Travelling to Europe with a grandchild

J

johnb

Guest
I am starting to think about next year's visit to Portugal. My wife and I need to go to complete a few admin tasks and are thinking (not for the first time) about taking our grandson with us, without his mother.

Whilst we both have valid resident cards for Portugal and can come and go as we please, the grandson will clearly need a tourist visa and additional documentation authorising him to travel with us rather than his parent.

I was wondering if anyone on the forum has experience that might help prepare us for what may well be a daunting administrative task. Clearly, Portugal will have its own particular requirements but experience from any other European country might help us prepare before we make the journey to the Portuguese Consulate in Bangkok to find out more.
 
The boy will need a Schengen visa.

That takes care of the 'entry' aspect for Portugal.

The next question is the 'exit' from Thailand.

That is going to be the challenge..... and that element may need to be sorted out ahead of the Schengen application.

I speak not from personal experience, but I have organized a U.K. Visa where the mother was raking a child to the U.K. She had to supply sole custody papers and 'references' from the Poo Yai Ban.

I will make further enquirers but I recommend that you pose the question on Thai Visa.com - there are several experts on there, and no doubt someone who has done exactly what you are proposing.

If you are not a 'member' on TV.com let me know and I will post on your behalf.
 
Sorry JohnB, but I can't help but feel there will be a lot of effort required by you, hoops to jump through and red-tape to bypass, to get a visa for your young man. Plenty of advice on the Internet from the airlines that may point you in the right direction. Air India post the following information and I suspect this is true for many airlines:

Minors Travelling with Passengers other than their Natural Parents
  • Consent ( no objection ) letter / affidavit signed by both parents. draft of consent ( no objection ) letter is attached (http://www.airindia.in/Images/pdf/Child_travel_no_objection_letter.pdf )
  • Photocopies of relevant pages of both parents passports
  • The original passport should be shown to the check-in Supervisor, to verify the signature authenticity
  • In cases where one of the parents is deceased, photocopy of the death certificate should be given
  • Signatures of the parents on consent letter should match the signature on the passport
  • In the rare case where the family name of the child does not match the parents', birth certificate of the child should be made available
  • Minors under the age of 18 may require additional documentation if leaving the country of residence
Kindly contact the nearest consulate for any further details.


See: http://www.airindia.in/minors-travelling-with-passengers-other-than-their-natural-parents.htm
 
@ColinW discovered something interesting about the validity of the Schengen visa which may be of interest to you. It may be worth speaking to him.
 
https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/portugal-visa/

Portugal Visa for Under-Age Children:
  • Proof of parent’s regular income (work contract with specified monthly income or a bank statement or business license)
  • Notarized travel permission from parent (parental travel consent)
  • If one parent lives in another country – their notarized parental travel consent
*Note: When applying at the Portuguese embassy/consulate in home country, the guardian or parent should accompany their under-age children.


Read more at https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/portugal-visa/#MMXFuVOlwTihbGqm.99
 
Yorky said:
@ColinW discovered something interesting about the validity of the Schengen visa which may be of interest to you. It may be worth speaking to him.
Click to expand...



Just in case Colin doesn't come online shortly, this relates to the limitation of NUMBER OF DAYS that was printed on Woody's visa in addition to the validity period. The number of days allowed in the Schengen zone is determined by the itinerary supplied with the application.
 
CO-CO said:
Just in case Colin doesn't come online shortly, this relates to the limitation of NUMBER OF DAYS that was printed on Woody's visa in addition to the validity period. The number of days allowed in the Schengen zone is determined by the itinerary supplied with the application.
Click to expand...

Someone on a valid holiday, with money and a return ticket has a "number of days limit", yet the bloody -"so called" - refugees go where they want, have no itinerary and get to stay forever!
 
Prakhonchai Nick said:
Someone on a valid holiday, with money and a return ticket has a "number of days limit", yet the bloody -"so called" - refugees go where they want, have no itinerary and get to stay forever!
Click to expand...


Probably 'off topic'......
 
@johnb

John, Co-Co has kindly amplified the issue Yorky refers to and I will add a bit more detail.

I am used to getting Wood a UK visa on which the important dates are the from and to dates which for a tourist visa are 6 months apart with no limitation on the number of days within those dates.

We applied for Wood's Schengen visa (Spanish) in Bangkok supplying detailed paperwork including an itinerary showing the time spent in Spain, UK, France and back to Spain
We were granted the visa and as I normally do I checked the from and to dates of 18th May (the date we arrived in Schengen) and 26th June the date after we depart Schengen for Bangkok.
Because I wasn't looking for it I failed to notice on the Schengen visa there was also a line "duration of stay 25 days" which would have been fine per our submitted itinerary.
After we obtained the visa we were invited to spend 4 days with a friend in Belgium which we accepted as the dates were within the period 18th May to 26th June and we took the four days out of our UK stay.
Flying into Paris for the final part of our stay in France and then Spain Wood was asked at Immigration for his return ticket to Bangkok, he was refused admission because the return date along with the 4 days in Belgium and our starting stay in Spain took him over the 25 days.
Immigration wouldn't accept any explanations, we had to change his flight return date bringing it forward by 4 days at a cost of I think 390 euros and four days loss of holiday.

