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

[adventuredancer]

countries do wierd things. it wasnt a cruise, but my husband is originally from Panama. we flew there to visit his family. My passport was good for another couple years, his was only good for 5 months (we were only staying a week that time). He had to use his Panamanian citizenship to get into Panama (cause of course they want their own citizens back) and use his American Passport to leave (because he doesn't have a Panamanian Visa to leave). luckily they didn't notice that he came in on one and left on something different

[sgmn]

Working on a ticket desk at Heathrow for an airline , we had to deal every day with people who didn't have enough validity in their passports. Children's passports in UK are only valid for 5 years and often one child in a family would have an out of date passport.  So sad when they are going for just one weeks holiday and have two months validity still but the country they are going to has a minimum requirement of 3 or 6 months.

We would often contact our airport office at the relevant country to try for an exemption with their immigration but usually it was a no

Edited May 7, 2021 by sgmn

[sparks1093]

11 hours ago, Tapi said:

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. 

I have found that the customer service phone reps know little about documentation requirements. I remember needing to call to ask what I needed to select for citizenship document in the online check in screen since DW and I had Enhanced Drivers Licenses at the time and that wasn't an option. The phone rep said I needed to select "birth certificate" because we needed to bring those anyway. I knew that was incorrect. When doing research for documentation requirements I start with government websites and then I will confirm what I've read by consulting other sources, such as CC. I often wonder how much blood pressure is raised and money spent needlessly because of faulty phone rep advice.

[slease]

Just did our daughters a few weeks ago.  They scared us and we paid for the rush fee.  Had it 1.5 weeks later.  Not sailing until end of July so that was probably a waste of $40.

[Biker19]

2 hours ago, slease said:

Not sailing until end of year so that was probably a waste of $40.

Fixed.

[BirdTravels]

On 5/5/2021 at 1:21 PM, ticketsunlimited said:

When cruising starts it's going to come fast and furious.  Passport renewals are still backlogged for months.  Everybody should make an effort to be sure they are up to date and ready to go.  Allot of us think our cruises may get cancelled and you can wait to renew but now is the time to get it done.  My wife and I waited 4 months for ours.  So glad we have them in hand now.  Just a friendly  reminder.

We renewed our passports in March 2021. Paid the $60 expedite fee and had new passports back in 5 weeks from the date we mailed ours out. The old cancelled passport followed a week later.