<p>JUST GOT THE CALL - DD’s passport is here!!!</p>
<p>They actually sent it by FedEx next day.</p>
<p>Yeah!!! Congratulations! What a relief that must be. :)</p>
<p>Hi.
Good passport news here too. I applied for a renewal on 3/28, non-expedited (no kidding!).</p>
<p>Anyway, it arrived here today. </p>
<p>So glad, laserbrother, your worries on this front are over!! However, your D will probably never believe it was an issue anyway since it DID show up on time :)</p>
<p>I applied April 1, non-expedited, passport arrived today!</p>
<p>kjofkw asked above, and I’m trying to find out, too… What do people do who travel internationally frequently for business when they have to renew their passport? H’s passport expires in November, but he’s concerned about NOT having it for the 6-week to 3-month time that it takes to process? (yikes, somemom!!! - April 1 to July 13?)</p>
<p>APmom: I live right by the border and cross to Canada regularly, the border guards really have no clue what would ahve happened all that time if I had no passport after the no driving w/o a passport rules change! They mostly say I would not be able to cross.</p>
<p>I was simply renewing my existing passport, no urgent need, but what happens next time?</p>
<p>Astro-mom,
My husband travels abroad frequently, and drove into NYC at 5:00 a.m. (after making an appointment) applied and got his new passport later the same day. Obviously not everyone has easy access to a passport center.</p>
<p>S just got written notice about his app being received and being processed. It has been 10 days since he applied.</p>
<p>NEmom, just an fyi. If the notice your son received is the info you get when you check status online of your application, it could say “being processed” for awhile. I applied 3/28 or so. By the 2nd week of April it said my app was received and in process. The new message, saying it had been sent, didn’t appear until 7/9/07. </p>
<p>I do believe I was caught up in that huge spring backlog. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t be too excited about the “in process” part :)</p>
<p>My children have had passports since they were very young-
Maybe it is because when they were young I worked for an airline and so we travelled a great deal.
Tell all your friends and family to apply for passports for their children no matter how young they are. Get them straightaway just like getting a Social Security card these days.
Once you have the passport, renewal is very simple.</p>
<p>
This is true. I just renewed my passport and my wife’s passport. We each took the photo of the other standing against the white wall with our point and shoot digital camera, printed the photos on my cheap Epson all-in-one printer, downloaded the application from the website, sent it all in as ‘expedited’ and included a prepaid overnight return envelope. They were sent overnite from San Diego to the Philadelphia passport office for processing. We received one back in 1 week and the other back in 2 weeks. They shipped one back in the overnite envelope we provided and the other in their own envelope hence the extra week. This was all done about a month ago. I made my international flight reservations within a day of receiving the passport and left a week later. (My kids’ passports were current so there was no need to renew them).</p>
<p>It depends! My d. went to the P.O. to “renew” her passport. Because her first one was issued before she was 16, they told us she could not do a simple renewal form, but instead had to apply for a new one. They then proceeded to “confiscate” her current one, which had not yet expired. That concerned me. I asked to keep it “just in case” something came up in the next 3 months or so, and they said, she could no longer use it, since she applied for a new one. They sent it along with the new application. Hopefully that will make the waiting time shorter, but it still makes me nervous since the wait times are so long.</p>
<p>kjofkw, we are in the same position. Son just got a notice that one could track the processing of his new passport, but it was not in the system yet. This is very unsettling. Actually, I just checked the website to check the status, and it is down now, while they fix a software problem.</p>
<p>Anyone know if they return the old passport when they send a new one (for those who have to apply for new one, not mail-in renewals)? D has lots of entry stamps and would like to keep hers, so she may just have to “lose” it before applying for new one.</p>
<p>I am also fond of her picture as 12 yr old.</p>
<p>It doesnt seem that the passport problems are as bad as the MSM has been making them out to be. Thats good.</p>
<p>When I sent my old passport with my application in the mail for a new passport, I received my old one back…it amazes me that they can keep track of those without losing anything…</p>
<p>
not really.</p>
<p>Our family has travelled since kids were born, so we have gone through multiple renewals for all 3 kids. It’s never been an issue.</p>
<p>This time however, we sent in 2 passports on March 29 to be renewed, and now 17 WEEKS later we still don’t have either one. My son’s still says “being processed” while my daughter’s says “this application cannot be found” because they did not enter her SSN in the system. However a phonecall revealed that both are “being processed”. What a joke!!</p>
<p>You do get the old passports back, but obviously they are expired.</p>
<p>The only reason I am not freaking out is because I know that I can drive down to Philly and pick them up from the Customs House Passport Office if it comes to that.</p>
<p>Chocoholic, just curious, did you have them expedited? We applied only 2 weeks ago, so now I don’t feel so bad that son also has the “application cannot be found” in the system. It does take about 10 days to go into it anyway. I thought it would be on the tracking system since we did get a written notice about the fact that apps could be tracked and that everything was received.</p>
<p>Northeastmom, since our date of travel is August 3, and we were applying March 29, no, we did not expedite. Who would have thought that 17 weeks would be ‘cutting it close’.</p>