Barbados Travel Forum

My wife and I are planning to go to Barbados in Dec and January. Her (Russian) passport expires in April and is not so easy to renew quickly. We would have a return ticket on arrival.

The following places say this is OK:
UK fco site, numerous websites, barbados tourism office, barbados high commission (by phone)

The following places say min 6 months validity required;
numerous websites, virgin airlines, barbados foreign ministry website

By e-mail, the London barbados high commission said that 'ideally' 6 months is required.

So the questions are;
1. would virgin let us on the plane
2. would barbados immigration let us in for up to 28 days as is permitted to Russians without a visa. What does ' ideally' mean?

It looks that we will need to renew the passport to avoid risks to our holiday.

This is the info the airline will consult and use when checking in:

From the TIM:


/ 20OCT08 / 1516 UTC
National Russian Federation (RU)
Residence United Kingdom (Great Britain) (GB)
Embarkation United Kingdom (Great Britain) (GB)
Destination Barbados (BB)

Barbados (BB)

Passport required.
- Passport and/or passport replacing documents must be valid
for the period of intended stay.

Visa required, except for A stay of max. 28 days: nationals of
Russian Federation.
Additional Information:
- All visitors must hold sufficient funds for maintenance
during their stay in Barbados, return/onward tickets and
documents for the next destination.

That is likely correct (re the TIMATIC information) but Barbados has recently, from what I've been told, changed their requirement to 6mths validity past the intended stay date. Soooo.. I'm guessing if you are not going to get the passport changed, you will take your chances.. you may get on the plane, but you may not be allowed into the island. I know that sounds strange, but thats the way it is. (then again, noone may even pay any attention)

Nonsense. Hearsay. The TIM is kept up-to-date up to the last minute. Besides, the airline will not take any risk as they have to take the pax back AND will be fined.

Thanks for the replies. I finally managed to talk to the Immigration department and they said that a passport valid for stay is only requirement and had not heard of any changes or requirement for 6 months. Let's hope TIMATIC does change before now and Christmas.

>>>>TIMATIC does change <<<<<<

????

Does NOT change !!

Aaahhh......

OK!

Happy travels

Gee I'm guessing that the government of Barbados is then incorrect in what they say about the validity of a passport to enter Barbados.

http://www.foreign.gov.bb/pageselect.cfm?page=119

Well I did see that - another piece of the conflicting information story, it is the Barbados foreign office website and when I phoned them to ask, they said I needed to call the immigration department and gave me their number. It was the immigration department who said 6 months is not required (and had never heard of such a requirement) so the Barbados government doesn't agree with itself.

I found the same problem.. I e-mailed the foreign affairs office who routed me to immigration.. that could take forever for the e-mail to even be answered.

A Barbados Passport is required to have 6mths validity just to travel OUT of Barbados. Sooo.. I'm going to assume that possibly that is where the problem is when trying to answer this question. But.. nonetheless, people still need to check and find out what the real deal is.