tmcon01

I don’t need the hassle of parking my car up by the airport or in Sea-Tac and tasking a cab or shuttle to the pier to save a couple of bucks..

We will be saving $50 from your $140, not just a couple. Since we will both be parking and taking a shuttle, the only difference in our plan and yours is our shuttle ride is a little longer. Well worth it to us.

Not everyone has money to throw away.

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We cancelled the reservations for the Knights Inn and are re-thinking the whole thing. Right now we are considering driving half way to Portland (3 hours) and staying the night with a friend, then driving the last 3 hours in the morning to Seattle and parking at one of the Sea-tac hotel parking lots which are as low as $4.99 a day. Then getting a flat-rate taxi to the pier. It's about $35 to go from airport area to pier 91 which isn't much more than a shuttle (for 2) and they pick you up wherever you are.

 

For those looking for reasonable transportation from the airport to cruise, you may want to check them out. You do have to call in advance for one though.

 

PS I edited this for taxi price to Pier 91 as I was giving price to Pier 66. In any case the price for parking and transportation can be gotten for much less then the $177 it would cost to park at "cruise seattle parking"

I wanted to edit my post above referring 'flatrateforhire' above, but am unable to do so. It has come to my attention that in the past year or so they seem to have gone down hill in their service and integrity. I certainly wouldn't want someone to get burned by them because of me recommending them.

Some of their drivers are still doing a good job and are honest, but many aren't. If you do use them, be sure to get a price before your ride and good luck with having then show up on time.

We cancelled the reservations for the Knights Inn and are re-thinking the whole thing. Right now we are considering driving half way to Portland (3 hours) and staying the night with a friend, then driving the last 3 hours in the morning to Seattle and parking at one of the Sea-tac hotel parking lots which are as low as $4.99 a day. Then getting a flat-rate taxi to the pier. It's about $35 to go from airport area to pier 91 which isn't much more than a shuttle (for 2) and they pick you up wherever you are.

For those looking for reasonable transportation from the airport to cruise, you may want to check them out. You do have to call in advance for one though.

http://flatrateforhire.com/

PS I edited this for taxi price to Pier 91 as I was giving price to Pier 66. In any case the price for parking and transportation can be gotten for much less then the $177 it would cost to park at "cruise seattle parking"

Well here's an update on our situation.

Birth certificate: Paid Vitalchek for birth certificate on Wednesday evening. Friday afternoon, it was marked shipped and had a UPS tracking number for 1 day air. Arrived Monday morning.

Less than 48 hours from time of ordering till being shipped. Vitalchek and the Santa Clara County Recorders Office impressed me.

Passport: Thursday we got a letter from Passport Agency stating THE PASSPORT APPLICATION WAS NOT SIGNED. Oh man, I about flipped my lid. The application cannot be signed until the (postal) Agent has you sign it in front of him. He never had my wife sign it. A new application had to be filled out and taken back to the Post Office for a redo. This time my wife got the Postmaster who very apologetic and told her his co-worker has been making a lot of mistakes on them lately and would have to be talked to. He sent it back to the (Seattle) Passport Agency express mail at no charge. He told her that because the new application was being sent to Seattle (and not the main office) with the passport locator number stamped on it, that her passport was already printed and they were just waiting for the new signed application to get there and they would be sending it out and we would have it before the cruise. She said he was very sincere about saying this and seemed to know what he was talking about, but I have my doubts. We'll see!

The application was delivered in Seattle on Monday. There are still no changes on the Passport Status website as of today, Wednesday.

In any case, we have her new Birth Certificate and she is able to go without the passport if it doesn't come. Yay!

You get what you pay for .... that's a pretty shady area. Look at reviews on yelp or tripadvisor. I would encourage you to look at other park and fly hotels around the airport or even near Southcenter mall or Renton.

Wow your right. At the time we booked it we read some reviews and it looked low end but something we could live with for the few hours we would be there. We were mostly just wanting the parking and shuttle. I guess we'll reconsider. Now I'm not sure how safe the parking is even after we called the hotel and they said they have never had any problems with the parked cars. I sure don't know where the reviews we read were from but they were nothing like the ones on Yelp.

