Schengen rules

[barney]

Has anybody read anything about how EU Schengen rules will be applied to cruise passengers?

Currently, you need a passport stamp on arrival and a second on departure.
Obviously that won’t work with thousands disembarking in a short period of time.
I’m assuming that we will have to have some sort of passport check every time we get off and then back on.
Maybe just a scan will suffice but even with that, it will overwhelm port authorities when big ships are in.
Just imagine Iona and Britannia in port on the same day.

[towny44]

Has anybody read anything about how EU Schengen rules will be applied to cruise passengers?

Currently, you need a passport stamp on arrival and a second on departure.
Obviously that won’t work with thousands disembarking in a short period of time.
I’m assuming that we will have to have some sort of passport check every time we get off and then back on.
Maybe just a scan will suffice but even with that, it will overwhelm port authorities when big ships are in.
Just imagine Iona and Britannia in port on the same day.

Well for a normal organisation then a download of passport details from the cruise line should be OK, but this is managed by the EU bloated beaurocrats from Brussels, so they will undoubtedly require teams of completed paper documents.

[Mervyn and Trish]

Madeira have installed E-gates exclusively for UK passengers arriving by air so I assume a physical stamp will not always be required.

[barney]

From mid 2022 all Schengen countries are supposed to be using a biometric system but even if they do, all passports will need to be physically checked.
They expect Channel crossing passengers will need to get out of their cars for passport control rather than just driving through.
Obviously that will be quite chaotic given the French attitude to U.K. travellers .
I suspect that cruise ships may be treated differently given the amount of passengers disembarking in a short period of time.
In Malta, they appear to be intending to basically ignore the requirement.
They don’t want to do anything to discourage U.K. tourists.

[Jan Rosser]

How interesting this came up today after the experience my son had flying from Luxembourg to Dublin via Munich this week. He has lived and worked in Luxembourg since 1997 and is employed by the European Investment Bank (a subsidiary of the EU) but is still a British subject and since Brexit he is no longer eligible to use the EU passport control line - he has to queue with all other non-European travellers. He had to show proof of residency in Luxembourg - his employer - his reason for travel and this took him 40 minutes. Arrival in Dublin was okay as there is some system in place for British passport holders so no hold up there. His return was a direct flight from Dublin to Luxembourg - no problems on return at Luxembourg airport. It may be a German thing and other countries will be more accommodating!

He wasn't pleased especially as he was not a fan of Brexit - I remember the conversation the day after the votes were counted - shell shocked as were most of his colleagues. It would have been amusing if he had travelled with his family - his wife is a citizen of Luxembourg and his sons have dual nationality and have both British and Luxembourg passports so they could have sailed through the EU channel and he would have had to go through the non EU members channel - I know I shouldn't laugh but I can imagine how annoyed he would have been

[Meg 50]

He wasn't pleased especially as he was not a fan of Brexit - I remember the conversation the day after the votes were counted - shell shocked as were most of his colleagues. It would have been amusing if he had travelled with his family - his wife is a citizen of Luxembourg and his sons have dual nationality and have both British and Luxembourg passports so they could have sailed through the EU channel and he would have had to go through the non EU members channel - I know I shouldn't laugh but I can imagine how annoyed he would have been

how old are his children? My niece ( born in Switzerland in '81) has dual Swiss and UK nationality - having a UK born father, but her brother born 2 years later didn't qualify and is totally swiss cos the rules had changed.

[barney]

My point really was about literally thousands of U.K. passport holders disembarking a huge cruise liner at the same time.
Do you think that they will have some kind of system in place for the actual volume or can we expect massive queues to get off and on.
A possible example could be you get off in Barcelona and your passport is scanned to show arrival. You then go back for a spot of lunch so your passport is scanned again to show your departure. You then decide to go back into town so you ‘arrive’ again then a couple of hours later, you depart again.
This particular cruise is an overnight in Barcelona so you decide to go out in the evening.
You then again get scanned as an arrival and again scanned as a departure.
It’s so very different to airport arrivals.

Then, your next port is Malaga, and it starts all over again.
Then again in Cadiz.
I haven’t read or heard anything about this from cruise companies.

[Jan Rosser]

He wasn't pleased especially as he was not a fan of Brexit - I remember the conversation the day after the votes were counted - shell shocked as were most of his colleagues. It would have been amusing if he had travelled with his family - his wife is a citizen of Luxembourg and his sons have dual nationality and have both British and Luxembourg passports so they could have sailed through the EU channel and he would have had to go through the non EU members channel - I know I shouldn't laugh but I can imagine how annoyed he would have been

how old are his children? My niece ( born in Switzerland in '81) has dual Swiss and UK nationality - having a UK born father, but her brother born 2 years later didn't qualify and is totally swiss cos the rules had changed.

My grandsons are 18 and 16. My daughter-in-law has dual nationality too - her mother is Spanish so my dil has a Spanish passport too. My son is eligible for a Luxembourg passport - he is married to a Luxembourg national, has children born in the country, speaks the language and a few years ago sat citizenship exams but hasn’t done anything about it because he would have to give up an allowance for travel to his “home country Wales” and he’s not prepared to give this up yet. The trip to Dublin was work related. My grandson is a student at Maastricht university and they frequently drive there - no problems at all - no border controls - same driving to Spain last year.

[david63]

Do you think that they will have some kind of system in place for the actual volume or can we expect massive queues to get off and on.

Knowing the EU probably the latter!

They could have a system as in Canada where, if I remember correctly, passports are "bulk processed" on the ship and you just need to show your passport to Canadian security to get back onboard.

[barney]

I’d imagine that because the cruise company already store your passport details, every passenger could be deemed as entering the country whether they disembark or not.
They would just have to pass this on to the immigration authority in each country.
It would simply be down to the country to make sure that they don’t fall foul of EU laws.

[towny44]

I’d imagine that because the cruise company already store your passport details, every passenger could be deemed as entering the country whether they disembark or not.
They would just have to pass this on to the immigration authority in each country.
It would simply be down to the country to make sure that they don’t fall foul of EU laws.

The ship can identify those who go ashore via the cruise card, so they could provide an accurate list.

[Meg 50]

He wasn't pleased especially as he was not a fan of Brexit - I remember the conversation the day after the votes were counted - shell shocked as were most of his colleagues. It would have been amusing if he had travelled with his family - his wife is a citizen of Luxembourg and his sons have dual nationality and have both British and Luxembourg passports so they could have sailed through the EU channel and he would have had to go through the non EU members channel - I know I shouldn't laugh but I can imagine how annoyed he would have been

how old are his children? My niece ( born in Switzerland in '81) has dual Swiss and UK nationality - having a UK born father, but her brother born 2 years later didn't qualify and is totally swiss cos the rules had changed.

My grandsons are 18 and 16. My daughter-in-law has dual nationality too - her mother is Spanish so my dil has a Spanish passport too. My son is eligible for a Luxembourg passport - he is married to a Luxembourg national, has children born in the country, speaks the language and a few years ago sat citizenship exams but hasn’t done anything about it because he would have to give up an allowance for travel to his “home country Wales” and he’s not prepared to give this up yet. The trip to Dublin was work related. My grandson is a student at Maastricht university and they frequently drive there - no problems at all - no border controls - same driving to Spain last year.

interesting - perhaps my bro was different cos Switzerland isn't EU