I had real fun and games yesterday trying to sort this out!
We go to WDW on October 22nd for a fortnight, our passports are valid until January 22nd 2010, so I was looking at having to pay about £300 to renew them so they were valid for the 6 months after date of travel.
I saw the info that Wayne posted yesterday, and thought "Brilliant, that's extra spending money". DH asked me to ring and make sure that the info. was being followed by the relevant parties, ie Virgin.
I rang my
travel agent, who told me it was definately six months, when I queried it, she said they were told it was 6 months, so they didn't have to check the individual countries information. I stated that the us embassy site said no extra validity was needed, she got snotty and said they have to say 6 months.
I then rang the passport service, as stated to in the back of the Virgin Holidays brochure, they passed me on to the home office travel advisory or some such, who said that it used to be 6 months, but I'd have to ring the us embassy to check. I rang the embassy, who got snotty when I said I had read that none was needed, and directed me to the website, but wouldn't give me a verbal answer.
I then rang Virgin, and got someone in India who had to go away and check, but came back and said it was 6 months, when I queried this she went away again to check, but still claimed it was right. I said the website says differently and so does the brochure, but she swore up and down that 6 months was correct!
DH now wants to renew the passports before we go.
He doesn't seem to understand that I will have to take the money from somewhere in order to order them 8 weeks before travel. He seems to think we can just try to get them a month or so before we go.
Don't get me wrong, there is money to go and have enough spending money, but then the eldest needs Prom money, and all the other stuff that seems to come out of the blue that you can't budgeted for, and as I run the finances, I have to magic the money exactly when it is needed apparently.