How much was parking? 7 days or longer?

Thanks, Karen

Hey Karen, saw you were on the same Alaska cruise as us (Amsterdam) and are also from Oregon. We got a hotel room for 1 night at the Knights Inn near the airport with 8 days of parking and shuttle to cruiseport for $82.61 through StayParkTravel.com. It sure beats the cost of parking ($140+) at the cruiseport.

The price of parking is much cheaper near the aiport if you don't mind taking a shuttle. If you don't like shuttles, taxis and such are very expensive ($50+ each way), and you might as well pay the big dollar parking fees.

I would have gone directly through the county recorders office but they only do it in person or by mail or through Vitalchek online. As per their website it would take 15-20 business days plus mailing time in both directions. That would put it at least 30 days out probably more. However if doing it online through vitalchek they would process it in 3-5 days after they receive a notarized Certificate of Identity. This info is from the county website and not vitalchek.

Since my wife works in the loan dept. of a bank, she was able to have the certificate notarized first thing this morning (as they have their own notary in the building) and faxed to them by 10 AM this morning. Two hours later I checked status and it showed the fax, payment and application received at county office. So if they hold up to what they say we will have it next week as we paid for overnight delivery.

Personally I didn't trust vitalchek for a second but so far it seems to be working.

To tell you the truth, I don't know why it even takes 3-5 days much less 15-20 as if you walk in in person, it takes about 15 minutes for them to look it up and print it and you're on your way.

When I started this thread I just wanted to hear from some people that have gotten their passports lately to see the time frame. That was accomplished and I see that they are coming a little slower than usual but were still getting delivered. That eased my mind. I already knew all about the passport computer problems and the agency was claiming to get them out usually under the 6 weeks.

From everything I've read, the passport agency is one of the few of our government agencies that, for the most part, actually works. I can now see that even when problems that are out of their control happen, they are working around them.

Although I mentioned my wife was freaking out over this, I'm not. I'm the calm type and can wait for at least the 6 weeks to come.. That being said, in a few days, if nothing has changed, I will be on the phone calling my Representative, Congressman or the Whitehouse (LOL) when the time comes.

I want to thank everyone that commented here.

Is there a reason you don't wish to ask your Congressman or Senators for help? This is part of what they do for constituents.

 

When we called passport office last night we were told that they received the application 1 week after we applied at the post office and were told we were still under 6 weeks, therefore they couldn't really do anything. We assumed when they say 4-6 weeks from time of application it meant from the day at post office. Unfortunately the P.O. was slow in delivering. They said call back after the 6 weeks are up.

So at this point it's not that we won't call for help, to be fair to everyone (and not feel like an ass for jumping the gun) we feel the need to wait till the (new) 6 week date we were given.

I now know for sure that they won't give me the time of day and will only talk directly to my wife.

It is still more then 3 weeks till cruise.

We also applied for the passport over 2 weeks before we ever booked the cruise so at the time didn't have any reason for expediting it.

We sent ours in 2nd week of July. We just today received status email that it will be sent out next week. We don't physically have it in hand yet and have asked for overnite mail. We did not expedite the process either . Good luck to you.

Thanks that gives us more hope.

I do see that your in Florida and we're in Oregon so I'm pretty sure ours went to a different passport office so that could make a difference.

Well my wife called the passport office last night and they weren't much help. Just said it showed that it was still processing. Asked her about the computer crash and she said she hadn't heard much about that. She just gave us what seemed like a bunch of generic answers that she was trained to give. So basically didn't get anything out of her we didn't already know.

My biggest worry is that in another week they will contact us with a problem and there won't be enough time to fix it.

We went ahead and ordered another birth certificate from Vitalchek. We just hope the end result of that leaves us giving a good review of them and not a bad one. But for now it just gives my wife one more thing to worry about.

My biggest concern is what happened to you. That in another week or so they will contact us and say there is a problem and there won't be enough time to fix it.

As the county clerks office at where she was born is 500 miles away, we went ahead and ordered another birth certificate through Vitalchek (yesterday). I have read a lot of bad reviews about Vitalchek, but I've also found a lot of good ones too. Just hoping ours is a good one.

