Passport

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Pfft, like the corporation of Canada is going to allow the media to tell the truth about their shortcomings. So, no, not all that well.. I mean, it IS in the news that it's difficult to get passports and people are waiting in long lines and going to different cities etc, but the full extent of the problem isn't exactly getting complete coverage. So, it is in the media.. but maybe not as much as it should be.



Annnnyways, it took me all afternoon/evening to make arrangements, but here's what I've done:

1. Booked a flight to Edmonton where I'll arrive just after midnight and head straight the passport office and wait overnight for a chance to get a walk in appointment. Fingers crossed this is the ~end of my journey & then I go home!

2. Book a passport appointment the next afternoon in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan - about a 6 hour drive away.

3. There are ZERO cars for rent in Edmonton anywhere Except for Turo and it would cost me a minimum of $800 to rent a car to drive that far so I made a couple phone calls to extended family members and so IF I don't get seen in Edmonton and Need a car that night, I can borrow/rent one from family and drive overnight to Saskatoon 6 hours away.. take a nap there and then attend my afternoon appointment. Then drive back to Edmonton again to return the car. MIGHT be able to rent one as a relative has contacts through his work - but literally every rental car place has Zero available cars that day so I highly doubt it.

4. I've prepaid for 2 different return flights from Edmonton back to the suburbs of Vancouver - one for late night the same day I arrive just in case I can get a quick turnaround and be done and on my way back home! And a second one for a couple nights later.. in which case I'll spend that day visiting one of my great uncles before I catch an Uber/Taxi back to the airport. If I don't need the second flight I'll cancel it and maybe get airline credit - but that one was cheapest at $59 all in so even if I get nothing back, whatever.. the Ubers/Taxis around town will cost me plenty more than that.


I figure best case scenario this costs me like $300ish + some kind of cheap food (plus the cost of the passport itself), and worst case scenario it costs me more like $800ish.. hopefully not more than that, but it might even run up to $900+ depending on the price of Ubers/Taxis.


Fingers crossed I get into the Edmonton passport office same day and don't have to even go borrow/rent a car and make my way to Saskatoon for the scheduled appointment!! No matter what, in a couple weeks I'm going on a little adventure.. HOPEFULLY it's a minimal cost adventure.

I’m guessing you went to Edmonton because you have relatives there, and don’t in Saskatoon.

Or maybe it’s much more expensive to fly to Saskatoon than Edmonton?

Otherwise, I might have gone to Saskatoon because you have a definite appointment there.

This is all so crazy I'm blinking my eyes in disbelief.
I wouldn't believe it if I didn't have similar horror stories about Service Canada / gov't services.

May I ask when you're doing the flight to Edmonton?
And why the hell there's such a rush on cars there?

It's kind of like Planes, Trains, and Automobiles on crack.

I'll be cheering you on and hoping this all works out.

I guess it’s because many others are seeking passports, too.

It's way cheaper to fly to Edmonton AND people have had success waiting in line there. So I figure it's worth a shot to try to do it super cheap and faster. Flight there is $79, one of the return flights is $89 and the other is $59. Flights to Saskatoon are more like $199-299 each way if you pre-book now, but there weren't any in/out same day flights so I'd have to also pay for a couple night's stay in hotels + restaurant meals etc, so a direct trip to Saskatoon could easily end up costing at LEAST $900, possibly $1200+ depending on hotel cost, Ubers/Taxis, meals etc.

The way I've planned it out I'll have an opportunity to MAYBE get it faster and cheaper in Edmonton and then still have the backup plan of the appointment in Saskatoon which I'd have to make a drive to (nbd only a 6 hour drive each way) and then the total cost would come in around the same as the cheapest it could possibly cost for a direct trip to Saskatoon w/ a stay and return flight.

And it was way cheaper to prepay for 2 different cheap flights back than to just pay on the spot for a flight back from Edmonton (or Saskatoon) as the flights back to prepay were $89 & $59, but flights back Tonight with no notice are $400.. so, I expect more of the same in a couple weeks.. cheap to book ahead, but expensive if you need to fly Right Now.

Also, I'm not 100% sure if my relatives will charge me a car rental fee if I do borrow their car. They may or may not. I think it'd be the right thing to do to at least give them $100-200 just for wear & tear/tires etc considering I'll be driving about 1100 kms.