You are probably aware of it, but the fact that on the Schengen visa in addition to the from and to dates there are a number of days allowed caught me out
 
Thanks for the replies so far, chaps. I will post on Thai Visa as you suggest, Coco.
Any further thoughts greatly appreciated.
 
johnb said:
Thanks for the replies so far, chaps. I will post on Thai Visa as you suggest, Coco.
Any further thoughts greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

Get an attorny not TV. The child needs a Thai passport and that requires both parents permidsion.
 
Last edited:
My grandson only has one parent, his mother, on his birth certificate. There is effectively no father. I guess that is not an uncommon situation hereabouts.
How about a passport in those circumstances, GL?
 
johnb said:
My grandson only has one parent, his mother, on his birth certificate. There is effectively no father. I guess that is not an uncommon situation hereabouts.
How about a passport in those circumstances, GL?
Click to expand...

There is a father somewhere and should be noted on the birth cert. This is why the mother, not you or your wife need an attorney to be awarded legal and sol guarding of the child by the Thai courts. After this is done then the mother can applied for Thai passport for the child. At this point she can give your wife permission to take the child out of Thailand. I and Mrs. GL have been involved with a few cases. Until you get the above taken care of it would be a wasted trip to Bangkok. BTW there are attorneys in Surin that can help you.
 
gotlost said:
There is a father somewhere and should be noted on the birth cert. This is why the mother, not you or your wife need an attorney to be awarded legal and sol guarding of the child by the Thai courts. After this is done then the mother can applied for Thai passport for the child. At this point she can give your wife permission to take the child out of Thailand. I and Mrs. GL have been involved with a few cases. Until you get the above taken care of it would be a wasted trip to Bangkok. BTW there are attorneys in Surin that can help you.
Click to expand...

There are many cases where the birth certificate only names the Mother. There is no legal requirement for a Father's name to be shown on a birth certificate. Sometimes a Mother does know who the Father is, but often the Mother has no idea. Once the Mother has sole legal custody of the child, then a passport can be issued, and other documentation obtained as required..
 
Prakhonchai Nick said:
There are many cases where the birth certificate only names the Mother. There is no legal requirement for a Father's name to be shown on a birth certificate. Sometimes a Mother does know who the Father is, but often the Mother has no idea. Once the Mother has sole legal custody of the child, then a passport can be issued, and other documentation obtained as required..
Click to expand...

What you say Nick is correct. John has brought this subject before and as before its is not going anywhere until the mother of the child gets legal sol custody of the child and that needs a Thai attorney and then to the court. After the mother has that order she can apply for the child's passport. At that time the attorney can obtain the correct Thai permission letters for John and his wife to take the child out of Thailand. Sometime back on another thread by John, Wildoats pretty much spelled this out.
 
A tennis friend, who is also a government official in Surin, telephoned a friend of his who works at the passport office in Korat.

A single parent needs a document of sole custody.
Apparently this can be obtained by the single parent and child going to the Amphur with the Poo Yai Ban (or another government official) and one other witness who lives locally.

That is our first step.
 
johnb said:
A tennis friend, who is also a government official in Surin, telephoned a friend of his who works at the passport office in Korat.

Apparently a document of sole custody can be obtained by the single parent and child going to the Amphur with the Poo Yai Ban (or another government official) and one other witness who lives locally.

That is our first step.
Click to expand...


Indeed, I don't believe that it is a complicated business, a tad time-consuming and a few thousand Baht maybe.

Once you have the passport you need to consider the factor of the grandchild traveling without his mother. I imagine that will involve a similar process at the Amphur/Tessaban to obtain a 'certified' document from the mother allowing the boy to travel to Portugal etc.

There seems some logic in scanning all that paperwork to the appropriate airline to seek their confirmation that there will be no issue concerning the minor traveling with his grand parents.

If I am wrong, it doesn't matter as it keeps the thread 'live'. :)
 
johnb said:
A tennis friend, who is also a government official in Surin, telephoned a friend of his who works at the passport office in Korat.

A single parent needs a document of sole custody.
Apparently this can be obtained by the single parent and child going to the Amphur with the Poo Yai Ban (or another government official) and one other witness who lives locally.

That is our first step.
Click to expand...

Please keeps us updated John on your trials and tribulation on this journey. Contacting the passport office was the correct thing to do.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top