How long for ESTA approval?

[Acourtof]

Starting to panic!! We’re flying to the US tomorrow afternoon and I only just remembered that we all need ESTAs 🤦🏼‍♀️

Submitted applications online. Website says up to 72 hours to come through. We’ve got 24 hours…

DH and I have travelled to the US several times and never had an issue. Our young DC have never been to the US, so I’m worried that it will need extra time for a first application.

Any comfort please on your own recent ESTA timelines, especially for DC? Thank you 🙏

No, I have never forgotten to do something like this

When the day comes on which you do inevitably mess up, I hope everyone laughs like fucking hyenas at you.

There's always a twat @Scalottia

You sound lovely 🙂 Please show me where I laughed at the OP?

Also, that day won't come for me, because I am organised. How on earth do people forget a Dr. appt?

@Qilin I have never forgotten any of those things. I am surprised at people who do.

I'm organized af too. Never missed an appointment or forget an ESTA or missed an expired passport. But I'm also not a sanctimonious that who comes onto threads where OP is under such a large amount of stress to brag about how amazing I am and how I just COULDN'T POSSIBLY do something so stupid.

If I had to choose between knowing OP and knowing you, I'd absolutely choose the OP.

I just read this thread - that was a roller coaster ride! So glad they came through OP. I had my heart in my mouth as when we first went to the states with our eldest 10 or so years ago, we were advised to leave up to 2 weeks for the ESTAs to clear!!

Hope you have a fabulous holiday, I love Disney World.

So happy for you OP, can relate a little to the stress, last time we went to the US, a postponed covid trip, we had to do supervised pcr tests, the stress was unbelievable, dh dropped his swab mud test, thankfully camera superviser didn’t pick it up, we got all clear but the thought of missing out after all the planning was just awful, never again!!

@Qilin I have never forgotten any of those things. I am surprised at people who do.

I'm naturally very organised. Fortunately! And I create mini spreadsheets, add key dates to an online calendar, etc routinely, So, it's rare for me to forget things like these.

However, I'm also not infallible and I'm also aware it can just be the one slip that makes all the difference.

For example, I checked all of our ESTAs one year when we went to Orlando. The print outs I had were all well in date. I sorted out one for dd's friend who was travelling with us. Everything sorted - or so I thought. What had slipped my mind was that dd had needed a new passport between booking the holiday and going. It was only at check in 48 hours before leaving that the error was found - and it wasn't even that obviously. I just wouldn't let dd check in on time. Everyone else's went through but it kept giving me an error for dd. It never once said what the error was. I tried all sorts of solutions for ages, in a panic! It was only then it suddenly dawned on me - in the hectic time when sorting DD's passport (had a fairly tight turn around for her due to it running out between a previous holiday and a school trip abroad) that I'd forgotten to renew her ESTA. Luckily it was back when it was near instant approval,so,was sorted that evening.

But as it goes to show - even if you are normally organised and have strategies in place to avoid mistakes happening - it just takes one busy event to let things fall down.

So I'm not naive enough to believe that no one is infallible!