When the Rolf family booked an Easter getaway over the weekend in Las Vegas with their two teenagers, they learned that their 18-year-old daughter’s passport, Paige, would expire just before the trip.
They sent the application for the renewal of Paige’s passport by courier in February after seeing the estimated time of 20 working days on the Service Canada website.
“We felt more than fine based on the information on their website,” said Father Sean Rolfe. “I finally saw that the payment was being processed on my credit card on March 23, so at this stage we decided that everything was fine, we will receive it by the end of March, beginning of April.”
When Paige’s new passport had not yet arrived a week before they left Vancouver on April 14, and after her parents did not receive a response to numerous emails requesting service to Canada, they began to panic.
“We decided to get an emergency passport, which we heard you could do,” Sean said. He took Paige to the passport office in downtown Vancouver on Monday morning, and after waiting hours, he was initially turned down because their trip was just outside the 48-hour emergency passport window.
“I talked sweetly at the door the other day, and in the end it saved us,” Sean said. “The passport was taken from us at 3.30 pm on Wednesday and we were at the airport at 4 am on Thursday morning.”
His advice for other travelers who need to renew their passports before the spring-summer trip? Do not trust the estimate of latency on the Service Canada website.
“It’s completely misleading,” Sean said. “I can say that almost everyone in this passport office was of the same conviction, or they were in the office with more than enough time to get what they needed, or they were in the same situation as us, where they applied for it. mail and I didn’t see anything back. “
Service Canada says it is dealing with a huge backlog of applications as Canadians who let their passports expire during the COVID-19 block are starting to book trips again.
Sean strongly encourages people to book a face-to-face appointment in advance, instead of mailing a passport application or hoping to enter at the last minute.
“They made it very clear that they are currently so overwhelmed with booked appointments that coming to the office does not guarantee anything,” he said.
If they failed to obtain Paige’s passport on time, the family would lose thousands of plane tickets and accommodation in Vegas. Her parents could not accept the alternative.
“The only opportunity we had was to travel without my daughter, and I don’t think we had the heart to do that,” Sean said.
Paige’s passport took hours. Now all four Rolfes are in Vegas – a good place to feel lucky.
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