flew CPT-JNB-MPM, spent a day, and then flew out. The immigration issues were a pain. I went without a visa, so I had to do a VOA. There were about 8 of us and only 2 people processing them as a team. It took about 45 minutes. Cost was 420ZAR, 30EUR, or 32USD. I don't remember the MZN price. The sheet was dated 3/31. They were very confused on why I was only staying one day, but didn't ask for any paperwork about hotel or departing flight.

Immigration to leave again took about 45 minutes as there were flights on QR, SA, TK, and LM all leaving around the same time.

danger

Presumably that payment in local currencies in in cash only, correct?

skunker

Yes, cash only. They had limited change for each of the currencies, so bring small bills or you could end up paying more than you should.