Go check your passport!

[Four Swampers]

Welcome to Four Swampers' first installment of "Go check your passport."

This will be a recurring reminder to check the location/safety of your documents, and the expiration date of your passport.

Are your documents where you think they are? Really? Why not check?
Consider creating a drawer that is only for those identification documents, and be sure to put them back in that spot immediately when you return home! Better yet, perhaps even a small $50 fireproof safe.

When does your passport expire? Remember, when traveling to many foreign countries, a passport must be valid for six months from date of entry into the country.

 

[Jillpie]

Great idea. Ours are "somewhere out there" at the Kenya/Tanzania embassy land, getting Visas at the moment , leaving for Africa in a couple of months!! Pretty nervous not having them close by, but a necessary thing.

 

[ghoulishgirl]

My passport is in a fire-proof safe. It had expired last August and my mom kept harping on me to get in renewed and I kept saying," but we're not going anywhere." As soon as we decided we were going to Alaska, the first words out of her mouth were "renew your passport!" So I am good for another 10 years!

 

[Cruise]

There was a recent thread by someone who waited until the night before their flight to check for their passport and couldn't find it. In my mind, I'm like.... "who does that???" But I guess it happens. I was nervous for the person that apparently had to visit the Federal Building in LA the day of their cruise embarkment to get new ones. After paying thousands of dollars for a cruise and airfare, I just can't imagine not having all that squared away. I was freaking out at 4 months out when I couldn't find mine in the first place I looked (it was in the second place ).

I have a passport/travel folder (it's actually the Gold level Castaway Cay gift) that has my passport, my online checkin documents, $1 bills (room service), $5 bills (porters), some Canadian currency I happened to have from another trip (Alaskan cruise), and a few business cards. The folder stays in the top drawer of my desk. I'm adding $1s to it as I collect them so I'm not going to the bank on the last day and changing a twenty for them.

 

[CruisinEars]

Our passports are in our travel folder along with our cruise documents since we board the Star Princess to Alaska tomorrow!

Thanks for the reminder.

 

[TARAMEOW]

Our passports are in our travel folder along with our cruise documents since we board the Star Princess to Alaska tomorrow!

Thanks for the reminder.

Ooh have fun !!!!

My passport is good, but my hubby's is expired I have been telling him to renew already !

 

[adamsclan]

Gee thanks. Usually I start having nightmares about getting to Port and not having our passports the week leading up to our cruise. I haven't started yet, and we sail in 7 days. It's too early to put them in my purse. Once they are there I ritually take them out and count them every chance I get. (I also count all of our luggage and carry-ons every time we stop to rest somewhere. Obsessive much?)

 

[bumbershoot]

There was a recent thread by someone who waited until the night before their flight to check for their passport and couldn't find it.

It was NOT the day before their flight. They looked for days before their flight. They were lucky because they had already planned to fly cross-country early enough so they could actually get to the LA building. But seriously, they searched for days. Not just the day before.

 

[CruisinEars]

Ooh have fun !!!!

My passport is good, but my hubby's is expired I have been telling him to renew already !

Thanks!

And congrats on your weight loss. I am down 5 pounds so far, but I just started.

 

[omalley1118]

What a great thread!! Our NEW ones just came in the mail in May, and they are all in the safe deposit box at our bank. I also read along with that thread and had nightmares... That is one of my worst nightmares about traveling!!!

 

[fairfax]

What a great thread!! Our NEW ones just came in the mail in May, and they are all in the safe deposit box at our bank. I also read along with that thread and had nightmares... That is one of my worst nightmares about traveling!!!

We keep ours in a safe deposit box, too. We just renewed our kids' passports last year, they expire every 5 years.

 

[DynamicDisneyDuo]

Our passports are in a document folder. This we're pretty sure of.

What we don't know is where that folder is. It disappeared somewhere between PC and home on our last cruise. Now we have to replace them.

 

[bitlerzx4]

All 4 of ours are together and I just checked on them!

 

[Plaid Princess]

Love this thread!

Our passports are happily tucked away in their fire-proof storage box.

 

[FLDisneyMom]

I set an appointment with an alert in my phone calendar to go off about 6 months before one of our 4 passports expires as a reminder to renew them.

 

[MinnesotaMouseketeers]

Good topic

This wasn't for a cruise but we know two couples going to Ireland. One of the women didn't check for her pass port until the day before they left. Went somewhere in Chicago I believe to get one the next day for same day precessing during their layover.

 

[carolinagirl268]

Gee thanks. Usually I start having nightmares about getting to Port and not having our passports the week leading up to our cruise. I haven't started yet, and we sail in 7 days. It's too early to put them in my purse. Once they are there I ritually take them out and count them every chance I get. (I also count all of our luggage and carry-ons every time we stop to rest somewhere. Obsessive much?)

I also start having passport nightmares a week or two before we cruise. My nightmare is always that I've got the passports in my safe deposit box at the bank but the bank is closed and I can't get to it. I actually work at the bank so I'm there everyday. The tellers know I've booked a new cruise when I start asking to be let into my safe deposit box to check our passports.

I keep my unexpired WDW tickets in the safe deposit box too! All my import papers, passports, birth certificates, marriage license, Disney tickets. Priorities.

 

[darkwing818]

Safe deposit box as well.

Back in 2008 we were booking a DVC member cruise, & the CM that was handling reservation noticed, on her screen, that our passports would be expiring before the cruise . We never would have checked (thought we had at least another year). Needless to say we renewed with no problems. Now I have a reminder on my calendar (MAC) when to renew our passports.

 

[debsters41]

This thread reminded me to renew my daughter's... didn't need it for our next cruise because she is dual citizen, but it was time anyway.