Don't get caught with your pants (passports) Down

[SeaHunt]

Cue the Twilight Zone music - I just got an email showing my passport renewal status 😁

 

Application Status: Shipped

The U.S. Department of State has shipped your passport book on 05/05/2021.

We sent your passport book to you using Priority Mail.

 

(and so on)

 

3 hours ago, erinsmom03 said:

Speaking of passports...if we are traveling 2 months from when ours expire, do we need to renew before our trip?

 

I'm not sure if it's enforced - because we've never been close and always have renewed ahead, including the ones we just renewed that didn't expire until this December - but Royal does say this re passports:

 

For US Sailings - 

U.S. Citizens may sail using their:

Official Birth Certificate and a supporting Government Issued Photo ID, like a driver’s license or an identity card. Please note that hospital Birth Certificates (baby feet Birth Certificates) are not accepted.

or

U.S. Passport book that is valid at least 6 months after your cruise.

 

and

 

For International Sailings- US Citizens require a passport book with a minimum of 6 months validity post the return of your sailing and the corresponding visa required for entry and exit from the country.

 

 

https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/united-states-citizen-travel-documentation

                                    

 

 

[erinsmom03]

4 hours ago, disneykins said:

I think some countries require your passport be good for 6 months after your arrival date, so yes I think you should renew before travelling. 

 

45 minutes ago, SeaHunt said:

I'm not sure if it's enforced - because we've never been close and always have renewed ahead, including the ones we just renewed that didn't expire until this December - but Royal does say this re passports:

 

For US Sailings - 

U.S. Citizens may sail using their:

Official Birth Certificate and a supporting Government Issued Photo ID, like a driver’s license or an identity card. Please note that hospital Birth Certificates (baby feet Birth Certificates) are not accepted.

or

U.S. Passport book that is valid at least 6 months after your cruise.

 

and

 

For International Sailings- US Citizens require a passport book with a minimum of 6 months validity post the return of your sailing and the corresponding visa required for entry and exit from the country.

 

 

https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/united-states-citizen-travel-documentation

                                    

 

 

 

Well I guess I add renew passports to my list of summer chores 

[SeaHunt]

1 minute ago, erinsmom03 said:

 

 

Well I guess I add renew passports to my list of summer chores 

 

I hope your new photos you have to send in with your renewal application are better than ours were! 🙃

 

I told my husband it's too bad we just couldn't keep our old ones - it's amazing what a difference another 10 years gone by makes! Looking at the new ones there was a lot of OMG do we really look like that now? LOL 

[Booking It]

6 hours ago, sandebeach said:

Also check on your Global Entry. I looked at mine and it expires end of this year. You are able to renew online, which I am doing.  

Mine was due to expire in this summer. I renewed it about a month ago. I submitted my application for renewal on a Friday night, and had it approved on Sunday afternoon. I had my new GE card a week later. Sometimes the system works fast! 

[Bailey & Sophie]

3 hours ago, Ourusualbeach said:

I submitted Nexus / Global entry last December and am still waiting. 

 

We submitted our Global renewal on Sat April 24. Got an approval notice on April 26. Got our cards a week later.

We did not have to go through another interview.

Just sent in our passport renewals today.

[Ourusualbeach]

1 minute ago, Bailey & Sophie said:

 

We submitted our Global renewal on Sat April 24. Got an approval notice on April 26. Got our cards a week later.

We did not have to go through another interview.

Just sent in our passport renewals today.

Nice.

 

Unfortunately  ours is through Nexus and for whatever reason they are taking forever. 

[erinsmom03]

28 minutes ago, SeaHunt said:

 

I hope your new photos you have to send in with your renewal application are better than ours were! 🙃

 

I told my husband it's too bad we just couldn't keep our old ones - it's amazing what a difference another 10 years gone by makes! Looking at the new ones there was a lot of OMG do we really look like that now? LOL 

 

I'm wondering if they will let me use a Snapchat filter 🤣

[sandebeach]

51 minutes ago, Booking It said:

Mine was due to expire in this summer. I renewed it about a month ago. I submitted my application for renewal on a Friday night, and had it approved on Sunday afternoon. I had my new GE card a week later. Sometimes the system works fast! 

