'There needs to more awareness' Cruise dream crushed by passport rule

A BRISTOL couple were denied a bucket-list cruise to New York because of a post-Brexit passport rule.

- Kate POUNDS

Grandparents Jenny Gee, 69, and Trevor Bamford, 77, booked to sail to New York in the autumn.

The voyage was on Trevor's bucket list, and they were due to set sail on April 27, two weeks after Trevor finished three years of treatment for severe prostate cancer.

The parents-of-four paid £3,600 for a deck-12 top cabin cruise ship.

But the couple were sent out of the check-in queue and told Trevor couldn't travel because of a post-Brexit passport rule.

British passports issued before 2018 can be valid for over 10 years, because time remaining on the previous passport could be added to a new one.

But EU rules now state that, to travel in the EU or Schengen zone, a British passport must be less than 10 years old and valid for three months after the planned date of return to the UK.

Trevor's passport was issued on March 2 2015, and expires in September, so was valid for ten years and seven months.