Passports

[Mamai90]

Sorry, this isn't really an AIBU I'm just posting as this is where most traffic is.

Has anyone any advice on passport times? Applied for my daughters first passport 9 weeks ago and for the past 7 weeks it hasn't moved passed documents received. We're supposed to be travelling in 5 weeks and they say not to contact them until its been 10 weeks but then that leaves us only 10 days before our holiday. What do they actually do when it gets to 10 weeks?

We're having a real nightmare passport wise, we're in NI so also applied for an Irish one 9 weeks ago and that was supposed to be sent out a few days ago but there's been no more information and the passport office had no clue how long it might be.

I manged to get an emergency appointment and I was buzzing. Paid the money and then found out you can't actually use this service if you already have an application in. So that was £122 down the pan!

Anyone know anything or any advice?

Didn't mean to enable voting 🙈

I applied for DC's first passports in recent months, the British one didn't move past 'documents received' for weeks but then moved to 'printing' all of a sudden and was posted very quickly after that. We received it within the 10 weeks for sure, maybe 7 or 8 weeks.

The Irish one we're still waiting for, the estimated issue date is a month ago.

I'd contact the passport office to see if you can get a refund of the £122. They might even have an update on your DD's passport.

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I think I've lost all hope for the Irish one. My friend lost his holiday waiting for his DCs passports to come, they were estimated for end of June and he was eventually told it could be three months!

I was silly to pay the £122 before checking but I jumped on the appointment as they are like gold dust so when I saw one come up in Belfast I was on it!

I've found any dealings with the passport agency to be a dead loss. I'm tempted to go to the appointment and feign innocence so I can talk to someone properly as the person I spoke to on the phone at the passport agency several months ago about my own passport was really clueless and unhelpful.