Passports, Bahamas, and Children..Oh, my.

Factual Questions
1

I have passport questions. Yes, yes, I have gone to the state department website, and they’ve changed their story. In April 05 they said we’d need passports to travel to the Caribbean, but now they’ve backed off to highly recommending passports until December 06 (at that time they’ll be required). Please, travel savvy teeming millions, help me unravel this knot.

  • Family of 5 traveling to the Bahamas. Adults and children ages 14, 11, and 4. Do we need passports? If not, what should we have in the way of identification for everyone? I’d like to avoid the added expense of new passports and renewals for us all, but I can suck it up and deal if I must.
2

It sounds like you do not have to have passports. Before the age of terror, Americans traveled to Canada, Mexico, the Carribean and elsewhere without passports. I traveled to Costa Rica without one as late as 1998. You will need copies of their birth certificates though.

However, passports would probably make things easier and they are good for ten years. They are also the only document that is definitive proof of idenity by itself in the U.S. They can be handy for traveling in general and I would think about it if you plan to travel often with them in the next decade.

3

Military Identification and Privilige Cards also are accepted by a few governmental agencies as definitive proof of ID without a second form of ID.

4

I suppose you are right. However, I think that a 14, 11, and 4 year old have easier options than the Marine Corp. What is a Privilege card?

5

Thanks Shagnasty and Monty. My Googlefu has been weak of late. Every cite I found was about what would “soon be required” and what was “recommended”, but nothing on what I really needed now. It complicates things, too, that I share custody with the biodad of the 14 and 11 year old. Some info I’ve seen alludes to documents I’ll have to have notarized bearing the biodad’s signature for entrance into some foreign countries. Naturally, they don’t specify which ones.
:smack:

::sigh:: The research stretches out before me.

6

Spouses and minor children of active and retired US military personnel carry an ID card that grants them access to US military installations. Among the benefits are the ability to shop in the commissary and exchange (where the products have lower prices due to federal subsidies), access to free health care at the installation’s medical facilities, and travel on the Military Air Transport Services.

7

This is what the government of the Bahamas says.

8

This information is from the Royal Caribbean Cruises website:
RCCL Passport Requirements

Hope this is helpful.

Starting December 31, 2006, the United States government is introducing new passport rules. Don’t risk disrupting your travel plans! If you are planning travel for 2007 or beyond, please take a minute to review the new regulations below. If you don’t already have a valid passport, be sure to avoid the rush and give yourself plenty of time to apply for one. Once you’ve got a passport in hand, the whole world is yours to explore.

The new U.S. passport regulations will take effect gradually over the next few years:

By December 31, 2006, passports will be required for all air and sea travel to and from Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean and Bermuda.
By December 31, 2007, passports or other accepted travel documents will be required for land border crossings to and from Canada or Mexico.
By January 1, 2008, all Americans departing and returning to the United States will be required to have a valid U.S. passport.

U.S. Citizens
For information on obtaining or renewing a passport, visit the State Department’s Website. U.S. passports are valid for ten years, so the initial cost averages out over subsequent vacations - especially if you cruise frequently.

Non-U.S. Citizens
You will need a valid passport and, in some cases, a visa. If you live in the U.S., you will also need the original copy of your Alien Registration Card (ARC or “Green Card”) and any other documentation the countries on your itinerary require due to your alien status.

For all sailings ending on June 25, 2005, or later, citizens from the Visa Waiver Program countries will require a machine-readable passport valid for the duration of their voyage. These countries include:

Andorra Luxembourg
Australia Monaco
Austria The Netherlands
Belgium New Zealand
Brunei Norway
Denmark Portugal
Finland San Marino
France Singapore
Germany Slovenia
Iceland Spain
Ireland Sweden
Italy Switzerland
Japan The United Kingdom
Liechtenstein
A machine-readable passport has a code like this on the bottom of the picture page:

P<<UKDOE<<JOHN<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<1234567890M1234567890M1234567890<1234567890

9

Be very careful of the State Dept website. Two or three years, different parts of their site said that passports could be renewed only by mail from Pittsburgh and that the Pittsburgh office would not mail passports outside the US. I think that the first was an older regulation and the second was new, but I realized that the site is maintained by a Michael Brown clone doing a heckuvajob, as usual.

10

Be very careful of the State Dept website. Two or three years, different parts of their site said that passports could be renewed only by mail from Pittsburgh and that the Pittsburgh office would not mail passports outside the US. I think that the first was an older regulation and the second was new, but I realized that the site is maintained by a Michael Brown clone doing a heckuvajob, as usual.

11

I work for State and will admit that the website isn’t always updated as regularly as it should be, but the fact remains that passport and visa regulations change all the time, and we’re going through a period of change right now. In re the OP, the answer right now is that adults should carry passports, but aren’t necessarily required to. Children under age 18 may enter the Bahamas with birth certificates or passports, but only birth certs are required as proof of identity. Adults may enter the Bahamas with a birth certificate or an expired passport in lieu of a valid US passport.

12

There’s no Privilege card. The card’s full name is “Identification and Privilege Card.” Yep, it’s a silly name.