Passport and Documents

Passport, Documents & Port Clearance

Passport and Visa Requirements

You must have your passport with you to board Falkor (too).  Even if you’re leaving from and arriving in your own country, the immigration procedures for foreign vessels require that everyone has a passport.  We also ask that you have a passport should we have to divert to a foreign port in the case of an emergency, illness or mechanical trouble.

Visa requirements vary from country to country and also depend on what nation’s passport you hold.  Please research what your visa requirements are.  There may be additional information from the Chief Scientist.  For example, some nations require a separate visa for individuals arriving and/or departing by sea.    Multiple entry visas are often required.  Please check requirements and plan accordingly.

While Schmidt Ocean Institute does not advise on visa requirements, past participants have found that for all cruises arriving or departing from the United States or US dependencies, all non-US Citizens are required to have a multi-entry visa of types Student (F1), Exchange Visitor (J1), Business (B1) or Visitor (B2) in order to sail on  Falkor (too).  Waiver visas and ESTAs (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) are not sufficient.

Your passport needs to be valid for a minimum of six months after the end of the cruise.  This is because most countries require passports to have at least six months remaining validity, and you’ll often need to pass through a foreign country to get home at the end of the cruise.

Even if Falkor (too) is departing from and arriving in the same country, residents of that country are still required to have a passport.

Passport Procedures On Board Falkor (too)

Please give your passport to the Purser upon arriving at the vessel. The Purser will keep these in the safe of the ship’s office for the duration of the voyage.  This allows the Purser to reconfirm your passport details for clearance purposes as well as  provide them to immigration in the next port during the clearance process.  Additionally, the Purser will be able to quickly grab all passports in case of an emergency or an abandon ship situation.

Upon entering port, customs and immigration officials will board the ship in order to complete a ship’s clearance.  It is not always necessary for you to be present during this procedure but please be on board and contactable in case any official forms need to be filled in and signed.  Once the ship has been ‘cleared’, the Captain will announce over the public address system that it is ok for scientists and crew members to go ashore.   Falkor (too) is not a US-flagged vessel, so this will be the procedure in every port call.

In the entry area of the ship, there is an ID Card rack that allows the bridge to keep track of who are ashore. You will be given your own ID Card that you must take with you when you leave the vessel and put back in the ID rack when you return onboard.  In the evenings, in port, all doors will be locked.  You must enter and exit the vessel at a single location that is secured with a combination lock.