My passport shows my name as Michael, my cruise was booked using Mike now I'm told I may have problems?

Question

has anyone had any experience with this? Isn't it understood that Mike/Michael or David/Dave or Tim/Timothy are the same. I was told by the cruise line I may not be able to board.

Answer 1

I've worked with the cruise lines before and you are going to have a problem. Because of the new security risks you have to book your cruise in the name that is on your passport, you could definitely be denied boarding.

What I recommend that you do is either call your travel agent, if you worked with one and get it changed before you cruise,the sooner the better. If you booked directly with the cruise line u can also change it with them.

Please try to change it before you cruise because you paid good money for your cruise and you would not want to lose your money for something so simple.

Answer 2

Get your name corrected with the agent/agency you booked with! You may have a problem and it will to late to correct if you do.

Changing name from Mike to Michael is not a big deal and normally will not incur a charge for changing. We do it a lot for clients.

If you are denied boarding and have travel protection, you will not be covered since proper ID is responsibility of passenger so you would not get any reimbursement of what you paid. Even if they did charge a name change fee, it will be well worth it.

However, I will also guess you booked online and not with an agent since any reputable agent would have clarified this when booking was made and prevented this from becoming an issue

Answer 3

I had a similar problem with my passport. I have a double barelled name, but passport only in the first part of my name. I rang the holiday company and they told me its OK but just keep plenty of good ID on me.

Hope youll be fine, just give them a ring and explain.

Answer 4

Someone is pulling a joke on you. It's so easy to get travel agent phone numbers and transfer them temporarily to a cell phone. That's how your friendly jokester is making you believe you are talking to the cruise you're booked on. You are quite correct in thinking that the cruise line will distinguish Mike as Michael so I doubt there will be any problems as long as you have your passport ready to show to customs as you're boarding.

Answer 5

Passport's for US ports won't be required until June 2009.

BUT your travel doc's should always match your passport.

When I book cruises I always ask for FULL legal names.

Just less hassles this way.

Answer 6

I have been on many cruises and I DO NOT think you will have a problem.  When you book a cruise you give your full name AND your date of birth, passport number, home address, telephone number and some other information.  And well before the cruise the cruise line will require you to complete the advanced registration information.  This is what Royal Caribbean and many other cruise lines have on their web sites and also send passengers in the mail:

" Due to new government regulations requiring cruise lines to submit final departure manifests at least 60 minutes prior to sailing, guests are requested to complete Online Check-in no later than 3 days prior to their cruise. If you do not complete Online Check-in 3 days prior, you will be required to complete this process at the pier at least two hours prior to the published sailing time. Please note: All guests must be checked-in and onboard the ship no later than 90 minutes prior to the published sailing time or you will not be permitted to sail."

So at least 3 days before you even start toward the ship you will be able to clear up the name correction.  Just call the cruise line, or do it yourself on line.  Enter the Michael instead of Mike and/or put the Mike in parenthesis and leave it there.

What you WILL need is positive ID with a photo and the passport serves that purpose and the purpose of providing that Mike and Michael are the same person.

Answer 7

To be certain its a nice idea to change your name to the correct one. Some employees could be very strict when it came to following rules and the general one is to book in the name that is on your passport/creditcard/other id. But it should be easy to contact your travell agent or the cruise line and alert them about your "misstake" and see what they recomend you to do. But you can make a good impression to any one by just being honest (eq say that you bealived it was accepted that mike and mikael was the same name).

With that said you can be in trouble if you got an arabic/muslim look for example. But I wouldnt worry to much. Just contact them and check out and dont vorry. Johan.