I am planning a 4 day Disney Dream cruise to the Bahamas and I was thinking about getting passports for my family. I saw that there are two choices, the book and the card. What is the difference and which one would be right for me and my family?
Passport cards are good for border crossings land or sea only. They may not be used for international air travel, whereas a passport book can. Personally, and this is just my opinion, if you are going to get documentation to travel internationally, then spend the money for a passport book. IMO, that is the best form of identification.
Realistically, Passport cards are pretty worthless. If you have an emergency and have to fly home, they have no value.
We also considered getting the cards, which are considerably cheaper, but ended up with the books. I think the cards were really meant for people that regularly commute by land from U.S. to Canada or Mexico and vice versa. While the card is accepted for travel outside the U.S. by sea also, I would have to agree that the book is probably the way to go, due to the emergency factor, and the possible need to have to fly home.
If you are going to spend money, go all the way and get the book. As others have said, the card is basically worthless in an emergency, which is the only reason you need one to begin with. Either spend nothing and do birth certificates (this means you are betting on no emergency; you will return on the ship...which is, of course, likely), or get what you WILL need in the event of an emergency--which is the passport book.
While I agree with everyone else - we have passportbooks for ourselves and our 8yo DD - I do wonder if a passport card would be sufficent for Alaska cruises out of Vancouver. We're looking at an Alaska cruise in 2012 or 2013, and my parents don't have passports. As it's hard enough to get them to fly to Seattle, and they're not likely to ever go anywhere else out of the country, I'm wondering if they might be able to save some money and get the card, since we'll be land boardering the drive to Vancouver, and *all* of the ports on the cruise are in the US. If there's a problem, we don't need passports to fly from home from Alaska.
