This was supposed to be a surprise!

[jmet]

We just booked the Wonder for Jan 06 - and now find out that we are all going to need passports! This will be our kids first cruise (and only our 2nd - the first being for our honeymoon 18 years ago!) and we were thinking it was going to be a big part of their Christmas because we won't be able to do "big gifts" this year with the expense of the cruise. Plus, we have found that it just works better at our house when they don't know anyway. A few phone calls confirmed that both kids and parents HAVE to be present to apply for the passports. My 13 year old is going to be pretty hard to trick, but if anyone has any clever idea's I'd LOVE to hear 'em!
Thanks!!
Jamie

 

[Favorite Auntie]

Tell them that you are doing it as part of a national comapign to keep children safe. If any of them should go missing, you will have all their information right there in their passports.... They do this with fingerprinting and stuff, so they might buy it.

 

[slindamood]

Tell them the Homeland Security Act requires all Americans to have a valid passport.

 

[wdwstar]

I know what you mean a "surprise" dec. 31. 2005 cruise. how do you fool your DH though, i am actually on my way to the post office to pick up the forms and ask a few questions about the birth cert. and in between the post office and home im going to have to figure out a game plan, more then likely i will have to tell them, hmmm might not be a bad idea, they can do odd jobs to make money and put towards the cruise and i have an excuse everytime they say can we buy this, i can say hmmm would you like that or a disney cruise

 

[mickeyboat]

jmet - I see you live in MN. How close are you to the Canadian border? Do you ever go there. Maybe you can say you are going on a weekend trip there which requires passports (I'm not sure if it does, but it is a good excuse). Then you can go on the cruise instead.

Good luck!

Denae

 

[crisi]

jmet - I see you live in MN. How close are you to the Canadian border? Do you ever go there. Maybe you can say you are going on a weekend trip there which requires passports (I'm not sure if it does, but it is a good excuse). Then you can go on the cruise instead.

Good luck!

Denae

She's in Minneapolis, its a six or eight hour drive to the Canadian boarder from here, and there is nothing but fish on the other side.

 

[jmet]

Thanks for the great idea's ~ I love 'em!!! I've been brain storming too and thought about telling them we are thinking of going to Canada to visit some "friends" (we are from MN). I'll have to run these by DH and see what he thinks!
wdwstar - I hope your plan comes together - surprising DH - now THAT would be a challange! Would love to hear what you ended up doing!

Happy Cruisin'...
Jamie

 

[Billinaz]

I did something like this.

First fill in the passport applications online at the state department.

Print them, so you have everything ready. I took their photos with a digital camera and printed them on photo quality paper. Took me a few prints to get the head size right, but they give you guidelines and you can hold it right up to the paper and get it right.

Cut out the photos and took the whole thing to the post office. I let the employee at the post office know whats going on and they helped get the process done fast without saying they were passports.

They went off with the fees and were back on a few weeks..... surprise still intact!

 

[jmet]

Billinaz - I am very impressed with your method! I would love to do that, - but I'm afraid the digital picture part would trip me up because I have no experiance at all taking/printing digital photo's (I don't even have a digital camera yet - but my mom does). The wheels are turning though - thinking maybe someone else could help me out with that part, but I'm not sure who off the top of my head (my mom would be no help at all LOL!). This would be ideal though because then they would have no CLUE they even had passports!

If all else fails I am kind of liking the going to Canada idea...my DS13 would actually be ALL about that since he's an avid fisherman. My luck, he'll be disappointed that it's not true LOL!

In any case, I feel a little better now that we might figure a way around this little dilemma after all. Thanks again for all your help.

Jamie

 

[ivanova]

Tell them that you are planning some trips, nothing concrete yet, but might include Canada ... and since starting 1/1/06 you'll need passports for trips outside the US (even Canada) you want to get the passport-getting out of the way (before there's a rush on the State Dept) .. that way when you make your Canada plans you won't be held up because of the lack of passports.

 

[scrapperjill]

Billinaz - I am very impressed with your method! I would love to do that, - but I'm afraid the digital picture part would trip me up because I have no experiance at all taking/printing digital photo's (I don't even have a digital camera yet - but my mom does). The wheels are turning though - thinking maybe someone else could help me out with that part, but I'm not sure who off the top of my head (my mom would be no help at all LOL!). This would be ideal though because then they would have no CLUE they even had passports!

