How to Plan a Cruise Insurance? Passport? Visas? Flights?

Passports & Entry Visas—Important!

You need a valid passport that doesn’t expire for at least 6 months after your whole trip ends (plan ahead if you need to acquire one or renew it—this can take months).

You are responsible for getting visas and electronic ETA’s, as needed, for the ports you enter.

You can research these online for costs, process and timeline (and you need your passport in hand to apply). However sometimes cruises handle these for you with the port authorities so be sure to have your travel agent check on exactly which ones you need to apply for on your own. This is often unclear on the cruise line website and your booking paperwork.

For example, on our cruise to Papua New Guinea our TA was able to find out the cost and processing was included and handled by the cruise ship. This saved us a lot of money and hassle, as that visa isn’t the easiest to get! But we did need electronic ETA’s for Australia and NZ in hand to board the ship with calls there, and that was our responsibility. Plan ahead!

Flight & Hotel Tips

Be sure to arrive in your port city at least a day or two early in case your flight is delayed. You may want fly home a day or two late as well in case your cruise is delayed by weather. The bigger your time cushions, the safer your plan and an added bonus of getting to explore the port city! Using the cruise line to book your flight may be restrictive, prevent you from making changes/solving problems yourself and may even be more expensive.

Choose a hotel carefully. Some have free airport and/or free cruise port shuttles, or are even within walking distance of the port.

Do You Really Need Insurance? What Kind?

Definitely get travel insurance—evacuations can be unexpectedly necessary (think appendicitis, heart attack or a broken leg) and often involve very expensive helicopter flights, so evacuation insurance is a must. 

If tragedy befalls you and can’t go on your cruise, insurance is your only hope of getting any of your money back. Even if there’s a death in your family or you end up in the hospital, rarely will a cruise line even give you future cruise credit, much less refund your fare.

First let me say there is no perfect travel insurance—if you need to make a claim you may have a fight for months to get it paid, but on a significant claim it’s worth the fight.  But insurance is also essential in case you miss your cruise due to a cancelled flight or things like that.

All insurance comes with many exclusions so be sure to read the policy.  Most do not reimburse your full losses, but rather a percentage, nor under every condition. Those terms can vary based on the policy you choose. Here are some options for you:

• Cruise line insurance:  A cruise line’s own insurance is often automatically added to your booking—you can ask for it to be removed! Every cruise line has their own policy they tout as superior.  This insurance usually costs significantly more than a policy bought independently and is run by one of the independent insurance agencies anyways.  It’s not better.  In fact, these policies only cover your cruise (and sometimes flights booked by the cruise line itself), not your other costs of travel like flights, hotels, etc. 

• Independent insurance:  You can find an independent policy through aggregators like insuremytrip.com or aardy.com (associated with AARP).  Aggregators are helpful if you are having trouble filing the claim itself or getting a response from your insurer, though basically they are limited to answering  general policy questions, directing you to claim forms and emailing the insurer on your behalf.  If you’re only taking the occasional trip, on cruise or land, this is a great place to buy insurance as it’s easy to compare prices and coverage on aggregator sites.  Pay attention to the reviews and ratings—a few extra dollars is worth it for a better company in case you have to file a claim. Be sure to insure your entire trip, including transportation and land accommodations.

  Credit card Insurance:  Some credit cards have a degree of protection, offering cancellation insurance, things like trip delay and lost luggage coverage and even evacuation insurance.  The best of the best is found on the Chase Sapphire Reserve card (which has a fairly high fee).  Chase Sapphire Preferred, with a lower annual fee, has some lesser protections (no evacuation). Alternatively, the Chase IHG card (which also earns points toward their large hotel chain) has a modest annual fee and excellent travel benefits.

  The possible problem is whether these policies will cover a nomad who doesn’t begin and end their trip at home—there is uncertainty about this in nomad groups and wording but it often does work. Personally, cruise evacuation is a serious business so I like to have an actual travel policy AND use a good credit card.  If you’d like a referral code to either card, just email me at tastelifewithus@gmail.com. Be sure to charge your entire cruise fare (and deposit), air fare and accommodations on the card to cover your whole trip.

  Credit card insurance only works if you pay directly. For example, if you purchase gift cards and use them to pay for your cruise, your cruise is not covered.

  Annual travel insurance policy:  If you travel frequently, an annual policy such as one by Allianz may save you money.  Several companies offer a variety of policies—you can use google to research this.  Note that most annual policies I’ve looked at require you to go home between trips, with a maximum length of maybe 90 days—look closely at these requirements.

  Nomad insurance:  If you travel extensively, especially if it is mostly outside of the U.S., you may wish to cover yourself with a travel policy designed for nomads. These usually come in variable lengths so if you travel for 3 months of the year you can buy a 3-month policy or if you travel full-time like us you can find an extendable long-term policy.  Confim that cruise evacuation is covered.  While both World Nomads policy options have evacuation insurance, we use the Explorer plan (higher coverage) when we have big cruises during the policy period.  Other companies to research include SafetyWing and Genki (which is travel medical insurance only—not cancellation) though I know Genki only covers cruising evacuations when close to shore.