Son's passport expiring - family hols in ruins

[blueshoes]

Dh and I were looking forward to our family holiday in Crete, Greece for the October half term. We watched the covid-19/PCR situation closely not realising that my 15 year old son's passport has less than 3 months. Just found out today. This is our first foreign holiday since covid struck.

The government website says that for entry to Greece, your passport must be valid for at least 3 months after the day you plan to leave Greece, or any other Schengen country.

We leave on 30 October and my son's passport expires just short of 3 months on 22 January 2022. It is too late to renew his passport as we are leaving in less than a week.

Ds cannot come with us, can he? We f_ked up.

Anybody recently travelled to Greece with Ryanair with less than 3 months left on their passport? Is it a bad idea to turn up and chance it or bite the bullet now and plan on the basis ds cannot go.

Hurray!

Yah. Fab you got passport and ocr test in time

Fantastic update OP. I hope you all have a brilliant holiday.

Fantastic update. I'm so pleased DS15 was able to go with you. Have a lovely time.

That's amazing! Hope Ds2 was not too disappointed to be going with you after all

Yes, if DS2's passport wasn't up to scratch, Ryanair should have stopped him boarding in the first place, as the airline apparently get heftily fined for letting through people with insufficient passport time - or so I was told by Lauda Air several years ago!

Hope you all have a lovely time

Hooray! Have a great time, and thanks for the thread, I had such a chuckle at some of the frothy responses

Great update OP, so pleased you sorted it. Fwiw I think you handled the whole situation the right way, talk of social services etc just made me

I had something similar, sat down one day to leisurely check in for a holiday and realised ds passport was expired. Managed to get an appt at the passport office for 1 hour from then cue a haze that involved passing a post office and snappy snaps to pick up form and photos, I remember throwing my son back into the car clutching his snappy snaps pics as DH sped off to make the appt in time. Happy memories hope your ds is enjoying his hard won holiday!

yaaay! OP!

That's fab!

All round good ending. Hope DS is happy with Plan A now that Plan B is shot.

All the frothers on here saying you couldn't be arsed, couldn't be bothered, just wanted free childcare, indifferent to your son , You weren't doing enough, safeguarding blah bah blah have faded away.

You obviously pulled out all the stops and had your fall back organised.

TBH I think it was your calm and unflinching manner on here that got folks going. Not 'drama ' enough for some.

Great update. Enjoy your holiday.

Enjoy your holiday! Great update x

Brilliant, have a wonderful time!

Fantastic @blueshoes have a great holiday and take care of yourself .
You had a very stressful week …

Phew! I’m so glad it all came together.
Have a great week

Have a fantastic holiday, OP!

Some people on here need to get out more, maybe meet some teenagers

What a superb update. Have a fab holiday.

Excellent! Though I’m sure DS would have bee just fine!

Excellent - hope you all have a lovely time.

Love a happy ending.

Oh that's brilliant .
I'm so glad he got to go with you .
I think you were really lucky that it came through so quickly , and organising the PCR test too.

I hope you all enjoy your holiday .

You can't fast track kids passports because of child trafficking. This happened to me once. We missed a holiday to Spain.

Great news! Enjoy your holiday.

And thank you for a great thread, there were some hilarious responses 😂

Well done! Enjoy your holiday.

Phew. Hoorah.

Happy ending - how lovely . Enjoy your holiday

Great update! Enjoy the holiday!