Getting a Passport

You can set up an appointment at Post offices and then go in and get it taken care of.

They used to expedite it if you were leaving out of town quicker than the time it took to get your Passport but not sure about that anymore.

 

Nope, can't do it online. Get all of your paperwork and pics and stuff and go to the post office. You can expedite them but I don't remember how long that takes. A week or two I believe.

 

Absolute quickest way is to go to the passport office downtown. If you're traveling within a certain number of days - 15, 30, something - then I believe you *have* to go this route. Bring your photos & your paperwork & proof of the date of travel. You'll have to go back to pick it up.

Do not use any of the agencies that promise "expedited service". They basically charge you $100 or something for the same service the passport office provides.

 

If you go to a private passport business they will expedite it. But you have to pay usually an extra $100 in addition to the regular passport fee set by the government. These private businesses will return your passport in 3 days or so.

At the post office, it takes 6 weeks for your passport to be sent to you.

If you go to the actual passport office, you will have to stand in line for 2-3 hours, and you will be required to show proof of travel within the next week to ten days.

 

Just had it done less than a month ago.

The post office charges for expedited service as well. Took like a week to get it back. Call ahead though, lots of post offices no longer do it anymore, even the ones that advertise that they do.

 

I just got mine. It took 2 weeks to get it back. DO NOT expedite it. Waste of money
$114 TOTAL at the post office:
Go to this link: https://pptform.state.gov/FraudAbuseNotice.aspx?form=DS11
check the box and click submit.
Then fill out the form for each person and print it out and take it to your post office. If you post office does not take Passport pictures then you must go some where and get one first.

 

Another thing is you can save like 10 bucks by taking your passport picture at home. I went to CVS to get my passport picture done, and the employee just took out a regular digital camera, and took a picture of my face. It cost me 10 bucks. You can do it yourself for 25 cents.

 

You can get it done at AAA for free if you have a membership.

 

Here is passport info from the state department. When the new rules went into affect, it was taking up to 4 months to get a passport back. According to the State department, you should now receive it in 6-8 weeks.

http://travel.state.gov/passport/get/processing/processing_1740.html

 

Ha, just go the regular route. I got mine in less than a month.

 

Yea, I had this done around this time in 2005. I went with the expedited option at the post office and it came like in a week. Looking back at it, I think I blew a 100 bucks on doing that as it probably would have arrived in time if I had done the regular option.

 

We applied for ours at the Pasadena post office. Took our pictures at Walgreen's for around $8 a person.

Stood in line for about 3 hours. We opted NOT to get the rush service (an extra $60) and we got ours 3 weeks later.

 

It took you 3 hours to stand in line at the post office??

I went to my post office and got it done in about 5 minutes.

 

All the post offices i have been in don't have a line, they take appointment only and take a certain number of people a day.

 

applied for mine in april. was assure i didnt need to expedite it and that it would take 6 weeks max. 8 weeks go by, no passport. got my congressman to help me out. It never would have made it in time without that help. That was right before travelling season, so I guess it's different now.

 

There will be tons of people getting passports now as the rules are changing again.

 

Yeah it took us 3 hours. Sad thing is, it came out to be like 3 sets of families

This was the post office by Pasadena Town Square. And they didn't take appointments.