Passport woes got you down?
You?re not alone.
Complete with blankets and folding chairs, dozens of people lined up outside the Department of State?s Passport office in Washington know your pain.
Like Howard and Tina Nichols, of Salisbury, waiting in line on their 25th anniversary at 9:20 a.m. Tuesday.
“We applied at the post office, March 19,” Tina Nichols said. “This was a gift from our kids. They told us ?We?re sending you away, but we?re not telling you where. Just make sure you got your passport.? ”
After 12 weeks of phone calls, they hoped to walk away with their passports so they could catch the 3:45 flight to Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico.
Despite reports of relaxed passport requirements within the Western hemisphere, Howard Nichols said the ticket agent at the airport would not accept their passport request status and identification, which they were told would be adequate.
Around them, in line at the passport office, families tried to pass the time. Some read while two children rolled a ball back and forth under a writing counter.
To make life easier, apply when you have no travel plans, the Department of State Web site recommends.
If you do have plans, “make an appointment at the post office. You can?t just walk up,” said Brian Clement, an agent with Accent on Travel in Towson.
It takes 10 weeks to start a new passport, and sixweeks for a renewal, where it used to be two, he said.
Congress has tried to help, he said, making it possible to get on your flight if you can “prove you are in the process of getting a passport,” Clement said.
As of 2008, you will need a passport to re-enter the country, he said, that restriction was supposed to be in place this year, but “Congress pushed it back.”
Don?t tell that to the Nicholses.
“My advice would be, no matter what, pay for the expediting,” Tina Nichols said.
More information
The U.S. Departments of State and Homeland Security announced June 8 that U.S. citizens traveling to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda who have applied for but not yet received passports can temporarily enter and leave country by air with a government-issued photo identification and Department of State official proof of application for a passport through Sept. 30.
Source: Department of State
