After last year's horror stories about waiting months for US passport processing, I submitted my renewal request almost four months before my next trip. I mailed the application on December 28, and I got my new passport today! It's dated January 4. I had to look at it twice to make sure it was for real.

I didn't pay for expedited service, and I mailed the application plain old first class. I realize that they'd sped things up by suspending the new rules for crossing from Canada or Mexico, but still....

So maybe this is a good time to apply/renew, if anybody out there needs to do so. Or maybe it was because there's a holiday-time lull, or because I was just lucky.

I am going to mail mine today.
(After getting the obligatory, horribly ugly, new photo made)

jan

Has anyone heard any horror stories lately?.
I thought our less than 3 week turn around was fast last year! Wow, that was 2-3 working days.
RR

quote:

Originally posted by jgk:
I am going to mail mine today.
(After getting the obligatory, horribly ugly, new photo made)

jan

Jan, I keep taking my own until I have one I feel is decent. I also take everyone else's in the family. So far they have all been accepted.

We turned in our passports for renewal last Tuesday, the day after returning from 3 weeks in Italy. Feel naked without them! We often travel at VERY short (like the next day) notice so can't do that now! I hope our turn around is as quick as KT's.
And don't even TALK about the photos - the worst ever! You can not show even a BIT of teeth now, so no smiles. I had several taken and picked the best of the worst, but UGH!
Not looking forward to carrying that around with me...
Anne

What's with the "no teeth" rule? Is that true?


Why such a rule?

I may have smiled a bit in my pic, can't remember if teeth were showing or not. I hope it is OK.


There is nothing about smiles on the U.S. Passport website, it just says natural expression should be encouraged.

The photographer where we had ours taken Tuesday said no teeth at all. He was very definite about it. First we'd heard about it too.
Anne

The Passport Agency site is inconsistent. Somewhere else on the site, possibly in the instructions for the renewal form, it specifies "natural expression with mouth closed," but the site also shows sample acceptable photos with teeth-exposing smiles. Go figure.

In my first, mouth-closed, photo for my recent renewal I looked like a criminal (to be more precise, a criminal with middle-aged wattles)--it was so repellent that I took another photo. The photographer said that a natural expression with teeth showing was actually okay and I figured the worst that could happen was that they'd send it back. I opted for a little smile--not a big, goofy grin--and I got the passport with no problem.

The basic idea is, I assume, to make it easy for the officials to match your appearance to your photo, without requiring you to make faces for them, so they don't want some kind of distorted expression that you'd have to reproduce.

We just received our new passports last month. We took our own photos with our digital camera. And we are both smiling with teeth showing in the photos. No problems!

You just need to be very careful to have the exact size photo to fit in the box and you need to have a white background.

We were doing renewals and you can download the application from the website.

http://www.travel.state.gov/passport/forms/ds82/ds82_843.html

Oh, no. We sent ours in about 2 weeks ago and I'm pretty sure our pearly-whites were exposed. I tried to go for the "serious european look" but the photographer said, "Smile!"...

I bet smilers don't get their passports back as fast as KT did. I'll keep you posted.

quote:

I bet smilers don't get their passports back as fast as KT did.

Ah, but I was a smiler. (See my last post.) Perhaps it was because the authorities were so impressed by my winsome expression that they processed my application so quickly.

If the photos has to match our appearance then perhaps I should go without sleep for 24 hours before the photo, I never sleep on planes. RR

Wow. I thought mine was fast when I received it in less than three weeks back in November.

Robert, that's a great suggestion about not sleeping before you get your photo done!!!
After all, isn't that what we all look like when we trudge up to the foreign customs desk after our crammed flights to our holiday destinations?!

Well, less than a month and ours are in hand.I guess neither of us had too much teeth showing! Actually, my photo looks a lot like Robert Rainey's description, only recently let out of prison.

Either way, it's in hand and I'm ready!

Quick turn around for us too - my husband's came in just two weeks! Mine took about 10 days more - arrived today, yucky photo and all. Kirk looked at it first (I was scared to - ha) and said it was adorable. Now THAT is true love!!!
Can we leave for Paris tonight, please??
Anne

Mine just got here today. About 3 weeks since it went into the mail. Nice work passport office.

The only problem is that my picture looks like a mug shot one would get when entering an insane asylum.

P.S. They sent the new one out priority mail and the old one regular mail. They both got here today.

YOu know, our arrived within 24 hours of the other as well. No wonder it costs an arm and a leg for renewal...they're paying priority mail! Go figure...and sending the old one "under separate cover". If someone gets one, they've got all the info they need. Also odd that they wouldn't require a signature (and ID!) upon delivery if they're that worried.

Ours got back about 3 weeks after being sent.

Not bad...

jan

Here in Canada renewals have become very quick if the paperwork is completed properly. Mine passport renewal time was two and a half weeks over the Christmas/New Year's holidays. I had to pick it up at the postal outlet, show ID, and sign for it.

Re the picture. Here in Canada we are directed not to smile. My friend had her photo rejected because she was smiling. I was told to take my glasses off for the picture. My mom left her glasses on and her picture was rejected - apparently the glasses can cause glare.

My picture looks like a awful mug shot. I don't care though because it allows me to travel to great places.

DH mailed his renewal on Jan 31. Just got the new passport today in the mail. As previous posters mentioned, it came Priority. His expired passport was included in the same package as the new passport.

We mailed both of our Passports about three weeks ago, DH got his new one yesterday....mine is still "en route". I was nervous when mine didn't arrive today...but after reading that Anne W's arrived 10 days after her husband's, I guess I will wait 9 more days to really get nervous!