US Passport speed for minors -> set a record!

[LadyShiva]

(United States) Minor passport for a teenager, where kiddo has Pre-check already, and this is the flip from an expired 5 year to a lovely adult 10 year passport.  I paid for expedited handling.

Applied on June 18th, came in the USPS today!  *whew*  Our major city had NO passport interviews available for months (Pandemic), so we kept looking in smaller and smaller towns in the surrounding areas.  Lucked out with a town that does passports every day, no problems.

 

I hope that is good news for others waiting on their passport renewals.  I am doing the countdown dance now that I can breathe easier. 😁

[mauraoel]

Congrats 

[DoctorWhoGirl]

Happy to see this about passport processing time. We dropped everything this morning with our local post office to renew my 2 minors passports - easy to get next day appointments here in our small town. Their current passports actually don’t expire until September 2022, but we have quite a few cruises in the months before then so I decided to do it now. We paid for expedited as well since we are just over 14 weeks out from our next family cruise. 
 

Happy cruising!

[nolesrule]

Our kids needed new ones. Took a month from when we turned in the applications at USPS to when they showed up in the system, and it's been about 9 weeks since then with no status update. Fortunately I have extra certified birth certificate copies we can use for our upcoming cruise, because I don't think we're going to be seeing the passports in the next 3.5 weeks.

[Sunshine3601]

1 hour ago, LadyShiva said:

(United States) Minor passport for a teenager, where kiddo has Pre-check already, and this is the flip from an expired 5 year to a lovely adult 10 year passport.  I paid for expedited handling.

Applied on June 18th, came in the USPS today!  *whew*  Our major city had NO passport interviews available for months (Pandemic), so we kept looking in smaller and smaller towns in the surrounding areas.  Lucked out with a town that does passports every day, no problems.

 

I hope that is good news for others waiting on their passport renewals.  I am doing the countdown dance now that I can breathe easier. 😁

Congrats!     

We did our passport renewals this summer and paid the $60 expediting fee and got them back in about 30-days.     I originally paid the expediting fee thinking I was going on an August cruise but they cancelled it!    Next one booked is September so I'm ready!

[twinmommy08]

Oh that’s great news. We have an appt Sat for the kids. Theirs expire next month and they have global entry. We used their nearly expired passports to goto Nassau for Adventure in June without issue. I was so nervous because everything you read is to have 6 months on them. Turned out fine! Their next cruise isn’t until May so we have time. 

[ATC cruiser]

I renewed my 18 year old daughters back in March, we didn’t do expedited, It came back in 3 weeks. It took about 6 or 7 weeks for me and my wife’s. 

[karmamule]

I submitted my renewal on July 10 (expedited) and it was in processing status just a couple days later. I've seen people posting horror stories of expedited renewals not even going into processing for several weeks, so it seems that passport processing is improving since then.

 

We're not cruising until October 10 on Allure so I gave myself plenty of time. This is still good to hear because I'll be anxious until I have my new passport in hand. ☺️

[Ocean Boy]

I sent mine in for renewal the last week in April. I still don't have it. It took weeks for it to even say in processing. It took 3-4 weeks for my check to show up as cashed. Fortunately, I'm in no rush.

[karmamule]

30 minutes ago, Ocean Boy said:

I sent mine in for renewal the last week in April. I still don't have it. It took weeks for it to even say in processing. It took 3-4 weeks for my check to show up as cashed. Fortunately, I'm in no rush.

ooooo, I didn’t think to see if my check was cashed. Just looked and it was cashed two days later on July 12th.

 

(and, to correct my earlier post, I had mailed it express on July 6th, and it showed as processing on the 10th)

Edited July 21, 2021 by karmamule
Adding correction

[Ocean Boy]

12 minutes ago, karmamule said:

ooooo, I didn’t think to see if my check was cashed. Just looked and it was cashed two days later on July 12th.

 

(and, to correct my earlier post, I had mailed it express on July 6th, and it showed as processing on the 10th)

Apparently, extra money talks. I was concerned until my check was finally cashed. Then I at least knew that things were not lost in the mail.

 

[Cutigerlady]

I submitted my son’s renewal on 6/11 at my local county courthouse and it didn’t show up as received until 6/28!  Now it’s at the processing part and on 7/12, the passport service websites says could take 12 weeks plus 6 weeks for mailing, which is almost 6 months!! Ridiculous!  The FAQs say you can call to change your application to expedite and pay the extra fee over the phone. I can’t believe I’m considering doing this to get his passport in time for a December trip.
 

I don’t understand why a renewal takes so long because he’s already gone through the process and I sent back his expired passport!  I applied at the local courthouse, so I knew everything in the application was correct. 

 

[3kidsncats]

7 hours ago, LadyShiva said:

(United States) Minor passport for a teenager, where kiddo has Pre-check already, and this is the flip from an expired 5 year to a lovely adult 10 year passport.  I paid for expedited handling.

Applied on June 18th, came in the USPS today!  *whew*  Our major city had NO passport interviews available for months (Pandemic), so we kept looking in smaller and smaller towns in the surrounding areas.  Lucked out with a town that does passports every day, no problems.

 

I hope that is good news for others waiting on their passport renewals.  I am doing the countdown dance now that I can breathe easier. 😁

Omg been trying to do the same, and we freaking live in a small town outside of the greater LA area, that does them everyday but there are NEVER any appointments available.   I don’t think they are actually offering them.  And they only “offer” them up to 4 weeks in advance.  I’m thinking, since the cruise she is on is a closed loop, that she may go the birth certificate route.  

