thank you mgray. I have received my id number after completing the classic tourist application
for both of us . Unfortunately our paris flight arrives on the 31 december, a sunday, at cdg paris airport. So the only thing left for us to do would be to go to Paris or perhaps the Marseille consulate and then have the passports and visas mailed to us in cannes or we could drive to Marseille and get them. However we will be driving to Cannes or Marseille on around the 8 january and leaving from Nice the 17 january and need our passport to fly to thailand. I'll write Marseille and see if possible. Below is the email I wrote Costa yesterday and I await a reply.
concernant reservation 20913238 Flynn et Ollivier
Madame Laurette,
Customer services and reservations france
Anais gave me your contact information today as someone who I could work with to solve our problem with visas for India where we stop on the 3 march 2018 for the day. Weeks ago I had spoke to Anne in genoa and Christophe in France who told me that if I didn't get off the boat in New Mangalore no visas for India would be necessary. But when no email arrived confirming this, I discovered by your agents that this information was incorrect. I later discovered from Costa that an evisa would not be permitted even though 2 indian consulates said that en evisa is accepted for arrival at the port and airport of New Mangalore. In consulting voyageforum .com I discovered that I am not alone in this problem and that according to Costa one must have a classic tourist visa (not an evisa) or one could not board the ship in singapore.
So I have made efforts to 1) obtain for my wife and I duplicate passports france and USA so one could send a duplicate to Indian vfs in Paris. However, these duplicate passports aren't always issued and if issued we might not get them in time. You see the problem is our schedule below .
Dec 1 lille to Barcelona
dec 6 MSC Seaside Cruise to Miami arriving 21 december 2017
31 december arriving at cdg paris airport
4 january drive to Cannes to our second home there
17 january flight Nice/Moscow/Bangkok arriving 18 january.
13 february flight phuket or bangkok to singapore
17 february board Costa Victoria for cruise to Nice arriving 17 march
The ship arrives in SriLanka before New Mangalore and if I obtained our evisas I could leave ship there in Colombo and fly to New Mangalore and reboard Costa Victoria to continue our journey. This is assuming that Costa permits us on board in Singapore for a partial cruise.
If you read the attached email you will see that I have applied for two tourist classic visas for india and have the intention to visit VSF or indian embassy to pay for them and eventually recover the visas you require when I arrive at the port in Singapore. If it appears that I can't get the classic visa in Bangkok, (they say i should use an evisa) I'm not sure that the 3 days in Singapore will be enough time to get the classic tourist visa there.
So , the easiest solution for me is to be allowed on board in singapore and not disembark in New Mangalore; 2 get an evisa which India permits or 3
Costa gives me permission for a cruise leaving in Colombo and restarting in New Mangalore. There is a # 4 which is to cancel our cruise which I really don't prefer doing as we have enjoyed many Costa cruises over the years and would like to continue doing so. But if that becomes necessary, I assume there would be no cancellation fees as the cancellation would be due not because of India and their visa rules nor from my will but only because of an internal Costa policy (which I can't understand).
Thank you for assisting me and I await rapidly your solutions.
Tom Flynn and Cathy (therese) Ollivier
Dear Mr. Thomas,
With Reference to the below mail query, we have checked with Indian Embassy Bangkok
For Non-Thai nationals need to have work permit or permanent residency in Thailand to apply Indian Visa
However you can opt for E-visa, kindly find the link below
https://indianvisaonline.gov.in/evisa/tvoa.htmlhttps://indianvisaonline.gov.in/evisa/tvoa.html1. e-Visa is valid for entry through 24 designated Airports (i.e. Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Bagdogra, Bengaluru, Calicut, Chennai, Chandigarh, Cochin, Coimbatore, Delhi, Gaya, Goa, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mangalore, Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Tiruchirapalli, Trivandrum & Varanasi) and 3 designated seaports (i.e. Cochin, Goa, Mangalore). However, the foreigner can take exit from any of the authorized Immigration Check Posts (ICPs) in India.