Getting passports

[hanscarlet]

We just did this two weeks ago and I completely forgot to bring the original birth certificates and instead brought only the copies and they turned us away... they needed both parents present and children present to get the kids' passports. Also, you need original birth certificates, parents' driver licenses and all of those needed photocopies and they will only take certified or personal check. Our lady was a real passport cop, you could have made an SNL skit out of how seriously she took her job lol.

 

[apathetic]

I know it seems smart to get the passport now, but they aren't sailing until Jun 19. It may go up $10 in April, but it is a waste to get the passport over a year before you need it. Especially kids that only last 5 years and require in person renewal.

 

[Miaka1]

I read that you don't plan on getting off of the ship. Even at Castaway Cay?

We will only be getting off at castaway Cay.

 

[bumbershoot]

I completely forgot to bring the original birth certificates and instead brought only the copies

If they were certified copies they would have been fine. Sounds like you made copies of the certified BCs? Weirdly, per the exact wording on the CBP site, copies of certified BCs are fine for boarding a ship (for a US citizen on a cruise where BCs are accepted), but not for passports.

they needed both parents present and children present to get the kids' passports.

Not actually true. There are forms you can fill out depending on the reason for not having both parents present. All in a nice little flowchart-ISH sort of page on the State Department's passport site.

 

[PinMan]

Short answer ? ASAP

 

[ifitzger]

We are planning our first cruise for June 2019. DH, two teenage daughter's and myself. None of us have passports. While we are not planning to leave the ship, Due to my older daughter's type 1 diabetes, it is too much of a risk to not have a passport, incase there is a medical emergency. So, my question is, how far in advanced should I start the process of getting passports? 6 months out? A year out? Any tips on making the process easier? For the kids, I should just need their birth certificates, right?

I renewed mine beginning of January...took 18 days. Just applied for 1st time passports for the kids last Saturday, will give an update later. Your birth name should match what is printed on your child's birth cert.

 

[jerseygal]

We will only be getting off at castaway Cay.

Have you ever thought about "what if" there was an emergency and you needed to get off the ship, medical emergency? Personally, I would NEVER take the chance of not having a passport!

 

[jerseygal]

I am PRETTY MAD AND ANXIOUS right now! Had a passport renewal, mailed my DH and my passport renewal package in TWO separate envelopes, priority mail. Priority mail comes with tracking, mailed late Monday afternoon at the same time. DH arrived on Wednesday and mine is still DELAYED per the USPS priority mail tracking notification. Called the post office that I mailed it from this afternoon and they told me they would research and get back to me. No call, called back 2 hours later and left a message. NO RETURN CALL at end of day.
Will follow up in the morning, BUT, I will be furious if the original passport was STOLEN in the priority mail envelope. Never can tell this days! What a headache that will be, will have to notify Passport Agency that it was stolen, is unusable because it is expired, but still probably will be a headache. Then I would imagine I have to gather all my documents and begin the process for a new passport, rather than renewal! So ANGRY because I originally wanted to send the passport CERTIFIED RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED, but the Post Office HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that I send it Priority Mail. HOPING that I get good news in the morning as to "status". Not traveling till end of May. GLAD that I left enough time!

 

[ashley0139]

Have you ever thought about "what if" there was an emergency and you needed to get off the ship, medical emergency? Personally, I would NEVER take the chance of not having a passport!

Did you read the first post in the thread? She said that they would all be getting passports from the get go.

 

[jerseygal]

I am PRETTY MAD AND ANXIOUS right now! Had a passport renewal, mailed my DH and my passport renewal package in TWO separate envelopes, priority mail. Priority mail comes with tracking, mailed late Monday afternoon at the same time. DH arrived on Wednesday and mine is still DELAYED per the USPS priority mail tracking notification. Called the post office that I mailed it from this afternoon and they told me they would research and get back to me. No call, called back 2 hours later and left a message. NO RETURN CALL at end of day.
Will follow up in the morning, BUT, I will be furious if the original passport was STOLEN in the priority mail envelope. Never can tell this days! What a headache that will be, will have to notify Passport Agency that it was stolen, is unusable because it is expired, but still probably will be a headache. Then I would imagine I have to gather all my documents and begin the process for a new passport, rather than renewal! So ANGRY because I originally wanted to send the passport CERTIFIED RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED, but the Post Office HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that I send it Priority Mail. HOPING that I get good news in the morning as to "status". Not traveling till end of May. GLAD that I left enough time!

Update, SO HAPPY this morning, finally woke up to tracking notification that it was finally delivered! One step closer to sunny Aruba!

 

[hanscarlet]

If they were certified copies they would have been fine. Sounds like you made copies of the certified BCs? Weirdly, per the exact wording on the CBP site, copies of certified BCs are fine for boarding a ship (for a US citizen on a cruise where BCs are accepted), but not for passports.



Not actually true. There are forms you can fill out depending on the reason for not having both parents present. All in a nice little flowchart-ISH sort of page on the State Department's passport site.

Our passport agent was terrifying and crazy... she actually questioned me when I said I need to go home and just grab the originals because I live 5 min away... acting as if she knows where I live! I wish I had the whole thing on tape, it was hilarious and sad. She did help us with copying our drivers licenses, apparently black and white copies that i provided were not good enough for her so she got us color copies. Oh and I had showed up with previous passports for the kids, it's not like I wasn't legitimate...

 

[abayaflowers]

I know a renewal is a bit different, but I just got my new passport back exactly 2 weeks after I mailed it in. They seem to be processing them quickly.

Yes, us, too. We received our renewals in two weeks. Very surprised.