If all else fails I am kind of liking the going to Canada idea...my DS13 would actually be ALL about that since he's an avid fisherman. My luck, he'll be disappointed that it's not true LOL!

In any case, I feel a little better now that we might figure a way around this little dilemma after all. Thanks again for all your help.

Jamie

You could give the photo sneak in maybe....by telling everyone your doing some sort of Scrapbook project (or thinking about it) and your needing good "head shots" of everyone...something for a family tree or some thing...then take them and get the photos done at a place that will do passport photos.

 

[TootyJane]

Rather than going to the Passport office located in the Post Office, you can find another Passport Acceptance Facility Search Page. We found one at a local community center. I would have never known they accepted passport applications had I not done the search. Post office lines can be very long at times. HTH

 

[scrapperjill]

You could give the photo sneak in maybe....by telling everyone your doing some sort of Scrapbook project (or thinking about it) and your needing good "head shots" of everyone...something for a family tree or some thing...then take them and get the photos done at a place that will do passport photos.

Sorry...I had to run off to the vet before I could finish what I was saying...Anyways you could try and convence everyone that your doing a family heritage project and are needing everyone in the family to get simular photos done...and from what you've "heard from others doing like projects" the photos that are taken for id's and passports are perfect for the what your doing.

Hope your able to pull it off. Good luck.

 

[msim]

Are you absolutely sure that you need a passport for 2006? I read on the boards the other day that President Bush did not sign that issue in to law yet, but authorized a deeper study on this topic first. Am I wrong?

 

[GhostlyHitchhiker]

Here's the FAQ website for the US Dept of State with answers to many of the Passport issues people are having:

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cbpmc/cbpmc_2225.html

 

[wdwstar]

wow, i didnt know you can take a digital pics yourself, i know you have to have a white background, i have plenty of white walls and i just got my renewals for our fiod cards, Dh & i need the same kind of pics for those, so that would cover me for the pics with DH and i can say we are just goofing aroundto get the pics right so i can do tests on the kids, now i need to figure something out why we all have to go to the post office and sign the passports, LOL

 

[krhardy]

OK, here's what we did. We surprised our kids with a trip to England last year for Christmas, and needless to say, they needed passports. Fortunately for me, our local post office does both passports and pictures. Sooooo, when I went in to mail our Christmas cards, I told the kids that they were taking pictures of children to put on their Christmas tree. My oldest (10) even bought it...and she's extremely smart. If you went at the beginning of the season...right around Thanksgiving, maybe a few weeks before, it would give enough time for passports to come in, and it might be believeable. Worth a shot. Good luck!

 

[chzhdinparadise]

I just did this in February (surprise cruise) for my 18 year old and did get us passports (just felt better about us having them even though they weren't required.) I took him to the post office and said we were getting passports because we frequently go to Canada when we go to see my dad (he lives right on the MN-Manitoba border) and also I was thinking I may be able to find some really good last minute deals on a graduation trip and if we had passports we could take advantage of those. Anyway, he fell for it hook, line, and sinker. I kept it a secret for 11-1/2 months and finally pulled out the cruise documents at the Orlando airport and said, "look what I found, wanna go on a cruise?" He thought I was going to Florida for a conference and it took him a couple of minutes to figure out that he was not going on the cruise alone while I was at the conference.
Go with the fishing trip idea and have a great time!
Colleen

 

[tvguy]

Just tell them you're afraid something could happen to their birth certificates and you think it's a good idea to have a more durable backup form of ID for them.

I have to drag the passports out a couple times a year for my kids anyway for non-travel stuff......school registration, little league signups, soccer signups.......and my company just got sold and to qualify my family for health benefits I had to produce either birth certificates or passports for the kids, and a marriage certificate.

 

[jmet]

Wow! Talk about some great idea's! Now I'm not even sure which one we'll go for - but I know one thing... we've got OPTIONS!

Tootyjane - I also wanted to say that I really appreciated the link on finding alternate sites to get a passport - very helpful!

You guys are awesome - thanks again!
Jamie