Passport Requirement for Entry to St. Lucia

I'm sorry that this has happened to you, and you are doing what you can, so I don't really have advice on how to fix it. But I just wanted to say that this 6-month requirement is normal for most countries in the world and is not in any way unique to St. Lucia.

My gut feeling about it is that they would actually likely let your wife travel, but they would likely just question you more at the immigration desk before letting you in, and they'd want to see details of your hotel reservation and your flight out. So, I'd still try to go on my honeymoon and see if it works.

No kidding, I realized the day before heading to St. Lucia years ago that my passport had expired 4 days prior.

I had to rush to New Orleans, pay a bunch of expedited fees, but I was able to get a new passport same day. Make sure you bring a print out of your flight schedule to show you have an imminent trip.

I see. I wasn't factoring in limited hours due to COVID. Man, that's just a sucky situation. Sounds like you're following the right/only course of action. Hope it works out for you!

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Why would you go to AA/Resort for passport info and not homeland website?

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When you go to St. Lucia's website, EVERYTHING regarding entry is focused on COVID issues. So that's what we focused on. With the hoops we have to jump through to pass their COVID protocol, it's pretty easy to focus just on that. It's not like her passport expires before or during the trip. She just didn't mention to me when her passport expires, and she's a very experienced traveler so I assumed she'd checked her bases.

We were able to talk with a customs agent in St. Lucia this morning. When we asked if the fact that the passport expires within 6 months of our departure, he didn't seem too concerned. He said 7+ weeks of validity after our departure is fine, and he didn't see an issue.

I asked the same question on another forum, and some people advised that she leave the US on her US passport and re-enter the US with her US passport, but use her Polish passport for entry into St. Lucia and exit from St. Lucia. Does anyone have any experience with completing two legs of a trip using two different passports? We've done it in Europe all the time, but this is a little different because it's direct and the country in question isn't the country that issued the passport.

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Many countries have a requirement for how long it is before your passport expires. Some are 18 months. You should always renew if it's a year or less.

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Definitely agree with that. I wish we'd known of this limitation before, but we're young and neither of us has had to renew a passport as an adult before now. She thought she was doing the right thing by NOT starting the renewal process over the summer because COVID had messed all governmental offices up and we were hearing horror stories of people being quoted renewal times of 6 months or more.

Do you have to quarantine in St. Lucia if you decide to stay at an Airbnb? Eyeing a trip there in Feb or March.

Update in the OP.

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Do you have to quarantine in St. Lucia if you decide to stay at an Airbnb? Eyeing a trip there in Feb or March.

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You are required to stay at a covid-approved resort for the first 14 days. International traveler's aren't allowed entry if their first 14 days aren't at a covid-approved resort. You can still go on excursions and such through the resort though.

Pretty much all resorts on the island have been approved. Some Airbnb's have received approval as well, but I doubt that all of them have. I'm not sure if Airbnb is prohibiting non-approved properties from listing right now, but that would be a question I would ask before signing anything.

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At a certain point, you may want to just audible and go to Mexico or something...a lot of places in Saint Lucia have generous cancellation policies due to covid.

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That's plan B. Hopefully we won't have to circumvent the Caribbean though.

Having just gone through their customs and based on the info you received, I think you will be fine. They definitely care more about the covid stuff than whether you have the right passport or when it expires. The line for covid was like 45 minutes vs the quick look at our passport to get through customs.

Where are you staying?

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Did you see how many people they were administering random tests to? Or did it look like it was symptom based? We haven't had any exposure recently, but it would really suck to get sent to the hospital on our honeymoon.

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We saw maybe one person from our plane get tested. I would bet that was because they forgot to bring their results. If you can, pick seats in the very rear or very front as there are two exits off the plane. The line to get your test is half outside(very hot as some areas are not covered) and half inside a makeshift tent with minimum A/C.

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Where did you stay? Any suggestions on activities?

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No info on Windjammer, but great call on Sugar Beach. That is where we stayed. Some tips:

1.When you get through customs at the Airport, do not let those guys with trolley take your bags when you are inside. The walk is literally 20 feet outside to where the Sugar Beach taxi will pick you up. If you feel like giving them $5 for that, then feel free.

2. If you are cheap like me/simply want some convenience, then buy alcohol duty free in Miami and bring with you to your room. I am glad I did because they did not have bottles of tequila for purchase. It's about $60-70 a bottle of liquor for your room and it's less than a 1/5th. Liquor drinks are all $12+. Free beer(4/day), waters and soft drinks in the room though.

3. Does your deal at SB include breakfast? If so it's solid.

4. They did not expect tips as much as I was led to believe other than signing for your drinks/food. I tried to tip the butler at the beginning and they said just save it for the end, which I did. I tipped the shuttle guys a few times but even then I didn't feel pressured to tip and was almost like I was doing something wrong. They have a very friendly staff.

5. The South/Main beach is great but you need to get there by 9AM to get a spot with shade. Try and stop there before breakfast and put a book/bag down then head up to breakfast. As long as you are back within the hour, they won't care.

6. The north beach was better in my opinion. I would say it's the unofficial adults only beach. It's smaller, but still an amazing view and was way less crowded/no kids. The reason is likely that they don't really mention it and there is only drink service over there.

7. Snorkeling was fun and they give you the mask/flippers for free to keep the whole time. Lots of people did scuba but that's not us. Also recommend the Sunset Cruise, couples massage, nature walk(once, just to do it). We did the ATV excursion and I thought it was great. It takes up a whole morning though and the drive is kind of rough(about 50 minutes there and another 50 back). However, it was nice to get off the resort at least once and they take you to some solid spots.

8. Food is all pretty solid and good variety. Definitely paying a pretty penny even though we split a bunch of stuff. I think the Great Room was actually our worst meal and the most expensive, so I would say only go there once.

9. We tried to watch the sunset in a different spot each night(each beach, villa, sunset deck, and cruise) just because it mixed things up and they are pretty spectacular.