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Thought we would share our daughters recent experience in renewing her passport from Utah. She sent it in expedited in January with her three children's passport requests. The children all got their passports. Our daughter cannot get an answer on her passport after 2 months and is leaving the US next week. She could only get a in person appointment for an emergency passport at the office in Honolulu prior to her departure next week.
I was able to renew my passport from Lisbon in December of 2022 and it only took seven weeks without any special requests.
We intentionally did not make travel plans until I had my passport in hand due to these types of delays.
Thought we would share our daughters recent experience in renewing her passport from Utah. She sent it in expedited in January with her three children's passport requests. The children all got their passports. Our daughter cannot get an answer on her passport after 2 months and is leaving the US next week. She could only get a in person appointment for an emergency passport at the office in Honolulu prior to her departure next week.
I was able to renew my passport from Lisbon in December of 2022 and it only took seven weeks without any special requests.
We intentionally did not make travel plans until I had my passport in hand due to these types of delays.
I have a suggestion.... how about getting an in-person at the State Department in Washington, DC? She can then get a direct flight out of Dulles International (IAD) on TAP to Lisbon. I fly out of Dulles to Lisbon and it's a breeze. Honolulu is the wrong direction!
@lowellmk They didn't give her that option. She already paid for the flight to Honolulu and has friends to stay with there. They are flying out of SLC to Sweden via Amsterdam for a week before heading to Lisbon. Our son-in-laws family is in Sweden. Maybe a miracle will happen today, and her passport will magically show up. I doubt it since it doesn't show as shipped yet.
We are in the same situation. We did an online renewal in January and were told it would be 6-8 weeks. It is now 10 weeks and we are supposed to leave for Portugal on the 29th of March. We have been calling the line for emergency passports but get cut off each time because of the high volume of calls. We'll be on the phone all day until we can hopefully get a person to talk to. Luckily there is a passport office in Denver so we can travel there if we can get an appointment. Scary!
@wjjkmorris Thank you for sharing. She tried to get an appointment in Phoenix or Denver, and none were available prior to her departure on the 21st. She flies to Honolulu Sunday night and returns Tuesday morning. Then provided she gets her passport leaves Tuesday night for Sweden. They will all be here in Lisbon on the 28th for a week.
Good luck to her and her family! I finally got through and am waiting for a call back. A 2 1/2 hour wait time, so hopefully they were truthful that I won't lose my place in line and will be called back. Crossing our fingers!
@wjjkmorris We have our fingers crossed for you as well. Our daughter spent an unprecedented amount of time on the phone with them.
When I was notified, mine was shipped to Lisbon on Dec 28, 2022, I started contacting the consulate here around January 10. They only use email. I tried calling the US and asking where it is. I had a very funny interaction with a representative when he would ask a question and I would ask "what answer would you like me to give". When I gave an answer that meant he couldn't help I would tell him sorry I would like to change my answer. The consulate notified me on the 17th that it was there.
We had Holiday cards sent from family in New Mexico by standard USPS that made it here faster.
@jonesdn2020 After getting a mostly "you probably shouldn't count on getting your passports or an appointment before you leave" from the passport office phone call, we reached out to our two US Senators. They both responded almost immediately, and one was able to get us an appointment at the passport office on the 29th, the day before we fly out! It's cutting it close, but they can issue the passports onsite so we should be good. The other Senator's office emailed Bill last night and said they found out that his passport has been printed and mailed. So hopefully we will both receive ours this next week and can give up our appointment to someone else who is in our situation. Glad to know our elected officials can get some results!
@wjjkmorris Brilliant! Wondering if your party affiliation aligning with your Senator's has any impact?
@jonesdn2020 Could be. Both senators have visited our non-profit and love what we do, so that could have something to do with it as well. All of this was handled through staff members, so I really don't know. We won't question it at this point, just grateful we don't have to cancel our trip.
@jonesdn2020 Update: Bill received his passport renewal in the mail last week, but mine never came. So went to the appointment at the passport office in Denver this morning and picked up my passport this afternoon. Whew! Nothing like last-minute stress, but so happy to have passport in hand. We fly out tomorrow morning!
Sounds like the US and Portugal are very similar in their governmental bureaucracy.