Wow, good to know.

[ONECRUISER]

9 hours ago, sandebeach said:

Also check on your Global Entry. I looked at mine and it expires end of this year. You are able to renew online, which I am doing.  

Yeah for all the hurry up post 9/11 secure show documentation in person that was supposed be. The Soon we'll need Passports, extended/postpone requirement over 15yrs now. Last month due to Covid able to get Enhanced Drivers Licence w/Star on it online, they just used my old picture from 4yrs ago and mailed it to me in another State. Been using my EDL for 9+ years for open and closed loop Cruises

[Coralc]

7 hours ago, RobInMN said:

Yeah, I renewed mine as soon as my June/July cruises were cancelled. Normal processing, and I think almost exactly 5 weeks from the date I mailed my stuff in. Got it back 2-3 weeks ago. 

Global Entry, on the other hand, sucked. We applied (first time applicant, not renewal) at the beginning of Feb 2020 (just before the pandy hit). It was not processed until end of December (or was it first week of Jan?). Interview was mid Feb. So basically over 1 full year! Hopefully they've caught up and no one has that experience.

Our renewal of Global Entry took 14 months, but it was finally approved. I think they weren't doing anything with them during the shutdown. 

[ReneeFLL]

8 hours ago, erinsmom03 said:

Speaking of passports...if we are traveling 2 months from when ours expire, do we need to renew before our trip?

Needs to be renewed before 6 months of the expiration date.

[SwissMiss USA]

My daughter’s passport has been submitted since early December. I made a stupid error and asked for booklet and card when on her dad’s form was marked only booklet. Funny enough cause I filled Out the application weeks after I got his signed document and thought „ that would be good for a cruise“. They wrote me in February! I wrote back less than a week later but .. two calls later it is “in process”. We marked end of May as our travel date cause that was our cruise ... so now I wait. I hope we get it back before Europe opens as I travel for work and we want her to go with to see her dad.

 

 

 

[sparks1093]

It is a timely reminder and ours don't expire for a while yet but we also have another document that could be used for cruising should the passports expire.

[sparks1093]

5 hours ago, ReneeFLL said:

Needs to be renewed before 6 months of the expiration date.

Maybe, but probably not. A passport may be used up until the day it expires, but some countries do want 6 months remaining on your passport from the date your trip is supposed to end. So if you take a 3 month trip to one of those countries your passport would need 9 months remaining on it on the day your trip begins. For cruises to the Caribbean, Bahamas, Bermuda, Canada and Mexico cruiser only needs a valid passport good for the length of the cruise. 

[Tapi]

10 hours ago, SeaHunt said:

I'm not sure if it's enforced - because we've never been close and always have renewed ahead, including the ones we just renewed that didn't expire until this December - but Royal does say this re passports:

 

U.S. Passport book that is valid at least 6 months after your cruise.

 

and

 

For International Sailings- US Citizens require a passport book with a minimum of 6 months validity post the return of your sailing

I was sweating bullets last year for our last cruise (Feb 2020). I realized too late that my son’s passport would expire in less than 6 months. I was worried that he’d be denied boarding. 
 

I brought his birth certificate as a backup but it wasn’t needed. They accepted his passport and didn’t even mention the fact that it had less than 6 months to go. 
 

This was for a closed loop Caribbean cruise out of Ft Lauderdale which doesn’t even require passports to start with. We may have been out of luck if it had been any other type of cruise. 

Edited May 6, 2021 by Tapi

[sparks1093]

1 hour ago, Tapi said:

I was sweating bullets last year for our last cruise (Feb 2020). I realized too late that my son’s passport would expire in less than 6 months. I was worried that he’d be denied boarding. 
 

I brought his birth certificate as a backup but it wasn’t needed. They accepted his passport and didn’t even mention the fact that it had less than 6 months to go. 
 

This was for a closed loop Caribbean cruise out of Ft Lauderdale which doesn’t even require passports to start with. We may have been out of luck if it had been any other type of cruise. 

