Aimeedyan
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2004
Update! We finally have them!
It was WORK - my DH and I spent countless hours on hold for the passport agency (average wait time of 1-1.5 hours), plus I spent time emailing and calling my two senator's offices and my local representative. Then yesterday, we sat at the Miami passport agency from 8:45am-4:45pm (with a 3 year old) but we left Miami with the 2 passports!
The only appt I could ever get us, even with calling over and over again, was in NOLA this morning. However, in my many attempts to change the appointment to Miami or Atlanta, a rep recognized the appt we had been given was NOT for a same day passport, confirmed it with a supervisor and the NOLA office, and stopped us before we drove 9 hours there. The one day roundtrip to Miami was painful as it was, I can't imagine my emotional state had we driven to NOLA for absolutely nothing!
In the end, one of our senator's was able to secure the appointment for us for the next day so we dropped everything and went.
FYI some processing centers are moving quickly or within the quoted timeline. Some are not. The first two numbers on your locator number will tell you which facility they are in - a quick Google search will find you personal stories of how those particular location was doing (and I actually joined a FB group about this issue, too, and you quickly learn which center you want your passport at! Alas, you don't get to choose). Our two locations were, of course, ones that were not moving efficiently or responding to requests for urgency.
If you're still waiting, CALL YOUR SENATOR. They seem to be the only way to get things moving. The FB group I mentioned was full of people who only had success after reaching out to their elected officials.
Now we get to finally get excited about our trip
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As soon as we decided to go somewhere, we booked the first available appt at the post office for my 3 year old - it was a couple weeks out.
At the appt, we told the employee we were considering a cruise on May 7 and the employee was adamant we did not need to expedite and quoted the old timelines (this was the first week of March). After asking a few times, I decided to drop it and go with his advice (my husband dropped his renewal in the mail same-day but we already wrote it out to be expedited so we should be good for him). The very next week, the turnaround times were upped.
Our cruise is May 7, and they received his application on March 8. I'm 99.9% sure this isn't going to work.
I saw on Reddit that you could contact your senator's office for help so I called them last week and they told me the passport office asked them to not reach out on behalf of people until 2-3 weeks from travel. He encouraged me to call back mid-April but didn't go into detail on how they can help (do they just book the appt at the passport office, or can they get your app fast tracked?)
Would you:
1. Call the passport office 14 days out and schedule the emergency appt (we'd have to drive to Miami for it). My assumption is we'd be out the money from the original application?
2. Navigate through the senator's office and see if they can get it moving.
3. All of the above.
4. Something else I haven't thought of?
*this is a transatlantic, so he can't cruise without passport
I mean... worse case scenario is we spend $$$ on an impromptu trip to Miami, right? I'd love some head pats that we still make this trip of a lifetime
It was WORK - my DH and I spent countless hours on hold for the passport agency (average wait time of 1-1.5 hours), plus I spent time emailing and calling my two senator's offices and my local representative. Then yesterday, we sat at the Miami passport agency from 8:45am-4:45pm (with a 3 year old) but we left Miami with the 2 passports!
The only appt I could ever get us, even with calling over and over again, was in NOLA this morning. However, in my many attempts to change the appointment to Miami or Atlanta, a rep recognized the appt we had been given was NOT for a same day passport, confirmed it with a supervisor and the NOLA office, and stopped us before we drove 9 hours there. The one day roundtrip to Miami was painful as it was, I can't imagine my emotional state had we driven to NOLA for absolutely nothing!
In the end, one of our senator's was able to secure the appointment for us for the next day so we dropped everything and went.
FYI some processing centers are moving quickly or within the quoted timeline. Some are not. The first two numbers on your locator number will tell you which facility they are in - a quick Google search will find you personal stories of how those particular location was doing (and I actually joined a FB group about this issue, too, and you quickly learn which center you want your passport at! Alas, you don't get to choose). Our two locations were, of course, ones that were not moving efficiently or responding to requests for urgency.
If you're still waiting, CALL YOUR SENATOR. They seem to be the only way to get things moving. The FB group I mentioned was full of people who only had success after reaching out to their elected officials.
Now we get to finally get excited about our trip
-----
As soon as we decided to go somewhere, we booked the first available appt at the post office for my 3 year old - it was a couple weeks out.
At the appt, we told the employee we were considering a cruise on May 7 and the employee was adamant we did not need to expedite and quoted the old timelines (this was the first week of March). After asking a few times, I decided to drop it and go with his advice (my husband dropped his renewal in the mail same-day but we already wrote it out to be expedited so we should be good for him). The very next week, the turnaround times were upped.
Our cruise is May 7, and they received his application on March 8. I'm 99.9% sure this isn't going to work.
I saw on Reddit that you could contact your senator's office for help so I called them last week and they told me the passport office asked them to not reach out on behalf of people until 2-3 weeks from travel. He encouraged me to call back mid-April but didn't go into detail on how they can help (do they just book the appt at the passport office, or can they get your app fast tracked?)
Would you:
1. Call the passport office 14 days out and schedule the emergency appt (we'd have to drive to Miami for it). My assumption is we'd be out the money from the original application?
2. Navigate through the senator's office and see if they can get it moving.
3. All of the above.
4. Something else I haven't thought of?
*this is a transatlantic, so he can't cruise without passport
I mean... worse case scenario is we spend $$$ on an impromptu trip to Miami, right? I'd love some head pats that we still make this trip of a lifetime
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