Princess Cruises is now requiring a passport when taking a cruise out of San Juan, Puerto Rico, even if you are sailing roundtrip from the port.
Normally, passports are not required, although heavily recommended, for all closed-looped cruises from a U.S. port. Since Puerto Rico is a territory of the U.S., it’s a U.S. port. A closed-loop cruise is one that start and ends at the exact same port.
Princess Cruises has made a change and passports are now required for all cruises out of San Juan, this is for all guests (U.S. and non U.S.).
Why the change? The U.S. Customs and Border Control no longer considers the itineraries from Princess as closed-looped sailings.
Princess offers cruisers an embarkation/disembarkation option in Barbados, which is a port stop on the cruise line’s sailings from San Juan. This allows guests to get on the ship in either San Juan or Barbados for a seven-night cruise to the Southern Caribbean. Because of that, they are no longer considered closed-loop sailings.
Cruises where you can board at different ports of the sailing are common in the Europe and the Mediterranean, especially on MSC Cruises and Costa Cruises. However, there aren’t many cruises with flexible options like that in North America.
This change from Princess Cruises only affects sailings on Crown Princess and Emerald Princess out of San Juan. Closed-loop Princess sailings from Florida and California will not require a passport, just a valid government photo ID and a birth certificate.
Why are passports recommended even on closed-looped cruises? For one, it’s always wise to have a passport if you are going to be in another country.
Secondly, if you need to fly home from a foreign country for an emergency, you can only do so if you have a passport.
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