Birth Certificate Issues??

[tulsacubfan]

That $130 per person - $13 per year, or 25 cents per week - works out to about one less coffee or soft drink per month for the ten years of hassle-free travel it allows: hard to understand the rationale.

 

If you only use it once....it is $130 a person for a single use....

[navybankerteacher]

My rationale works this way...We have sailed 9 times in the last 11 years starting when my kids were 4 and 7. We have never needed a passport on any of our cruises, nor were we ever delayed by just having a DL and BC in any way.

 

By my rationale we saved $130 x 5 (2 adult passports for DH and myself and 1 for DS ) + $80 x 5 (3 child passports for DD and 2 for DS). That's a total of $1,050 that I did not spend on passports we did not need. These passports would have been due in installments of $420, $160, $470...not 25 cents per week.

 

I am personally willing to take the extremely small risk of something happening based on the savings I have experienced. The government allows me to take on that risk because it is extremely small and as a US citizen they will not leave me stranded on foreign soil. You don't need to understand my rationale and I don't need to understand your paranoia. The government gives us the choice...that is all that matters.

 

 

Interesting -- I referred to your "rationale" and you replied by referring to my rationale as "paranoia". I have used my passport for occasional overseas travel -- do you suppose I picked up my "paranoia" that way?

 

Of course, if you are determined to continue to never travel except on closed loop cruises to the same batch of nearby islands (after limiting yourself that way nine times in recent years) I suppose you are making prudent financial decisions -- but frankly I couldn't care less.

[tulsacubfan]

My rationale works this way...We have sailed 9 times in the last 11 years starting when my kids were 4 and 7. We have never needed a passport on any of our cruises, nor were we ever delayed by just having a DL and BC in any way.

 

By my rationale we saved $130 x 5 (2 adult passports for DH and myself and 1 for DS ) + $80 x 5 (3 child passports for DD and 2 for DS). That's a total of $1,050 that I did not spend on passports we did not need. These passports would have been due in installments of $420, $160, $470...not 25 cents per week.

 

I am personally willing to take the extremely small risk of something happening based on the savings I have experienced. The government allows me to take on that risk because it is extremely small and as a US citizen they will not leave me stranded on foreign soil. You don't need to understand my rationale and I don't need to understand your paranoia. The government gives us the choice...that is all that matters.

 

I think this is the best I have ever heard this said!

[angelndscz]

The government allows me to take on that risk because it is extremely small and as a US citizen they will not leave me stranded on foreign soil.

 

Who won't leave you stranded on foreign soil? The U.S. government? Yes, in the event you do miss the ship, they most certainly WILL leave you stranded on foreign soil until all proper documentation has been validated and processed to issue a passport to return.

 

:)

[Warm Breezes]

Who won't leave you stranded on foreign soil? The U.S. government? Yes, in the event you do miss the ship, they most certainly WILL leave you stranded on foreign soil until all proper documentation has been validated and processed to issue a passport to return.

 

:)

 

That's not stranded...that's temporarily delayed, which you would be anyway if just missed the ship and now need to find another way home. In the cases of emergency they do help you to expedite. I stand by my statement...they won't leave you stranded.

[Warm Breezes]

Interesting -- I referred to your "rationale" and you replied by referring to my rationale as "paranoia". I have used my passport for occasional overseas travel -- do you suppose I picked up my "paranoia" that way?

 

Of course, if you are determined to continue to never travel except on closed loop cruises to the same batch of nearby islands (after limiting yourself that way nine times in recent years) I suppose you are making prudent financial decisions -- but frankly I couldn't care less.

 

Personally, and I'm sure I'm not the only one in this position, I can not just take off at the last minute. Our vacation planning takes months to plan if longer than a couple of days. If I were to choose to take a vacation that required a passport, I would have plenty of time to get one. I am by no means limiting myself...I just have chosen not do that type of travel yet. I never once said I was determined never to do it. I've had no desire to up till now, when there are so many places I'd like to see that don't require me to spend the extra on passports.

 

I apologize for calling your rationale "paranoia". I was more referring to those posters who keep throwing out the terrifying "what if" scenerios as the must reason for getting a passport for closed loop cruises even though those situations are extremely rare and not insurmountable. I have absolutely no issue getting a passport if the travel you choose or have to do requires it. But for closed looped cruises it is a choice and it is like insurance. Like any insurance you have to assess your level of risk versus the cost. IMHO the risk is extremely small and not worth the cost. Others feel differently and it is their choice to get a passport or not.

[Hstergo]

Why is it every time someone has a birth certificate question, there has to be the same people over and over tell them get a passport?.. Would you people please get over it .. not everyone wants to get a passport.

[Doug R.]

Why is it every time someone has a birth certificate question, there has to be the same people over and over tell them get a passport?.. Would you people please get over it .. not everyone wants to get a passport.

 

Perfectly willing if you will kindly get off the birth certificate issue. :rolleyes:

[madelinerose]

Why is it every time someone has a birth certificate question, there has to be the same people over and over tell them get a passport?

 

Very simple answer...there wouldn't be birth certificate questions if they had passports. ;)

[Postman806]

Ok. I'm feeling much better after my brother-in-law showed me the "birth certificate" he used to go on his first cruise last August. It is a hospital issued certificate. It looks like one your kid gets for participating in band camp. It is NOT issued by a govt agency. I literally gasped and then laughed hysterically when I saw it. With what I have read since then I can't believe they let him on the ship.

 

BTW, my wife and I have passports. We are taking our adult sons on a cruise this fall, their first, and yes money is tight. They do not have PP's, but I'm confident their BC's are fine. Just wanted to hear from someone who was not allowed to board due to an insufficient BC. And I'm still waiting to hear of that story.

 

Thanks all for you continued input.

[madelinerose]

OP, thank you for the additional info.

[vacation luvver]

Beginning April 1, 2011, the U.S. Department of State requires the full names of the applicant’s parent(s) to be listed on all certified birth certificates to be considered as primary evidence of U.S. citizenship for all passport applicants, regardless of age.

I'm certainly glad that I got my U.S. passport in 1975, because my birth certificate shows only the first and last names of my parents. Not their middle names. So that's not their full names, right? And yet they were born in the USA and were USA citizens.

 

As for the man with the hospital-issued "birth certificate," sometimes the people in charge of allowing you to board the ship just don't care. I know someone whose 17 year old son cruised with his girlfriend and her parents. The parents were not given any sort of permission slip from the boy's parents allowing him to cruise, and they weren't given any sort of medical power of attorney for him, yet he was allowed to board without any problem. He has a different last name, so it's not as if the ship personnel assumed that he was the girlfriend's parents' son.