Visas ... ✔︎

The main reason why our travels this year saw so much change was the visas for RTW2023. Primarily … the China visa. Possibly … the India visa. Both would require passports to be sent in. Both had time-consuming applications. Yes, Visa Central (a CIBT company) would handle getting the visas (a perk included in our booking), but we’d have to do the upfront work. And, of course, we would have to be at home and not abroad in order to part with our passports.

We were just about to fly from Toronto to İstanbul on 29 September when a slew of visa-related emails from Oceania filled my inbox. After a quick review, I let out the breath I was holding and shelved taking action until our return home earlier this month.

As suspected, no application was provided for China. This country, still closed to tourism, remains the big question mark in our itinerary.

India changed its paper visa requirement to e-visas, thus eliminating the need for passports to be sent in. Even better, as luck would have it, India reinstated our 10-year paper visas earlier this year … after having canceled them during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, no need to take action of any kind. We just have to take our old passports with us.

All but three of the remaining visas — Cambodia, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka — are “on arrival,” which means there is no action to be taken on our part.

Cambodia and Myanmar require completed applications and passport photos that we need to turn into Oceania when we embark on the world cruise. Action on Sri Lanka has to wait until we are 90 days out from arrival. O’s instructions indicated that we will be given an opportunity to apply while on the ship.

We’re now all set with visas … unless itinerary changes require otherwise. But that’s a wait-and-see game.Read more