Do I Need A Passport For A 2 Night Cruise From The Uk To Bruges

[Shizuka14]

I have no passport and have been invited on a mini cruise to Bruges Belgium from hull uk. Any help and advice greatly appreciated.
Mr S Scott

[Buenchico]

With the exception of travel to the Republic of Ireland, anyone leaving the UK to travel to any other country needs a passport. (People from other EU countries can, at the present time, also use their national identity cards to travel between EU countries but that's not relevant to you).

That's confirmed on the website of P&O, who operate those mini-cruises:
http://www.poferries.com/en/hull-zeebrugge/faqs

[Buenchico]

PS: Bruges is stunning.
https://www.visitbruges.be/en

Get a passport!
https://www.gov.uk/browse/abroad/passports

[New Judge]

"Get a passport!"

Which will probably cost you more than the cruise! :-(

[gollob]

dont go ashore

[woofgang]

as per Buenchico's link, I think the cruise operator won't let you on the ship without a passport....they would be responsible if you did a bunk from the ship in Bruges.

[spathiphyllum]

Yes.

[EDDIE51]

Yes, you need to show the passport to get onto the ship. No passport no cruise.

[EDDIE51]

Beside the point but, we in the UK are the ONLY EU country that does not have an official ID card. An EU ID card can be used in place of a passport for travel inside the EU .

[New Judge]

And tha, Eddie, is because the EU would like to believe that its member nations are not independent countries but simply areas of the Union. However, we digress.

[Old_Geezer]

It's because we in the UK, alone it seems, know that we ought not to have to carry papers in order to be considered legitimate by the State. The State should justify itself to the citizens not vice versa. There are plenty of ways to learn who someone is when it is agreed they need to be positively identified.

[KARL]

In the UK there is traditionally a semi-religious approach in refusing to at least make available national and nationally recognised (as opposed to club membership, etc.) ID cards. The UK has only ever had them during wartime (needs must, you see) but within Europe they were in use long before the Common Market, never mind the EU, was established (contrary to what a different semi-religious belief would insist). The various different European ID cards were then standardised and adopted EU-wide. The UK continues to be different and insist everyone else is wrong. In both the UK and EU, situations arise when people need to identify themselves and (uniquely ?) the UK leaves its people and organisations/companies/etc. without the availability of the useful tool of a simple card to instantly facilitate this - for ideological reasons. To my knowledge, anybody without an ID card in the EU (lost, wallet stolen, etc.) can readily replace it but must then identify themselves to get it - but that is a piece of cake because the details are on file and can readily be verified by the person presenting themselves. Not having such a system is a complication, not a simplification - it is however the UK way.

[New Judge]

But there is a difference between voluntarily opting to obtain such an item of identification (such as a driving licence or a passport which are necessary to undertake specific activities) and being required to have one simply "to identify yourself" (and in fact to have your details held on a central register).

I have both of the above, one to enable me to drive and the other to enable me to travel. The second is certainly a winner when I need identification for say, opening a bank account and I wouldn't be without it. In fact I would continue to renew it even if I stopped travelling abroad and I know of at least two people who have a valid passport which they continue to renew even though they never leave the country.

In fact Eddie is slightly wrong in that Denmark as well as the UK does not currently issue identity cards. But more pertinent than that is that 14 of the 28 EU countries have a compulsory ID card scheme and four more issue ID cards which are not compulsory but holding one or another form of recognised ID (such as a passport) is.

I would suggest that it is not the UK that is wrong with everybody else being right. There is no need for the State to hold a central register of all its citizens and require its people to be registered on it for the purpose of identification. If somebody does not want one and does not want to appear on the register he should be perfectly entitled to make that choice. He may encounter difficulties when dealing with organisations or State institutions but that's his decision. The UK government attempted to build a "national register" but the idea was abandoned in 2011 following opposition in Parliament.

The UK is different to many other countries - especially those in Europe - in that its citizens (or subjects if you prefer) have never acquiesced to the notion that they should have their identities and activities subject to close State scrutiny for no good reason other than the State would prefer it.