It’s 2:00 on Friday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend, and I’m waiting in line at the Tip O’Neil Federal Building in Boston to pick up my replacement passport for the one I lost. For the second time in two weeks.
I’ll note that I’ve had passports for 50 years before I lost my first one last month. I know it’s in my house somewhere, as I used it to fill out a form for my Lindblad Expeditions/National Geographic cruise to British Columbia and Alaska. Then, it just disappeared.
Just two weeks before the cruise, I called the State Department emergency 800 number and got an appointment at the closest office to my home in New York. It was just 275 miles away, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I showed up at 8 am for my appointment and had my passport in hand by noon.
It took longer in Boston.
I picked up my passport in Portsmouth on Thursday, drove home on Friday, flew to Seattle on Saturday, and sailed on Sunday. We stopped in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia, on Tuesday and did the foodie tour, stopping at five restaurants and a brewery. In the last one, I went to the ladies room, then came back and looked around—and my pocketbook was gone. With my five-day-old passport in it.
We retraced our steps through five restaurants. Nothing.
As our ship was about to depart, I called the Victoria police. They said don’t worry, people leave things around Victoria all the time and they always are returned. When it shows up they will notify me. In the meantime, I need to report my passport missing. Again.
So a week later, and two weeks before my next trip—to Egypt this time—I was on the phone again requesting another emergency appointment for a trip within 14 days. The only ones available were in Boston, at 8, 8:30, 9, 9:30 and 10 am, on Friday, May 6.
Ten days later, the Victoria police emailed me that the staff of the last restaurant we were in had found the bag during a deep cleaning that finally took them to the far corner of the room, behind a bench, where the bag apparently had been lying, untouched, all this time. Inside were the more than $200 in cash I had brought along for tips to the crew of the Venture, my bank card and assorted credit cards, a phone charger, my watch—and my passport.
But once reported missing, a lost passport cannot be unreported. You have to get a new one.
So here I am, on the Passport Pick Up line in Boston, at 2:00 on Memorial Day weekend. I am dreading the traffic back to Long Island, but I have a reservation on the ferry from New London. It will all be worth it on Monday when we fly to Cairo.
You can’t make this stuff up. Maybe I’m traveling too much. I wish I could say I did this as a way to do research on the passport office. But I do think I’m probably the world’s best expert on replacing one.
Here’s what I learned:
Regular passport processing takes 10 weeks or so this busy travel season, and many countries require that your passport be valid for at least six months after your planned trip. So if you are traveling any time this summer or fall, start the process now.
I’ve been lucky both times to get an emergency appointment, which apparently is most easily done on the exact day that’s 14 days before your departure time. Both times I did that I was offered more than one option, and every day thereafter the pickings got slimmer and slimmer. My theory is that they set some aside around the country for the inevitable calls that first day you can call in. After that, you have to hope you call just the very moment someone else cancels.
There are passport offices around the country, but you must have an appointment—and those are extremely hard to get these days. I called often, hoping to get an appointment close to New York, and usually there was only one available, or none at all. A few times, I was told the only appointments were in San Juan, San Francisco, and Honolulu.
The call-in number is open 8 am to 10 pm, and I had luck getting through both at 8 am on the dot and at the end of the day. Often in between I got “all our lines are busy, please call back.” This second time, the options seemed even more scarce than the first time, as summer travel demand is building.
There are private services that will do the legwork for you, but they charge about $900 above the cost of the passport. I’m always up for a road trip and I have grandkids in Boston, so I was fine with going myself both times. (And as it turned out, the traffic was pretty good coming home.)
If you lose your passport more than once, you can only get an emergency passport that’s good for one year. And since many countries require a passport that’s valid for more than six months after departure on a trip, I figure I will need to apply for a new one in about three months. So yes, the slap on the wrist stings a bit.
I’ll note finally that Victoria is a beautiful, flower-filled, and friendly city… and apparently really, really safe and caring of its visitors. I thank the staff of Whistle Buoy Brewery for finding my stuff and turning it in—and the Victoria Police Department for mailing it home!
Cheryl’s 40-year career in journalism is bookended by roles in the travel industry, including Executive Editor of Business Travel News in the 1990s, and recently, Editor in Chief of Travel Market Report and admin of Cheryl Rosen’s Group for Travel Professionals, a news and support group on Facebook. As an independent contractor since retiring from the 9-to-5 to travel more, she has written regular articles about the life and business of travel agents for Luxury Travel Advisor, Travel Agent, and Insider Travel Report. She also writes and edits for professional publications in the financial services, business, and technology sectors.
