A New Twist on ID Fun.

[TheCheerfulTreeRat]

Most cruiselines are registered in countries they don't even visit - Libya is a common one. It think it is for tax purposes and possibly it effects their liability under maritime law (that part I'm unclear on).

Ah, gotcha. Yes, registration dictates what countries laws and regulations have to be adhered to. But it doesn't make anyone on the vessel a representative of that countries government.

[Bright_Star]

Better safe than sorry. When in doubt, ALWAYS go by the law.

[Pagan]

Ah, I see.

But that it saying that you MUST surrender it to the gummint, not that you MUST NOT let anyone else have it.

And; "Registration"? A Brit looks blank...

Why would I let it out of my control? Especially to someone not from my government? That is the only way I have to absolutely show my US citizenship. And my state driver's license isn't very helpful because New Mexico does something stupid (and that's a rant in-and-of-itself better left to Fratching).

[TheCheerfulTreeRat]

Why would I let it out of my control?

I shall have to ask what they do if a Passenger refuses to surrender their passport, next time I'm out on a ship.

Certainly a whole host of things would take a lot longer - most of the work done for clearance is done by the Pursers department in between ports and rubber stamped by the authorities because they trust the ships.

Not so much the passengers, imagine a few thousand SCs trying to fill out paperwork correctly for different countries regulations...

Because I join and/or leave the ship at different times to the passengers, immigration normally wants shufti at me - fine for a few supernumeraries, nightmare for a shipful of passengers.

Veering off at a tangent, one snippet I was told was that in the event of the Captain ordering abandon ship, one of the purser's jobs is to go to the safe and pile all the passports into a big sack to go off the ship with us.