Passport Question

[kennedyparalegal]

Okay, I am filling out the application for my children's passports and I see that it says the birth certificate must contain the full name of the parents. I take a look at my son's Kansas birth certificate and see that our full names are there, but then I look at my daughter's Missouri birth certificate and it has both our names but has our middle initials instead of our full middle names. I guess this means I can't get her a passport until that is changed (please let me know if I am wrong), but my question is will her birth certificate work for our Mexican Riviera Cruise the way it is while I try to get a birth certificate with our full names. I don't see how we can get her a passport in time with having to resolve the birth certificate issue and at this point I have no idea how long it will take to get the new birth certificate.

So if anyone has any information on this I would really appreciate it, because my research isn't finding much.

Thanks!

UPDATE

*I called the Dept. of State and the birth certificate I have for my daughter will work for the passport application. Sorry I panicked. I am going to leave this info up just in case anyone else has this question, because I looked everywhere and could not find an answer to this on any cruise site or the State Dept. site.

 

[oneor11]

That's a good one that I'm unable to answer. But I would go ahead and call the National Passport Information Center at 1-877-487-2778 and explain your situation. They should be able to explain further if you need to do any extra work. Offhand I would think that the middle name is the least important. Some people don't even have middle names.

Best of luck.

 

[eggroll]

I was able to get my daughter's birth the certificate the same day. I just walked up to the department of health and paid a few bucks.
You need to have both parents with ID and it helps to have both parents present. We were lucky. We got ours one week, then another in two weeks, and we did not pay extra.

Now, you only require a passport of you are on an open loop tour. Close loop only requires birth certificate.

Translation
Close loop - if you leave from point A, stay in north America, and return to point A : that is closed loop. Only birth certificate is required.

Ex. Your boat leaves miami.
You party on the Caribbean
You go back to Miami
This is closed loop

Yes, you can still get off the boat do ports. My daughter and myself just did this. Now buyer beware, If you miss the boat or need medical attention and need to fly. You are screwed. I don't know how bad or how to fix this situation. But the situation is bad enough that I haven't read a solution or resolve.

Translation
Open loop
Leave point A, go to Caribbean, return to point B

Ex. If the boat leaves Miami, party in Mexico, and come back to Tampa bay. That's open loop.
You have to have passport.
Again, more difficulties to surface. What happens if there is a storm at your returning port?

I hope this helps.

Thx teddy.

Feel free to ask more

 

[reimero]

UPDATE

*I called the Dept. of State and the birth certificate I have for my daughter will work. Sorry I panicked. I am going to leave this info up just in case anyone else has this question, because I looked everywhere and could not find an answer to this on any cruise site or the State Dept. site.

This is the single best piece of advice on this thread: when in doubt about passport issues, contacting the State Department directly is often your best course of action.

 

[kennedyparalegal]

Just to be clear, the birth certificate I have for my daughter with my husband and I's first names, middle initial and last names as the parents is acceptable to the Dept. of State per their customer service representative this morning.