OK..this counts as first time....PASSPORT

[Pafuncouple]

This is the first time we've had to have a passport. So where do you get your passport "STAMPED" to show that you have been to an island, country or where ever the ship visited? Is it on the ship, is it in port?

Thanks

[Pafuncouple]

Nobody ever get thier passport stamped??? Somebodys got to answer.

[Kuki]

If you are cruising in the Caribbean you won't go through passport in control in any of your ports of call, so you won't get it stamped at all.

In fact, when you get off the ship in a port of call I'd recommend leaving it in the safe in your cabin, and not carrying it with you.

[TomS]

I've been on eight cruises and I've never had a passport stamped. The closest I've had that done is when I returned to Long Beach the ICE agent took my passport and scanned it. This doesn't just apply to cruises. The couple of times my wife and I went to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, the Immigration Canada agent never even looked at our passports (although we had them in hand just in case).

[richstacy]

Well I've had two passports filled up with stamps. What Kuki says about the Caribbean is of course true, but you can take it ashore and sometimes go to a government building and get it stamped if you really want to.

In more exotic locations all around the world, sometimes the ship will collect the passports, and the immigration or customs authorities will go thru all the passports and stamp them before they clear the ship. Sometimes, (like China and Russia they make you stand there and compare your picture on the passport before they will let you off. On a recent far-east cruise, we got stamped by Hong Kong, China, Japan, Korea, and Russia. The only ones who didn't stamp us were our friends in Canada.

[Pafuncouple]

Thanks Rich,

Thats what I thought about getting them stamped, friends of ours have stamps all in the book.

Enjoy

[Ephraim]

Fewer and fewer countries now stamp your passport. Canada doesn't always bother. In Europe you usually get stamped in the country you enter and the country you leave, but not in between.

Haven't had mine stamped in the Caribbean or Mexico at all. US CBP used to stamp mine, but even they skip it now, since almost everyone is showing a passport.

Scary part for me is the new enhanced driver's licence. Apparently they can read it right from your wallet.... For me that's scary, that someone can read it from 10 metres away (over 30 feet). Someone could walk around with an RFID reader and be reading all those driver's licences.

[richstacy]

"Someone could walk around with an RFID reader and be reading all those driver's licences"

Technology? Or shades of Orwell's 'Big Brother?'

[Ephraim]

Worse, if you ask me. The RFID people are even against it. Imagine that the police could just run down the street checking... at least in Big Brother you had to be near a screen... here they simply scan you.

[richstacy]

Yep, Orwell never imagined how good, er bad technology could get.