Entry for teenage DD into The Canaries from a cruise ship

[BlackAmericanoNoSugar]

DD (age 16) is going on a cruise trip with her aunt. We have a form from the cruise ship that gives our permission for her to travel on the ship and for my SIL to supervise on board activities. Will we also need a permission to travel letter for the Spanish authorities for DD to disembark the ship with SIL?

IME once you’re through customs and onto the ship it should be straightforward from there.
Going off the ship you only need your ship-registered key card and not your passport.

It might be worth ringing the cruise guest services though to be clear.

You should always take your passport when you leave the ship but that's for emergencies rather than them actually checking it, you just use your sea pass to get on and off.

If we take non family kids with us abroad I always carry a letter from their parents (template off the internet). I have been asked for it when entering both Spain and Portugal so I would suggest taking one just in case, better to have it and not need it

Thanks all. I'll do a few copies of the ship's form and an extra general letter so that SIL can have both.

I've never cruised, do the passengers clear passport control for the country that they're going to when they board the ship so that they don't need passports with them on arrival?

Passports don't generally get checked at cruise stops, but passengers should always carry their passport when they go ashore. Apart from anything else, you might miss the boat (due to a late excursion or a medical emergency). It's rare but it happens.

The check-in desk at the terminal where you first board the ship will check that you have the required passport and/or visas to enter each country on the itinerary. For a UK citizen going to the Canaries or elsewhere in the EU this just means a passport that is less than 10 years old and with 3 months left on it. And some countries that would usually need visas allow cruise passengers to land for the day without one (for example Russia, not that anyone's docking at St Petersburg right now).

At each port stop you almost certainly won't see an immigration officer. There will just be a bored-looking private security guard who might not look at the passport at all, and if they do it's just to check that the name matches the one on the cruise card. They certainly don't try to prevent abduction of minors by looking for non-matching surnames within groups.