In any case we have a backup plan in place now and hopefully one of the two come through. But for the moment it just gives my wife one more thing to worry about.

We were offered a reduced rate upgrade to a balcony for $250 about 2 weeks after buying a window room and grabbed it. I think it will be worth every penny.

I would call them right now only I don't know if they would give me any information as it's not my passport.

Does anyone know if I can call and get info/update or only my wife (she's at work).

We did sign up for status emails but have not received a single status email from them yet.

Maybe that's part of the computer problem they're having.

 

Oh I did email them a week ago and got a reply that they couldn't access the status because of the computer glitch problem.

 

 

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Here is what they actually wrote:

Thank you for contacting the National Passport Information Center.

Due to ongoing website issues and upgrades, we are unable to reference

your application. This does not affect the issuance of your passport.

For immediate needs please contact us at the number below. You can also

check the status of your application, via our online service

https://passportstatus.state.gov/opss/OPSS_Status_ip.asp, using the

"check application status" link.

Yea I've read it many times that the status on the website is many times not updated before delivery and sometimes never even shows up as even having been excepted. The fact is that an actual current status isn't going to get it here any faster, but I guess it could ease the mind.

If only life came with do overs... everything would work out much smoother.

Oh I did email them a week ago and got a reply that they couldn't access the status because of the computer glitch problem.

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There is a question on the application asking for your travel plan. Did you indicate dates in those boxes for your upcoming trip?

Unfortunately no. My wife told me the Post Office guy asked her and she couldn't think of it off the top of her mind and stalled and said "Uh..." and he quickly said "Oh that's alright, you don't need to put anything there".

My thought was "Oh great!!!..." when she told me that.

Live and learn.

Rather than drive 1000 miles RT to get another BC, you might consider doing it online. Many people have reported good luck with this site: https://www.vitalchek.com/birth-certificates

 

I don't know what they charge, but it may be better than a long drive just before you go on a cruise. Good luck!

Actually we considered Vitalchek until I read many many horror stories from people that were completely ripped off by them. Seems like a high priced gamble with a good possibilty of no results.

I guess I shouldn't research everything. I may well have gotten good results from them but now I'm very wary of trying them.

Let me offer a recommendation.

 

Call your United States House Of Representatives Office. They can be a great help to get this sorted out for you.

 

Keith

Thanks Keith

If it doesn't come in the next week or so we probably will be making that call

I was wondering about the marriage certificate. We didn't send it because it wasn't asked for but I kind of wondered why it wasn't asked for.

Thanks for the reply.

I keep telling her we still have more than 3 weeks but it doesn't seem to help her much

We have already considered another birth certificate but by mail it takes 20+ business days plus mailing time both ways. Not enough time.

I guess if it comes down to it I'll have to drive there and get it personally. 1000 miles round trip. They say they can do it while I wait in person. Not looking forward to that.

My wife applied for a new passport 6 weeks ago at local post office. Still haven't received it. Status sill says "being processed". We cruise to Alaska Sept 7. She is starting to freak out.

We didn't expedite because we had over 2 months and it seemed most people received their passports well under the 4-6 week time given by passport agency. But now with the Passport computer meltdown that happened around July 20th and still hasn't been completely fixed, we are starting to really worry.

Had we only know we would have expedited and probably would have gotten it before the computer crashed.

Since it is a round trip Alaska cruise, she could have gone with just her birth certificate, but now we don't even have that.

Has anybody received their passports in the last week or so and when did you apply?

If there is a problem with the application will they send the birth certificate back then or hold it until they get more info from us.

My wife applied for a new passport 6 weeks ago at local post office. Still haven't received it. Status sill says "being processed". We cruise to Alaska Sept 7. She is starting to freak out.

We didn't expedite because we had over 2 months and it seemed most people received their passports well under the 4-6 week time given by passport agency. But now with the Passport computer meltdown that happened around July 20th and still hasn't been completely fixed, we are starting to really worry.

Since it is a round trip Alaska cruise, she could have gone with just her birth certificate, but now we don't even have that.

Has anybody received their passports in the last week or so and when did you apply?