Royal Caribbean To The Rescue

Over the past few years the United Arab Emirates has seen a drastic increase in cruise passengers visiting this part of the world. This has not come without its problems, certain questions have been raised in regards to arranging Visa's and the price it has been costing cruise passengers. As things are now, tourists from most countries must purchase single entry Visa's to enter the UAE. This means cruise passengers traveling through the Persian Gulf each have to buy up to three visas at a cost of $225 for all three. This means a family of four would have to pay about $900......



So it is a breath of fresh air to hear Royal Caribbean have been trying to convince the United Arab Emirates to introduce a special visa allowing passengers more than one entry to the country. Royal Caribbean said that the cost of having to buy several single entry visas to sail to destinations in the UAE is hampering the growth of the cruise industry in the country. With the ammunition that the UAE is expecting to draw 120 cruise ships with about 425,000 passengers this year, and by 2015 180 ships and over 625,000 passengers how can they not listen?

A Royal Caribbean regional director Helen Beck sees this extra cost as inhibiting cruise growth in the UAE, "It's a challenge - it's an inhibitor to sales. It's a federal issue and at some point it will be resolved because the different authorities will all understand the impact it's having and the block it's having on growing. The Russian market, China, those very large emerging markets that are required to get the single-entry visas for entering the UAE, that's a huge chunk of the world."

Do you think passengers are being but off by the cost of this Visa? Most people have probably already booked their cruise by the time they realise the cost of this Visa, but would it stop them coming back? Maybe? So if Royal Caribbean do succeed in get a multi entry Visa sorted it can only be a good thing!