ACK! I need to vent!

[tea4ular]

In a moment of boredom, tonight I decided to do the e-docs for my husband and myself for our upcoming January 8th cruise.

WHAT? My H's passport expired in October! Needless to say he has now filled out renewal documentation, going to the passport office tomorrow, paying through the nose for expedited service, and we are both having a minor panic attack (ok, his is minor, mine is making up for his!)

All I can say is that goodness I decided to do the e-docs today. Normally it's something I wait to do until a few days before we take off. :eek: I don't even want to know what would have happened.

Thanks for letting me vent...and go, right now, and check your passport expiration date!

[cruisinjudy]

Ours is 2012. After filling out many precruise docs I have it ingrained in brain that we need to re do them next year.

[andeesue]

:eek: I'm sure you were beyond frantic! So glad you did your e-docs now so an expedited passport was feasible. Oh, my... take a breath!

[Sailkeywest]

Thanks for the valuable advice to other cruisers! Ours are good and I made sure they are in our firesafe, because if the house burns down at least we will still be able to go on our cruise! ;)

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thankfully you did decide to do your e-docs early.

Ours are up 2012.

[GmaPajama]

Thanks for the valuable advice to other cruisers! Ours are good and I made sure they are in our firesafe, because if the house burns down at least we will still be able to go on our cruise! ;)
At least you've got your priorities straight. Love it! :)

[fann1sh]

Helpful reminder, Tea4ular.

I use my passport frequently (U.S.-Canada land crossings, minimum twice a month). I carry it in my purse 24/7, and so I see it every day. Despite that....

Y'know what? I had NO idea of the expiration date - until I checked.

It's October 2012.

Thanks for the thread.

[m steve]

like they are doing with tax rates. I think that's a reasonable idea. How about you?

[lorekauf]

I'm well aware of when mine expires. Sorry....but I can't understand how anybody can not know this. I travel a fair bit so it's on my mind constantly. YMMV.

[Lizzie1213]

Thanks for the warning! I don't even have a cruise booked, but I'll check mine at once.

[LAFFNVEGAS]

Sounds like a lot of us have passports that expire in 2012. We just came back from a cruise Sunday and spoke about when we will need to renew outs because ours expire January 2012. We cruise in March, May and again in October next year so we already figured that when we get back from the May cruise we will need to send ours in to be renewed before the October cruise. :)

[buckirj1]

Don't forget many countries require passports to be valid for 6 months beyond travel dates.

[barbarah33]

I got lucky with mine and it expires on a date that I can't forget: 11/11/11.

And I already have on October 1st of my 2011 calendar to go get my passports pictures taken and get the necessary form to have it renewed. :cool:

Don't panic though - my friend sailing in January also just realized that his passport had expired so he went with the expedited service and already has his renewed passport in his hand. It took less than a week. You'll be fine.

[crusinbanjo]

I did my E docs for our up coming Jan 2 cruise last week too. I did also notice that our passports expire in Aug of 2011 and said to myself... Wow where does the time go, and I had better not forget to renew these before summer!

[FoxyTerrier]

In a moment of boredom, tonight I decided to do the e-docs for my husband and myself for our upcoming January 8th cruise.

WHAT? My H's passport expired in October! Needless to say he has now filled out renewal documentation, going to the passport office tomorrow, paying through the nose for expedited service, and we are both having a minor panic attack (ok, his is minor, mine is making up for his!)



Take a breath!!! DS let his Passport lapse even though I sent him the money to renew it 18 months ago. His excuse too busy at college and not going anywhere to need one.

So he finally got his butt in gear when we booked our Christmas cruise and got the pics taken and paperwork submitted and not expidited the week before Thanksgiving and he got it back in on 11/29. I was so surprised.

I think you will be fine!!!

[Harry1954]

That surely created anxiety .. glad you caught it.
Another issue is running out of passport pages. DW/I are down to four blank pages ... so ... sometime soon we will need to pay our loving gov to add more pages as ours does not expire for several years. Countries such as China and Vietnam for instance took up a whole page.
harry

[solocanadian]

In a moment of boredom, tonight I decided to do the e-docs for my husband and myself for our upcoming January 8th cruise.

WHAT? My H's passport expired in October! Needless to say he has now filled out renewal documentation, going to the passport office tomorrow, paying through the nose for expedited service, and we are both having a minor panic attack (ok, his is minor, mine is making up for his!)

All I can say is that goodness I decided to do the e-docs today. Normally it's something I wait to do until a few days before we take off. :eek: I don't even want to know what would have happened.

Thanks for letting me vent...and go, right now, and check your passport expiration date!
You poor woman. I'm having an anxiety attach for you. So glad it was caught in time. Enjoy your cruise on the Beautiful "O" & Seasons Greetings.:D

[pgphoto]

In a moment of boredom, tonight I decided to do the e-docs for my husband and myself for our upcoming January 8th cruise.

WHAT? My H's passport expired in October! Needless to say he has now filled out renewal documentation, going to the passport office tomorrow, paying through the nose for expedited service, and we are both having a minor panic attack (ok, his is minor, mine is making up for his!)

All I can say is that goodness I decided to do the e-docs today. Normally it's something I wait to do until a few days before we take off. :eek: I don't even want to know what would have happened.