[cruisingguy007]

54 minutes ago, 3kidsncats said:

Omg been trying to do the same, and we freaking live in a small town outside of the greater LA area, that does them everyday but there are NEVER any appointments available.   I don’t think they are actually offering them.  And they only “offer” them up to 4 weeks in advance.  I’m thinking, since the cruise she is on is a closed loop, that she may go the birth certificate route.  

 

We just got ours and ran into the same issues with trying to get an appointment. I finally figured out the system and how to get one. What I did was look 4 weeks out and and figured out what day would land on a Saturday 4 weeks ahead. I did some mock appointment booking scheduling to figure it out and finally saw the pattern. So I logged in on a Thursday at 12:01 pacific time and sure enough, completely open for Saturday 4 weeks out and got the appointment I wanted. Appointments are completely booked anywhere within 50 miles of me and this was the only way I could get an appointment. Hope this helps you, good luck!    

Edited July 21, 2021 by cruisingguy007

[3kidsncats]

1 hour ago, cruisingguy007 said:

 

We just got ours and ran into the same issues with trying to get an appointment. I finally figured out the system and how to get one. What I did was look 4 weeks out and and figured out what day would land on a Saturday 4 weeks ahead. I did some mock appointment booking scheduling to figure it out and finally saw the pattern. So I logged in on a Thursday at 12:01 pacific time and sure enough, completely open for Saturday 4 weeks out and got the appointment I wanted. Appointments are completely booked anywhere within 50 miles of me and this was the only way I could get an appointment. Hope this helps you, good luck!    

I will give it a try.  I figured there was a sweet spot for when the appointments are released, but didn’t know when it was. 

[karmamule]

I thought I was all set for our cruise until I read that passports within 6 months of expiring are essentially no good. (Mine will expire about 5 months after our cruise.)

 

Then, my jaw dropped when I read the US passport site that said even expedited renewals can take up to 12 weeks! I saw that a little less than 14 weeks before our cruise was due and of course scrambled to get it sent out quickly. What a hassle. Good to luck to everyone struggling with this!

[Biker19]

9 minutes ago, karmamule said:

I thought I was all set for our cruise until I read that passports within 6 months of expiring are essentially no good. (Mine will expire about 5 months after our cruise.)

Very few places have that requirement, don't think anywhere RCI goes. That's just a recommendation.

 

Biker, who expects the usual posters' "feedback" on this.

[eggnoodle]

Are passports sent to one location to be processed or is it processed regionally? 

Edited July 21, 2021 by eggnoodle
edit

[brillohead]

I'm so glad my passport doesn't expire until 2023.

 

I'm going to have to block off a chunk of time from cruising to get it renewed.... maybe over the summer of 2022 since I don't usually cruise then? I'll be losing almost a year, since it's good until March 2023, but at least I'll be sure to have it for fall 2022 and winter/spring 2023.

 

(and hopefully in a year's time the backlog might be shorter)

[karmamule]

3 hours ago, Biker19 said:

Very few places have that requirement, don't think anywhere RCI goes. That's just a recommendation.

 

Biker, who expects the usual posters' "feedback" on this.

 

I'm checking for our destinations: Bahamas and Jamaica do not have the requirement, but Haiti does. Not sure if they'd enforce that for Labadee or not.

 

I'm using this site to check. Useful site in general as it shows other information about each country. Just enter the country name in the search box on the left to see its details.

[karmamule]

1 hour ago, eggnoodle said:

Are passports sent to one location to be processed or is it processed regionally? 

 

For renewing passports you have a choice. You can do it at a local office in person by setting up an appointment (but that can be VERY hard to do right now as they're still understaffed). Or if you are going to do it via mail then there are 3 possible addresses: one for expedited service, one for routine service for the states of California, Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, or Texas, and finally one for routine service for all other states.

[Ocean Boy]

16 minutes ago, brillohead said:

I'm so glad my passport doesn't expire until 2023.

 

I'm going to have to block off a chunk of time from cruising to get it renewed.... maybe over the summer of 2022 since I don't usually cruise then? I'll be losing almost a year, since it's good until March 2023, but at least I'll be sure to have it for fall 2022 and winter/spring 2023.

 

(and hopefully in a year's time the backlog might be shorter)

March is a difficult expiration month as it interfers with prime cruising time. Summer expirations are good for me with cruising but not for going to Europe. Fortunately, I don't have to deal with it for another 10 years though, in the past, I don't ever remember it taking more than a month.

[brillohead]

6 minutes ago, Ocean Boy said:

March is a difficult expiration month as it interfers with prime cruising time. Summer expirations are good for me with cruising but not for going to Europe. Fortunately, I don't have to deal with it for another 10 years though, in the past, I don't ever remember it taking more than a month.

There are worse problems to have than having to take a few months off from vacationing long enough to get your passport renewed!!!

That being said, I wonder what people who travel for a living have to do... pilots, flight attendants, even business people who travel internationally on a regular basis.  At least I can cruise the Caribbean with a birth certificate if I have to.

 

 

[Ocean Boy]

5 minutes ago, brillohead said:

That being said, I wonder what people who travel for a living have to do... pilots, flight attendants, even business people who travel internationally on a regular basis.  At least I can cruise the Caribbean with a birth certificate if I have to.

 

I suspect companies like that have some "backdoor" method of getting that sort of stuff taken care of.

[brillohead]

13 minutes ago, Ocean Boy said:

I suspect companies like that have some "backdoor" method of getting that sort of stuff taken care of.

One would hope!  It wouldn't be a problem if you didn't have to send your old passport in while waiting for the renewal.