A child's passport can't be renewed online, so my family had to trek to a local post office, where we have always sauntered in with little or no wait and minimal fuss.

This year is quite different. A huge, long line and a lot of aggravated customers for the passport window!

We have ended up making an appointment at a different office for ... the middle of April.

I needed SOMETHING to stress over this time around, I guess. Sure hope that passport arrives by June!

You should be fine. I need my husband to get on replacing his, as it is not expired but quite chewed up. He left it in a bag and one of the pups decided to make it a chew toy!

I got my new passport today, three weeks to the day that I mailed the old one. So much for all the warnings we heard, etc.!

Another thing to consider when you renew your passport is getting the extra pages. If you do it when you renew there is no extra cost, but if you get the standard number of pages and need to have pages added later, it will cost you extra. We got the extra pages when we renewed, even though we've never even come close to using all our pages -- guess we thought if we win the lottery we'll be traveling more. I wish!

Ah, good to know. I gotta get my husband to take care of his (will not share that it came that fast as he needs a sense of urgency here....I will go to Paris alone! If I have to).

My local public library offers passport appointments and even has them on weekends. The staff are very knowledgeable and the library's website provides a lot of information about the application process. I imagine other libraries provide this service as well.

Some years ago DH and I read that a passport may not be accepted within 6 months of expiration. Neither Air France or the French Consulate could guarantee our passports would be accepted on an upcoming trip so we renewed our passports and paid to have them expedited.

Denisea, not to be a scaremonger, but one of the criteria for renewing through the mail is that the old passport not be "significantly damaged". Not sure how your "quite chewed up" fits with this description! Good luck!

How nice that you can do a passport application at a library. I would love to be able to do that.

You'll receive it with plenty of time to spare, since you already had one, even though it expired. I got mine in three weeks. Be sure to ask for the passport book and not the ID card.

In Australia we apply at the post office for passports.

Yep - totally understand, grandmere. He has to do this in person (which is why it is not done yet...we have an office close by but procrastination is the enemy here)!