I just received a ‘know before you go’ document about my upcoming Great Lakes cruise. It says that passengers’ passports will be collected and held for the duration of the cruise to speed up disembarkation at each port. Passports will be securely kept by the Chief Purser, and passengers are only to carry a copy ashore 
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Is this normal? I’ve been on a couple of cruises before and don’t remember having to surrender my passport. This feels odd 
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The destination determines this. That wouldn’t be an issue in the Caribbean, but in other places, the locals like to see the actual passport for inspection, and it makes it simpler for the ship to hang onto them. If you have ever had to wait in line for a physical inspection, you know how annoying it can be—especially if you have to do it every day when visiting a new nation. It’s not fun to have to run the entire ship through the theater in a single file line as we had to do on Holland.
@Adele Regards. We’re traveling across the Great Lakes. Thus, the US and Canada are the nations. We fly into Toronto and spend the remainder of our vacation in the United States (I think; I know borders in the lakes are weird).
I was on a cruise that stopped numerous times in Ireland, and I had to turn in my passport. The passports were returned to us after we departed the final port there, and they bore an Irish stamp.
For a Great Lakes trip, it’s peculiar. I’ll admit that, but it’s not too unusual in other areas for cruising, particularly in places where you’re entering a new country every morning (like Asia), where you should be grateful that the ship handles immigration rather than making everyone wait in line early in the morning to be processed before you can disembark.
Took a tiny ship excursion off the African coast. Because immigration boarded the ferry at an awful hour of the morning and scrutinized every passport before letting us off, they detained our passports. Nothing sinister about that, in my opinion.
@Camilla Thank you for this!
Since it was really much quicker for the ship to process them all at once, the staff retained our passports while we were on a cruise that required a lot of “transit” visas for a number of destinations. It happens frequently, depending on your schedule. They are skilled at what they do if it’s a significant line.
Since the ship was not permitted to appear en masse, we had to wait in line for three hours at Ashdod, Israel, and, I believe, for two hours in Athens, too, in order to obtain travel visas with our passports. Israel demanded that the entire ship, including the crew, pass, and it took two full days to complete the task.
@Dacosta That is exactly what we did in Haifa.
Following an en masse presentation by Egypt, we were instructed to carry our passports with us at all times throughout both nations.
It was strange, but not troublesome.
It may sound strange, but if you are in the United States or Canada, you don’t really need to present your passport anywhere. You just display it when entering a country, but once inside, no questions would arise.
On both of my Med trips, our passports were retained for immigration purposes. At the conclusion of the cruise, they were given back to us.
For our sail through Singapore and Malaysia, we must present our passports. They are kept on board to speed up the immigration process when the ship docks; otherwise, there would be an endless line. The passports were arranged by deck and room number and could be picked up by just showing your sea pass, according to staff seated at tables in the hall the night before the cruise concluded. Before giving the passport to someone, we always snapped a picture of the ID page, just in case something went wrong on an excursion or something.
I’ve heard that many Asian ships operate on this regular procedure. It could just be the way that business runs.
Although it’s a little strange for a Great Lakes cruise, it’s not unheard of.
@Jayden Regards. Given that I assume the passengers are mostly European rather than North American, the passports must be kept.
Cheers to your birthday!
Looking at it, it looks like a US/Canada cruise. I’ve taken a different Canada/US cruise; I haven’t taken this one. Being a US citizen, I didn’t have to give up my passport in order to go on the cruise. Not at all. We had to give them the night before and pick them up the next day in several ports in Europe. But not in the US or Canada
@Jemmy That’s what I was thinking. We are American citizens. Our flight to Toronto is scheduled. So that’s where we will clear immigration and customs.
Perhaps because the majority of the passengers are European, or perhaps because the ship is French?
Outside of the US, this is typical. On three of my cruises, my passport was taken at boarding and given back the final day at sea.
The only time a cruise line held our passports was a Costa cruise in the Mediterranean last year, I thought that strange and I didn’t much care for it either. But I forget at what point they gave them back to us. Jerusalem, maybe, because we had to go down to passport control and immigration and let them see our passports even though we were not even getting off the boat. They were comparing passports to passenger manifests, and we got a “permission slip” that allowed us to stay onboard (which I also thought strange). From that point on, we got to keep them. I do not know what governs when they take them and when they do not. I do know that on every other cruise we have been on (all Caribbean cruises) we kept our passports with us in the stateroom safe and carried a copy when we left the ship, just in case. Also, I do not recall anywhere in the Caribbean where we were required to present our passports.
I experienced that once when a cruise collected our passports, but I left the port early and returned late. Since the next port was in a foreign nation, I was somewhat concerned.
I discovered later that the passports of those who went missing would be kept in a dockside office.
I made it to the ship before it departed the harbor because an excursion sponsored by the ship returned before me.
@Nidal I’m glad you returned!