I *think* I've booked the most economical trip I could. It MIGHT work out to be a bit more expensive to do the Edmonton then Saskatoon drive vs. fly to Saskatoon and stay a couple nights then come back, but I think it's pretty close to a wash And I have a chance of making a one day trip with quick turnaround and a lot of money saved!

Good luck! At least it’s not winter.

Late night Wednesday July 6th to arrive in Edmonton at 12:35am Thursday July 7th. Straight over to the downtown passport office to wait overnight for them to open and maybe get seen. If not, off to take a nap and get some wheels to make the nighttime rip over to Saskatoon.

Not sure why there's such a rush on cars there for a Thursday in July.. google says there's an Indigenous Congress of Alberta Association convention that following weekend.. and an international street performers festival starting on the 8th. Otherwise event schedules look like any other city.. could also be a bunch of Canadians from across the country doing what I'm doing. Not really sure why there's such huge demand for rental cars that they're ALL booked for that 24h period.


The only other option I could consider is paying someone to wait in line for 3 days here to get me a spot.. and one of my cousins has posted seeking that kind of gig - I messaged her and let her know the lines are 3 days long.. not sure she realizes that or if she'd even be willing to wait for 3 days/nights straight for someone. And then at that the price would be rather high.. I've read of people charging $50/hr to wait in line, and others charging $300/day.. which could then be up to $900 at that daily rate or $3600 if someone charged $50/hr for 3 days. WAY too rich for my blood.. and I really doubt she'd be down to wait for 3 days straight for $300 - which is, on the low end, how inexpensively I *might* get away with having to pay.

Thanks!

And yeah, at least it's not winter.. but never know on the prairies - could be damned cold at night. I'll have to wear some layers just in case. Gotta pack ULTRA light tho - only a small personal bag allowed, like half the size of a carry-on, as I opted not to pay for any luggage. Just pack and travel suuuuuper light. Toothbrush and some protein bars kind of thing lol.

My mother stood outside a Best Buy overnight in the winter, to get my son an XBox 360 when they were first released.

She didn't tell us or we would have gone mad.

I've heard of people paying others to wait in line for them, usually back in the early days of Ticket Master when we had to queue for concert tickets.

It's unbelievable a person might need to do that for a passport.

Do you have a lift to YVR when you go?
My partner's brother might be willing to help you out.

Got a text back from a relative.. her husband isn't comfortable loaning either of their cars out :/ But, he does mechanical work on rental cars for enterprise so he's going to see if he can get me a rental if possible. If so that'd be great. As a backup I just booked a 2015 Hyundai Genesis on Turo for 2 days/1000kms.. I could try to squeeze it into a 24 hour rental, but then I'd be driving on near no sleep for 24 hours.. only costs about $95 more for the 2nd day charge in order to pick the car up earlier in the evening which will give me time to go pull over and take a nap before the drive. Total cost of renting this car privately, if I end up Needing to, is about $365 with mileage and insurance/taxes etc to have it for up to 48 hours. If I cancel it more than 25 hours in advance I get all my money back.. If I cancel short notice it'll cost me around $150. Such is life when you don't have any other options! Might burn an extra couple hundred bucks.. but in the grand scheme of life it's the best option I've got. Also, if I'm able to get a cheaper rental car arranged well in advance then I can cancel this sucker and get all my money back. Would be nice! But with the price of rental cars I'd have to be able to pick one up in the evening from a location that allows for after hours drop off the next night in order to only have to pay for 1 day.. and then mileage charges etc - it might end up costing the same anyways.

On a bright note, I was expecting to pay for my cruise fare. Got a message from one of my brothers saying he's paid the entire thing for me in lieu of paying me for some construction work - which I had given him a lower price than the cruise fare. Also, due to an odd number of people going, I'm booked into a single cabin by myself. Kinda nice - costs more, no roommate. Almost makes me wish I'd paid the $500 for wifi on the ship just to be able to match with some gays on Grindr lololol but that assumes others paid for internet use, too.. might have to just use good old fashioned gaydar to see if there're any guys my type on board. :p

Flying out/back to Abbotsford instead as that's where the couple discount airlines fly from. It's about the same driving distance as it is to YVR as I live in the middle. I'll be able to get a ride from my mother, and if something happens then I have a lot of other family members here. WORST case ontario I can drive my car there and pay to park it, but I should be able to get a ride no problem.

