Thread: Have you gotten your Passport yet?

Originally Posted by Captain Larry

Ditto for the GCCL Cruise we just completed. The explanation for it was the only time I felt the crew and/or program directors were being just a little dishonest. The stated explanation was "We will be crossing country borders at inconvenient times and it is just easier if we have all of the passports to present at one time." In fact, it had the effect of being a security deposit. It insured proper completion of the check-out procedure. Once admitted to one European Union country, you don't need your passport to cross into another EU country. We needed our passport while entering the Netherlands and when departing Austria. In between, it was OK with me for the ship to keep our passports in the main safe. I didn't miss them.

Captain Larry and Chris, we were on a river cruise last month, and Avalon did the same thing with the passports. But we know for a fact that they got our passports stamped for us! We started in Budapest and went south and east, and while Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria are scheduled to join the EU, they aren't there yet. And poor Serbia isn't under consideration, although it is much more civilized than Romania!

On the day we left Hungary, we had 2 stops at the border, one on the Hungarian side and one on the Serbian side. While we had a day of leisure, the ship's crew was busy with the customs people as they took their time checking our passports, stamping, eating, DRINKING, whatever. We were given our passports to carry in Serbia, because that is the law there, but otherwise the ship kept them for us.

I think the ship keeping the passports on those cruises is part a holdover from when all of Europe was not in the EU, and also a preventative in case they have a problem along the way.

Originally Posted by MCcruiser

I think the ship keeping the passports on those cruises is part a holdover from when all of Europe was not in the EU, and also a preventative in case they have a problem along the way.

Could just be a "doesn't matter which cruise, always do it" sort of policy, but we never left Germany!

My husband is renewing his passport, but I have never had one. They won't accept my birth registration paper that I have, so I had to write to the state of NY for the original birth certificate with a raised seal. Wonder how long that will take?

Maybe some frubals will help me be patient!!!

Originally Posted by hapinowagain

My husband is renewing his passport, but I have never had one. They won't accept my birth registration paper that I have, so I had to write to the state of NY for the original birth certificate with a raised seal. Wonder how long that will take?

I had to do that too and got it surprisingly fast...I want to say like 2 weeks? I had to write to NY also, but I think it was directly from Brooklyn, where I was born.

We are on our third passport now! We have five more years before we renew again!

I haven't done that yet. I suppose I should. How long does it take to get one back?

We just renewed ours. They have not come back yet. We are passportless at the moment!

They usually take about 6 to 8 weeks....
and they are a little costly.. and I can only see the price going up more and more now that they will be required .... at the end of 2006....
My Dh and I have ours for about two years now.. Glad we got them when we did.. I can see a real flood of appts. sitting on them Gov desks soon...
Ok later..