Passport or Birth Certificate?

[angelofjoy23]

We are taking our first Disney cruise next March with our kids who will be 12 and almost 8. My husband and I both have passports, but I'm not sure if I need/want to spend the extra money on a passport for the boys. We are doing the Western Caribbean cruise from Port Canaveral. So, a couple questions: 1) U.S. Birth certificates are acceptable in lieu of a passport, correct? 2) Have you/would you travel with your children only having a birth certificate? 3) Is it worth buying a passport for our kids if this is the only time they will likely leave the country?

Appreciate your thoughts! Thanks!

 

[Capang]

I would never leave the country without a passport for my child. That's my own opinion, though. In case of emergencies, passports make life easier.

 

[DCSWO]

These questions has been posed a number of times and you'll get arguments from both sides. The better-safe-than-sorry bet is to get your children passports. I would pay the money for passports before I would buy trip insurance - but that's my personal opinion.

 

[MomOTwins]

This boils down to risk preference. Here are some reasons you might need a passport. None are especially likely but I would never go without a password on the "better safe than sorry" principle:

• Someone in your party has a medical emergency. Ship medical centers are really just for routine illness/minor injuries and you will have to leave the ship and go to a local hospital and fly home if you have any severe illness or injury (this is what I would worry most about, personally)
• You have to cut your trip short due to a family emergency/death in the family/other reason you need to head home (this one is always a possibility; it happened to us once)
• You are late getting back to the ship and miss the boat, and have to connect up with it at the next port or return home (this is more avoidable, since you can stay ashore or not venture too far from the ship to mitigate this risk). Note, if you are on a DCL excursion, this risk is mitigated because they will hold the boat a reasonable amount of time for you. That is not true if you book an excursion through a third-party or head ashore yourself, and even on a DCL excursion, if they really cannot get you to the ship, they may cover your cost of getting to the next port but you'd still need a passport to fly there. That happened to my grandma once.
• Weather or mechanical failure causes the ship to be unable to return to the US home port and you have to disembark at a foreign port and fly home (very unlikely, especially since you are not traveling in hurricane season)

 

[Keone2002]

It's worth the extra money - you can travel with the original birth certificate, and the likelihood of an emergency is slim to none - but I would not take the chance.

 

[Minniemouse07]

We are taking our first Disney cruise next March with our kids who will be 12 and almost 8. My husband and I both have passports, but I'm not sure if I need/want to spend the extra money on a passport for the boys. We are doing the Western Caribbean cruise from Port Canaveral. So, a couple questions: 1) U.S. Birth certificates are acceptable in lieu of a passport, correct? 2) Have you/would you travel with your children only having a birth certificate? 3) Is it worth buying a passport for our kids if this is the only time they will likely leave the country?

Appreciate your thoughts! Thanks!

My daughter has cruised in Caribbean 4x and my son 2x using their birth certificates. I couldn't rationalize the huge expense, especially since we weren't doing any repeat international travel within the 5 years of the passports (dd's first two would have, but the second one wasn't planned).

We were all fine using our birth certificates and I wouldn't hesitate to use them again for another cruise.

 

[bumbershoot]

Is it worth buying a passport for our kids if this is the only time they will likely leave the country?

I can’t even fathom such a thing, so it’s hard for me to answer that.


But. If one of us had an emergency that required us to fly, I want to be flying, NOT stuck at an office getting a more expensive than it would have been, even less time than 5 years, emergency passport for my son.

 

[serenitynow]

Pay your money, take your chances- it’s up to you

 

[hcox31]

I wouldn't leave the country myself without a passport. Mind you, I'm Canadian, so I need one just to fly to the US. If you're already paying thousands of dollars for a cruise, the added expense of a passport is a wee percentage of the overall cost. The peace of mind is priceless.

 

[disneyfaninaz]

Passports are the gold standard of identification. Think of getting them as an investment. Even if your kids don't travel internationally immediately, the passport can be used to get a driver's licenses, sign up for sport clubs, etc. As your kids get older, they may have an opportunity to travel overseas with school groups. It is good to have it in the bullpen.

 

[angelofjoy23]

I can’t even fathom such a thing, so it’s hard for me to answer that.

I should have said that it's not likely that they will travel outside the country again other than a cruise and/or before they would need an updated passport. That being said, not everyone can afford huge, expensive vacations, so perhaps you may want to consider how your comment may come across before posting it. Otherwise, someone may end up feeling pretty crappy that they aren't able to do more for their children.

 

[angelofjoy23]

Thanks for all the advice! I think we will probably bite the bullet and get them. I just wish they lasted longer than 5 years!

 

[disneyfaninaz]

Thanks for all the advice! I think we will probably bite the bullet and get them. I just wish they lasted longer than 5 years!

Well, once your oldest turns 16, they can get an adult one that lasts 10 years.

 

[angelofjoy23]

My daughter has cruised in Caribbean 4x and my son 2x using their birth certificates. I couldn't rationalize the huge expense, especially since we weren't doing any repeat international travel within the 5 years of the passports (dd's first two would have, but the second one wasn't planned).

We were all fine using our birth certificates and I wouldn't hesitate to use them again for another cruise.

Thanks for this perspective too. This is sort of the boat (no pun intended, lol) we're in. I'm wondering if we will get enough use out of them in the next 5 years.

 

[Lori74]

We have sailed with our children I think 5 times to the Caribbean with just birth certificates and been fine. Thank goodness there were no emergencies. I can definitely understand the point of ppl getting them. It's a question of will you worry yourself silly if you don't get passports, or are you a gambling fool like me and pray for the best? Have a great time!

 

[JustCallMeMommy]

DD and I booked a last minute cruise before we had passports and made the decision to travel on our birth certificates. We didn't have any issues, but 99.9% of the time, there won't be issues.

The issue is really if you need to get home by plane at some point during the trip, because you need a passport to do so. I made sure I had access to funds if the very unlikely happened and I needed to get an emergency passport through a US embassy to get home, including funds for a hotel and flights while I waited.

 

[fdefulvio]

I have three kids, so passports for all of us would be another $600+, on top of what is already a pretty steep bill. I chose to only get Passports for my wife and I. If it was Europe, I would have gotten them for all of us, but for one stop in Nassau I didn’t feel that it was necessary.

If we travel abroad again, I would then only have to pay for the kids. Also, my boys are 14 and almost 16, and children’s passports are only good for five years.

 

[bumbershoot]

I should have said that it's not likely that they will travel outside the country again other than a cruise and/or before they would need an updated passport. That being said, not everyone can afford huge, expensive vacations, so perhaps you may want to consider how your comment may come across before posting it. Otherwise, someone may end up feeling pretty crappy that they aren't able to do more for their children.

The concept of winning a vacation is what is behind that thought. Especially right now with what is going on in my life.

But to limit myself to not being able to go anywhere makes me sad. I had almost ten years of not having a passport and I *hated* it. I hated the feeling of being limited. Even though I was not in a position of traveling at the time, they fact that I literally couldn’t was awful.

You are leaving the country. If you have to fly home it will be more expensive than if you got them now. And they would have a shorter lifespan.

If you go on this cruise and decide you love it, and then fall in love with an itinerary that isn’t a closed loop cruise, you will have to get them.

Anyone taking a Disney Cruise is already in a privileged group; let’s not kid ourselves. But you can do it for cheaper on other lines.

I’ve spent FAR less on a Royal cruise that required passports than I spent on a Disney Cruise for far fewer days.