Apparently the feds are working on trying to fix this mess:

https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2022/06/2 ... strations/

But I don't think I'm gonna take any chances cancelling my trip. I highly doubt they're going to get the line down from a few days to a few hours in the course of a week or so. Chances are I'm still better off flying to Edmonton at the very least. MAYBE with improvements I'll have a way better chance of being seen on my one day there & then head right back home that night!

Hmm, maybe the culture is different there, but here its common to make sure you have a passport ready even if you have no plans to travel abroad at all (though there is a bit trouble now since Covid messed with the system.) You know, just in case one suddenly needs it with friends inviting one over for a fast trip or if there's a sudden trip due to work. And while I don't know how much passports cost there, here it's about 50 € plus around 10 for the passport photo, which is not really a big deal for someone who can actually afford to travel when it's divided over five years.

Anyway, I really can't blame the system for this, for if one stops to think, it should be obvious that there would be more people needing new passports once the restrictions lifted more, so the smart move to make, which many people did, otherwise the wait would be even longer than it is now, would be getting one a good while before actually needing one.

I don't know which country you're in, but all Euro currency countries are smaller than Canada. Canada is 9.985 MILLION Km^2. We can travel very long distances to different places and climates all within Canada -> mostly all within British Columbia, really.. the rest of the country isn't so diverse. We have mountains, glaciers, 40C heat in a desert resort area, oceans, forests, rivers, laaaaaaakes etc.. all surrounded by temperate rain forests. There isn't the same Need or opportunity to travel to other nearby countries.. the one closest to us is Also huge, and historically we've been able to cross the border just with a drivers licence up until maybe the last decade or so that they require enhanced drivers licences or passports. Cheap destinations to fly to are Mexico or Dominican Republic. Some fly to South America, Asia or Europe, of course, but it's not cheap - flights can be a couple grand - and that's a big part of why I've never flown overseas anywhere.

Passports cost $120 for 5 years or $160 for 10 years. There are additional fees to pay for expedited printing etc, up to $110 extra for next day printing.

Unless you're very wealthy OR have the "travel bug gene," there aren't really a whole lot of international trips being taken on a whim. YES, 100% weekend/long weekend etc getaways happen with friends/family etc all the time, but tend to be somewhere local - maybe up to Whistler or the interior somewhere or over to one of the islands - usually a road trip vs. flight, and if a flight, often within Canada since Canada is HUGE. We can cover a lot of ground, climates, cultures etc within Canada or the USA like someone else might have to trek all across Europe to do. (geographically; I realize that Canadians/Americans do not have as diverse of languages and cultures as continental Europe. But we have a lot of land.) It's 5,514km to cross Canada from West to East.. soooo, we have a lot of places we can go w/o ever needing a passport nor to even leave the country. I haven't even crossed the border into the USA since December 2016 in my own personal protest against trumpism and the hassles some people experienced at border crossings - and I live a 20 minute drive from the border lol. Things are calmer now, once I have a passport I might start crossing again.. $40/tank savings on gas almost.

I watched some footage about a woman in BC flying to Edmonton for her passport.
It says she was at the Edmonton office for 3.5 hours and walked out with it in hand.

I just wanted to check if this is normal?
I've never heard of going to a passport office and walking out with it same day.
The best I've heard (on expedited service / pre-chaos), is paying extra for next day or 48 hour pickup.

When my daughter went for her very lengthy appointment she still had to go back several days later to get it.

I just want to make sure you don't fly to Edmonton, hand in your stuff, and then have to wait a day or two.

All that considered, wouldn't the ones who actually can afford to travel and want to do so have the sense to take necessary measures well in advance to make sure everything works out, including getting the passport early enough that there definitely won't be any need to hurry? I mean, I would think that those who don't get as many chances to travel would be likelier to start proper preparations early enough to make sure nothing goes wrong.

EDIT: Actually, this is probably my over-planning aspie brain talking. An average person doesn't double check things and take security measures as much as I do, probably.