A dream vacation turned into a costly nightmare for a British couple who flew more than 10,000 miles to sail on an Australian cruise.
Despite having traveled with a valid passport and passing through numerous travel and immigration checkpoints without any fanfare, the couple was denied boarding at the Sydney Overseas Passenger Terminal.
Citing a damaged passport, David Hornsby of Southampton and his wife were told they wouldn’t be sailing a 14-night voyage from Sydney to Singapore on Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth after all.
“We arrived at the cruise terminal, went to check in as usual, having already dropped our luggage off, and they looked at my passport and then called somebody over, and then took it away,” Hornsby told his local media outlet.
“My wife was cleared for boarding, but they said there was damage on my passport, which there wasn’t,” he continued, saying the concern was over loose stitching on the center of the UK passport.
Meant to depart from Sydney by 7 p.m. on February 11, 2025, to visit Airlie Beach and Darwin, Australia, and Bali and Jakarta, Indonesia, before arriving in Singapore on February 25, the Hornsbys instead had to quickly rearrange travel home.
After waiting several hours to have their baggage retrieved, the couple booked flights back to the UK from Syndey, which cost £700.
Due to Cunard’s cancellation policies, the Hornsbys are also out of pocket on the original cruise and flight costs.
David has been appealing to Cunard in hopes of getting a refund, a replacement cruise, or some sort of compensation.
However, Cunard says it is not responsible for the Hornsby missing their cruise.
“Our understand is that Mr. and Mrs. Hornsby were refused embarkation to the ship by immigration officials at the international cruise terminal due to a damaged passport,” said a spokesperson for Cunard.
“The planned voyage included a port call to Indonesia, where they have strict standards for damaged passports,” Cunard continued.
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“Unfortunately, the actions of foreign immigration authorities are outside of our control, and any associated costs should be directed to the guests’ travel insurers.”
Cunard refunded the couple for portions of excursions booked, but would not refund the voyage or provide an alternative voyage.
“We appreciate this is not the outcome that Mr. and Mrs. Hornsby would have wanted, but this set of circumstances is not one Cunard can take responsibility for,” the cruise line stated.
Strict Passport Rules Leave Little Recourse
Cruise lines feature strict cancellation policies, providing refunds based on the date of cancellation from the sailing date, as the closer to the departure date, the less likely they are to sell the space to another passenger.
Cunard advises any guest to purchase travel insurance to cover the costs of an emergency preventing them from boarding.
Although the Hornsbys didn’t mean to “cancel” their sailing, by being denied embarkation due to Australian border officials, they missed the boat, so to speak, by being unaware of immigration policies.
It’s at the discretion of border control whether or not to accept a passport.
Normal wear and tear is typically okay but if a passport has tears, missing pages, water damage, unofficial markings (even if a child has colored in a passport), or anything that makes a passport difficult to read could result in a denied entry.
Although the Australian government’s passport page doesn’t specifically mention a binding issue, Indonesian border control is notorious for denying entry based on even the most minor damage.
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The Bali media has reported on numerous cases of travelers from Australia being told their passports were no good since Indonesia tightened its security in 2019.
And travel insiders say incidents like this can happen more and more as biometric scanners are increasingly used to scan passenger data and require passports to be in near-pristine condition to work best.