Thanks for letting me vent...and go, right now, and check your passport expiration date!
tea4ular...where are you traveling to? I know it's always a good idea to have a passport, but in some cases, you might only need a certified birth certificate. I'm traveling to the E. Caribbean in Jan, and only need a certified birth certificate. This is from travel.state.gov:
"Closed Loop" Cruises: U.S. citizens who board a cruise ship at a port within the United States, travel only within the Western Hemisphere, and return to the same U.S. port on the same ship may present a government issued photo identification, along with proof of citizenship (an original or copy of his or her birth certificate, a Consular report of Birth Abroad, or a Certificate of Naturalization). Please be aware that you may still be required to present a passport to enter the foreign countries your cruise ship is visiting. Check with your cruise line to ensure you have the appropriate documents.

[tea4ular]

tea4ular...where are you traveling to? I know it's always a good idea to have a passport, but in some cases, you might only need a certified birth certificate. I'm traveling to the E. Caribbean in Jan, and only need a certified birth certificate. This is from travel.state.gov:
"Closed Loop" Cruises: U.S. citizens who board a cruise ship at a port within the United States, travel only within the Western Hemisphere, and return to the same U.S. port on the same ship may present a government issued photo identification, along with proof of citizenship (an original or copy of his or her birth certificate, a Consular report of Birth Abroad, or a Certificate of Naturalization). Please be aware that you may still be required to present a passport to enter the foreign countries your cruise ship is visiting. Check with your cruise line to ensure you have the appropriate documents.

I found this on the website:

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cbpmc/cbpmc_2223.html


We would qualify for this exception, however...my H is disabled and if (big if) he were to need to be transferred out of Mexico, he would not be able to do so without a passport. Like travel insurance, we always travel the "safe" method.

Thanks though. :)

[JamesEM]

Our passports also expire in 2012, can't remember why we decided to get a passport at that time.

[JLC@SD]

I had my passport stolen five days before we left for Europe....and I was able to get it replaced in a couple of days.....it is possible to get it on short notice. My replacement passport had a note in the back that stated "this passport replaces a stolen passport"

[euro cruiser]

For those who have children, keep in mind that their passports expire twice as fast as yours - five years, as opposed to ten for adults.

I know someone who got tripped up by this; she checked her own passport date, but simply assumed her daughter's was the same, since they were issued together. It wasn't until they were at the airport, ready to leave on a high school graduation trip, that they discovered the daughter's passport had expired five years earlier.

[schoolinmy3]

For those who have children, keep in mind that their passports expire twice as fast as yours - five years, as opposed to ten for adults.

I know someone who got tripped up by this; she checked her own passport date, but simply assumed her daughter's was the same, since they were issued together. It wasn't until they were at the airport, ready to leave on a high school graduation trip, that they discovered the daughter's passport had expired five years earlier.
That would have been awful. What did she do?:(
A similar thing happened many years ago to my brother but my father realized his mistake a few days before leaving for Europe. They drove to NYC to obtain a current passport. My father travelled for work so his was always current. I am not sure how it happened that he had let my brother's expire. But maybe it was a similar thing - if they obtained the passports at the same time this mistake could easily be made. We are in the process of getting our kids next round of passports. Since my son went to Belgium in October by himself he was the first to get a new one. His brother is trying to get his now except they sent back his picture.:rolleyes: Fortunately they both now qualify for the adult passport so will be good for ten years. My daughter though is only 11 so she will have to get another child's passport.
diane

[euro cruiser]

That would have been awful. What did she do?:(
First, she cried. Then they went back home, rebooked everything (with some financial loss), had the passport renewed, and made the trip later. It wound up being a slightly shorter trip and cost more than she planned ... an expensive lesson.

[mamaofami]

Each time one of these passport threads appears, I check our expiration date. One expires in 2015 and the other in 2016. Not sure how that happened.

[Pete Jackson]

Do one of you fly so much that you are experiencing the relativistic time dilation effect?:D

[Twickenham]

This thread just proves how sound my No. 1 life rule is: Never assume.

So many of the problems one encounters are caused by us not checking to make sure, just assuming something is so. Anytime I've disregarded this rule, I've been caught out...

Re: why so many of you have passports expiring in 2012: obtained in 2002, right? Year after 9/11... somehow related?

[jtl513]

Re: why so many of you have passports expiring in 2012: obtained in 2002, right? Year after 9/11... somehow related?Yes. Tightening of the rules around 2002 meant many more people needed them that used to get by with a birth certificate.

[schoolinmy3]

Re: why so many of you have passports expiring in 2012: obtained in 2002, right? Year after 9/11... somehow related?

HMMM.... Prices for renewing passports went up just in time as well for all those newly expiring passports a whopping 47%.
diane

[manbehindthecurtain]

My bank has an emergency service you call when you lose your cards and/or other important documents. Included in the service is an expiry notification, giving you ample warning before a certain document is set to expire.

Another option if you use outlook or another calendar program on your computer or cellphone: set yourself a reminder 3 months before your document expires.

[kazu]

Our passports also expire in 2012, can't remember why we decided to get a passport at that time.

We Canadians have no choice but to have a passport if we want to cruise. Need it to fly to the US and to Europe so it's a must for us. In 2013 we will be on our 4th one I think

[fann1sh]

We Canadians have no choice but to have a passport if we want to cruise. Need it to fly to the US and to Europe so it's a must for us. In 2013 we will be on our 4th one I think

...and ours are only issued for 5 years, rather than the U.S. 10 year term. (And no, they don't cost half as much.)