Posted by Lisabeth Tunell:
Recently my husband and I had plans to take our daughter and 3 of her friends away for spring break and 4 days before we were to leave "we" the parents almost did not get to go.....
Our passports had expired in January of '09 and there was no way we were boarding any planes with expired passports regardless of having birth certificates, drivers licenses, marriage certificate, voter registration cards, library cards, YMCA membership cards, Sam's cards, business cards, credit cards and all the cash in the world....we were NOT boarding any planes. I stand corrected, we could GO to Mexico but upon our return we would not be allowed back into the United States. That posed a little problem and as much as I would have liked to extend my vacation reality would eventually set in.
Needless to say PANIC set in. After numerous phone calls and some very nice, informative people that we spoke to on the phone we finally go to the one person who could actually help.
You need a letter from your Senator to present at the Special Issuance Agency in Washington, DC. Have the Senator's Office alert the Special Issuance Agency staff that you will be arriving at 8:00 a.m. to submit passport renewal applications. My advise IS to ARRIVE by 8:00 a.m. since ours took 7 hours to process. Please remember that you will need to take your current expired passport book, (2) new passport style photographs, the completed DS-82 (which you can download beforehand), and method of payment, $135.00 per person (payable to U.S. Department of State). Another important thing that we were told but forgot when we got there...we ended up standing in the LONG line that starts to form outside the Passport Office BUT when you are renewing you actually go into the building next door and go up to the second floor. There was NO line :).
The drive to DC was long and there was NO place to stay in and around the area unless you wanted to pay upwards of about $350.00. We choose to drive around and back out of the city limits to find something suitable in the $80.00 range. It was nothing to write home about but the free coffee in the morning was good.
My advise to all who travel and a good friend of mine gave me this advise is, when making your air travel plans ALWAYS check your passport expiration date. One last thing I will say is that if the person in the Senator's Office had not followed through with with what she said she was going to do (letter, phone call, emails, faxes, etc)we would not have had such a spectacular time with my daughter in Mexico. We would have been shall we say left out in the cold...Burrrr! and might I add what a "Sunny" disposition she had throughout the whole situation.