Travel Documents and Disney Cruise Planning

In September I journey south with my kids for their first cruise aboard the Disney Dream.  With the day of departure drawing near, I began to gather paperwork and actively plan the trip to Port Canaveral.  The first and most obvious thing I needed to consider was travel documents.  The last ten years have seen a systematic rise in the requirements for traveling outside of the United States.  However that need not be a serious burden for cruise travelers, even those of us traveling with kids.

In the case of the family cruise with Disney Cruise Line, I am traveling with my five year old son and seven year old daughter.  Neither of my children have traveled much beyond the Ohio region, much less outside the boundaries of the United States.  My own passport from 1999 has also expired.  So in preparation for the cruise, I had to pin down exactly what needs I had to fill.  

There are three document requirements you may need to meet when taking a cruise.  You may need a full passport book (the small booklets with your picture, and pages for immigration agencies to stamp as you come and go,) a passport card (the small, credit card sized I.D. like a drivers license,) or a birth certificate and photo I.D.  Which of these you must have, and when a situation requires them, will vary.

If you are going to fly outside of the United States, re-enter the United States through a different point of entry than the one you departed from, or travel outside of the immediate Caribbean area, you almost certainly need a Passport.  Cruises within the Caribbean, east coast, west coast, Alaska, or Hawaii areas, will require only a passport card or the birth certificate and photo I.D. combination.  The itinerary we are taking qualifies as a “closed loop cruise.”  This means it begins and ends at the same port.  In such cases as a closed loop cruise, you do not need to have either a passport book, nor the passport card.  

Disney Cruise Line makes every effort to push full passports for its passengers.  In fact they do not openly state you have the option for a passport card or to use the photo I.D. and birth certificate combination.  Never the less, you can use your choice of documentation on a Disney cruise, and that can save considerable time and money.  There remains one key consideration however, and that is the one that prompts most people to seek a full passport.  

To fly into the United States, you do need a passport book.  In the event of an emergency, if you do not have a passport book, you can encounter major delays, even in the rare case of a medical crisis.  This is the reason most cruise lines will push passengers to get passport books.  However, another motivation is also their desire for simplifying their own paperwork and process of dealing with foreign ports of call.  However that remains their job, and there can be entirely valid reasons not to get a passport, such as those my own family needed to consider.  More on that in my next post.

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