 

[rawdata]

We renewed ours back in January of this year as they would have expired in Jan of 2019 so would have been invalid for our MerryTime later this year. As others mentioned, we did the Notary signature so DW could take the kids and get theirs. I expedited mine within a few days of them sending theirs off. In the meantime, the end of Jan came, DW and I got our new passports. And then the government shut down. That DOES include the Passport office. A week or so later all was well and we got our Passport cards and original passports with no problem. It wasn't like we were worried about it, but it was "something else" to think about for those that don't like open work items...

The other benefit to having passports is in case a ship needs to be emptied before getting back to port. I imagine you'd have to have a passport to get back to the US, even if it was via another ship. There are dozens of potential scenarios, all with very slim chances of them happening. But there is always that chance...

 

[jerseygal]

We renewed ours back in January of this year as they would have expired in Jan of 2019 so would have been invalid for our MerryTime later this year. As others mentioned, we did the Notary signature so DW could take the kids and get theirs. I expedited mine within a few days of them sending theirs off. In the meantime, the end of Jan came, DW and I got our new passports. And then the government shut down. That DOES include the Passport office. A week or so later all was well and we got our Passport cards and original passports with no problem. It wasn't like we were worried about it, but it was "something else" to think about for those that don't like open work items...

The other benefit to having passports is in case a ship needs to be emptied before getting back to port. I imagine you'd have to have a passport to get back to the US, even if it was via another ship. There are dozens of potential scenarios, all with very slim chances of them happening. But there is always that chance...

My sentiments exactly, leave nothing to chance when you travel internationally, you never know what emergency could arise!

 

[gotomu212]

If they were certified copies they would have been fine. Sounds like you made copies of the certified BCs? Weirdly, per the exact wording on the CBP site, copies of certified BCs are fine for boarding a ship (for a US citizen on a cruise where BCs are accepted), but not for passports

The reason there are different requirements is because the cruise has you coming and going from the same port and is for a one time specific trip. They know everyone coming back on the cruise also left on the cruise and they are verifying citizenship for that week. The passport is a blank check for traveling and re-entry to the country anytime from anywhere over 10 years. The risk of fraud is way up on a passport than the somewhat closed environment of a cruise.

 

[ladyofthetramp]

We just did this two weeks ago and I completely forgot to bring the original birth certificates and instead brought only the copies and they turned us away... they needed both parents present and children present to get the kids' passports. Also, you need original birth certificates, parents' driver licenses and all of those needed photocopies and they will only take certified or personal check. Our lady was a real passport cop, you could have made an SNL skit out of how seriously she took her job lol.

The agent we had was a character too. I had called before showing up at the post office in our town to make sure we did not need an appointment or anything. They can be a bit quirky there. My son at the time had't taken his driver's test for his license and she was insisting he couldn't get his passport because he didn't have a driver's license as a form of id. I told her I had a non-expired passport he would use if he shouldn't get his license in time and according to the gov. website that would be sufficient. She insisted it was not and that he wouldn't be able to renew. The whole experience was a bit wacky. We get there, bunch of folks in line to mail xmas packages and she drops everything to process our passport applications. Everyone was glaring at us! It was interesting to say the least. Thank goodness we are good for 10 years!

 

[momcloud]

Because we live in KY we will have to have a valid passport just to fly for our Dec. cruise because KY is stupid and won't pass legislation to update our driver's license s to make them federally compliant.

 

[YawningDodo]

I know it seems smart to get the passport now, but they aren't sailing until Jun 19. It may go up $10 in April, but it is a waste to get the passport over a year before you need it. Especially kids that only last 5 years and require in person renewal.

Yeah, the 5 year factor on the kids' passports is the one thing that has stopped me from chiming in on the "just get them right now" bandwagon. I think the answer, as others have pointed out, is that now is the time for the OP to research their local passport offices and so on in case they need to put in any requests for documents they don't currently have, set an appointment, etc. As an adult who just renewed my passport for the first time, my angle on it is that once you have the passport it's a heck of a lot easier to keep it renewed than to deal with the whole application process, so setting your timing up to have the kids' passports valid longer after the trip rather than a full year before is of course preferable. Sounds like kids' passports are more of a pain to renew, too? I was able to do my renewal entirely by mail last year, but I hadn't gotten my original passport until I was over 18, so there wasn't any transitional weirdness.

Because we live in KY we will have to have a valid passport just to fly for our Dec. cruise because KY is stupid and won't pass legislation to update our driver's license s to make them federally compliant.

Ugh, Montanan here and I feel you. When I traveled in January I was told Montana had gotten an extension, but at this point I'm planning even in-country trips with the assumption that I'll need to bring my passport. The state legislature tried to pass it off like they'd done us a favor by not subjecting us to federal standards, but with the cost and fuss of passports there are going to be a lot of people in Montana facing big travel problems if they don't get it taken care of and start reissuing state IDs in compliance with the feds.

 

[MelSpees]

Ugh, Montanan here and I feel you. When I traveled in January I was told Montana had gotten an extension, but at this point I'm planning even in-country trips with the assumption that I'll need to bring my passport. The state legislature tried to pass it off like they'd done us a favor by not subjecting us to federal standards, but with the cost and fuss of passports there are going to be a lot of people in Montana facing big travel problems if they don't get it taken care of and start reissuing state IDs in compliance with the feds.

Yep, Washington is in the same boat. It's very frustrating, even though we've had our passports for a long time. (I could get into the politics that are responsible for this debacle, but I want to keep things pleasant.)

 

[ifitzger]

I renewed mine beginning of January...took 18 days. Just applied for 1st time passports for the kids last Saturday, will give an update later. Your birth name should match what is printed on your child's birth cert.

Applied on the 3rd, arrived on the 17th...surprised it was so fast