Question About Getting Passports in Time for Flight on Saturday

Well last summer, myself, my husband and children were leaving for a cruise and needed my husbands. I called 3 days before we were to leave and explained my situation. The very nice lady helped me out and expedited it, and have it Fed-Ex'ed to me Priority, a no charge. I believe they will only do it if you are to leave within 2 weeks. Also that was last year when they first implemented a lot of new regulations, so they were really trying to help everyone out for summer vacations. I say, keep calling the Customer Service line and explain exactly the situation and be very nice and ask nicely for assistance :)

Oh wait.. wow.. I just realized that I am responding to a year old question! Hope it all worked out. For the record, my trip was August 2007!!

Unfortuately, it's normal. As of this past January, passports were required to get back into the USA from even Mexico and Canada. They were saying at the time that this would cause a backlog of applications. Tell her to go to Houston for peace of mind.
C. S.

my mom and I went through this a couple of years ago, though the situation was a little different: We found a great deal to Paris for the following weekend. We drove to Houston, got there right when they opened, waited 4-5 hours for our passports then drove back home. Our flight left the next day. It was quite the adventure.
As far as I know, at least two years ago, there was no way to overnight it or have someone other than the person it is being issued for to pick it up. It was a hassle but worth it for us.
Paris was delicious!!!!

I just read an article about a similar situation on cnn or some news station the other day. Because of new travel rules requiring passports (especially to Mexico), they are seeing higher volumes of applications being pushed through causing a huge back-up. This article in particular was about a wedding too and family members and friends who didn't have their passports yet, even though they had sent in their applications months prior well in advance. And they were given the run-around too. I hope she gets this resolved!

-Char

As was just mentioned, this is a common problem now since passports are now required for travel to Mexico and Canada from the US. I heard it's taking up to 3 months now. When you apply, you can pay extra and have it expedited (just a note for others needing a renewal). When I got my first passport years ago for work, there was a service I used to have it expedited. You cannot overnite it - someone has to personally apply for it and carry the paperwork through the process, but I think you can get a service to do that for you. Here's the contact information for the company that I used:
Universal Passports and Visas, Inc: http://www.upandv.com/contact.htm
They have a Dallas office and a Houston Office.
I appears you can get your passport in 2 days using their service.

I'm serious about this advice...have her contact her local congressman and explain the situation. They can help her and probably even have everything resolved by the end of the week. I didn't have to do this but I've read the advice over and over again with good results on another website message board I'm on that is specifically for cruising.

Same thing, it was on the news a couple of weeks age, even expedited it takes 2 months, because of new law. I would just take a trip to Houston, that way they have it for sure and are not waiting on the mail, thats unpredicatable! Good Luck!

I don't know if courier services do this, but if she doesn't need to pick it up in person, can a courier service pick it up and then overnight it to her? It might be a pricy service, but not as pricy as flying to Houston or rescheduling a trip. It might be worth a call to services in the area.