This is probably one of the biggest misconceptions about passports. The fact is that there are only a few countries that require 6 months validity remaining on a passport for US citizens. Three months validity is much more common. The other misconception is that the 6 months (or 3 months) needs to be remaining when you enter the country and as I pointed out that is typically not the case. Losing 6 months on a passport isn't that big of a deal, but I am the guy that uses a vice grip to get the last bit out of a tooth paste tube (and of course it wouldn't matter if the US tacked on the unused months onto the new passport like other countries do).

[ericfromri]

i sent in my passport 9 weeks ago, recieved an email four weeks later stating due to extreme submissions would be 10-12 weeks. today came in the mail 1 day shy of 9 weeks.  it expires next year but i travel most of the time and usually go to europe 5-6 times a year so i used the downtime to my advantage. gone are the days of getting it back the next week or two.

[later]

15 hours ago, DCGuy64 said:

Wow, I did Global Entry years ago and it was fairly quick. I had to renew about 1-2 years ago, I forget, but it was easy peasy.....

 

 

I submitted the Global Entry app last week.  Got conditional approved in 2 days and was able to get an appointment for the interview May 26th.

[DCGuy64]

4 hours ago, sparks1093 said:

Maybe, but probably not. A passport may be used up until the day it expires, but some countries do want 6 months remaining on your passport from the date your trip is supposed to end. So if you take a 3 month trip to one of those countries your passport would need 9 months remaining on it on the day your trip begins. For cruises to the Caribbean, Bahamas, Bermuda, Canada and Mexico cruiser only needs a valid passport good for the length of the cruise. 

That's exactly right. My old passport wasn't to expire until November of this year, but our planned cruise was to disembark on September 5. That's only 2 months prior, hence I got a new one that's good until 2031.

[ATC cruiser]

On 5/5/2021 at 12:27 PM, cruisinghawg said:

Greeeeaaaattt DW just mailed her renewal yesterday for our cruise in August.

Just got my new one in the mail today. It took 6 weeks. 

[NancyIL]

On 5/5/2021 at 12:44 PM, sandebeach said:

Also check on your Global Entry. I looked at mine and it expires end of this year. You are able to renew online, which I am doing.  

 

I applied online to renew my Global Entry in August 2019, and it was conditionally approved in Dec. 2019. However, I still had to go for another interview.

Edited May 6, 2021 by NancyIL

[sandebeach]

2 hours ago, NancyIL said:

 

I applied online to renew my Global Entry in August 2019, and it was conditionally approved in Dec. 2019. However, I still had to go for another interview.

Thanks, good to know.

[NancyIL]

8 minutes ago, sandebeach said:

Thanks, good to know.

Hopefully you won’t need to have another interview. When my husband applied online to renew his Global Entry, he got his approval within 10 days, and didn’t need an interview.

[sandebeach]

4 minutes ago, NancyIL said:

Hopefully you won’t need to have another interview. When my husband applied online to renew his Global Entry, he got his approval within 10 days, and didn’t need an interview.

I just went back in online and checked, my application is still "pending". I will keep checking on it. My initial interview was not long, and it was at the Ellis Building near Pt Everglades. But it would be one less thing to do if it just gets renewed online! 

[Tapi]

10 hours ago, sparks1093 said:

This is probably one of the biggest misconceptions about passports. The fact is that there are only a few countries that require 6 months validity remaining on a passport for US citizens. Three months validity is much more common. The other misconception is that the 6 months (or 3 months) needs to be remaining when you enter the country and as I pointed out that is typically not the case.

What you say makes total sense, and that’s what I understood as well. One time, we traveled internationally by air with 4 months left on my wife’s passport. Besides the boarding agent gently reminding us that the passport would expire in a few months, we didn’t have any issues.

 

Concerning the cruise mentioned above, I started second guessing myself and feeling dark clouds of gloom and doom over me because I called the cruise line (Holland America) to make sure that it wouldn’t be an issue. The agent that I spoke to categorically said that the 6 month validity was a requirement to board. Then I asked if I could just use his birth certificate and not mention the passport, and the agent didn’t

think that would be allowed. I also asked here on Cruise Critic and needless to say, the answers varied from one extreme to the other which added to the confusion.
 

In retrospect, the agent didn’t know what he was talking about, but the uncertainty got my blood pressure going for days until we actually boarded the ship on embarkation day.