The missus and I just got our passports ahead of a planned trip in January to Belize. We paid for the expidited processing, had our passports in about 6 weeks.
I did see that expedited processing was an option. Obviously, I’d like to minimize my expenses (considering what I’ll be spending on airfare and hotel) so I’m hoping to avoid having to do that.
In the mid-90’s, my boss was scheduled to travel to Japan and had an emergency come up a couple of weeks before the travel was scheduled, so I was tapped to sub for him. The only problem was that when I dug my passport out, it had expired earlier that year!
That’s when I discovered that if you were willing to stand in line at a federal passport center, you could renew your passport in less than a week. So that’s what I did. I went to the Passport Agency in Los Angeles (fortunately it is only about 30 minutes away from work), stood in line for a couple of hours, turned in my application, paid my fee (significantly higher than the routine by-mail fee IIRC), then returned a few days later, stood in line again, and picked up my new passport.
I see that they still have that method, though they say they require at least two weeks (I think in my case, my recollection is that it took less than a week) for this service, though if you can prove you have an emergency (death in the family), they can do it in 3-5 days.
Oh I don’t know… I think it would make it more frightening.
There are companies that will do that for you. I had to renew my passport and get a business visa for India right after I started work for my current company and our admin just handed my passport and filled out forms to a company - 5 days later I had a new passport and a visa from the Indian embassy in NYC.
The former office in Regina was pretty quick.
I went in on a Friday afternoon to renew our passports. I had all the documents ready and was at the head of the line without much delay.
As the passport officer was tapping all my info into the computer, we suddenly heard the fellow at the head of the line next to me explode: “What do you mean I need [some document]?!?”
The passport officer I was dealing with said quietly: “We tend to get two types of people coming in late on a Friday afternoon. There’s people like you (handing me back my docs) who will get their passports promptly. And there’s people like that gentleman – who won’t. Have a nice weekend.”
And now for something completely different …
I’m filling out an application for a first US passport, and one question is whether I’ve ever been married (I was, am not now). Of course, this leads to information about the spouse. My quandary: she was married before, and has since remarried; this results in four possible surnames — birth, (actually adoptive), first marriage, marriage to me, current marriage. Since it just asks for the name, my inclination is to use her current name; is this correct?
(There’s no urgency, I have nothing planned: it’s more a preemptive strike at 2024. I’m going to apply for an Irish passport as well on the “suspenders and belt” principle.)
I’d go with currently used name. They will investigate.
Grazie.
Duckster, I had a follow-up question for clarification: You mentioned the students had to lift their shirts and lower their pants for the customs officials. They didnt have to drop their boxers/briefs too, did they? That’s the part that seems bizarre to me. I mean, if that was the case, there’s no telling how many women or girls were in the area that saw those guys’ bare butts If they weren’t obliged to drop their drawers, that seems more believable.
I came back over from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario last Spring. The U.S. Border Patrol guy asked what the purpose of our trip was and I replied “Beer run”. He gave me the stink eye and said “Care to rephrase that?”
“Uh, tourism”.
“Anything to declare?”
“5 cases of beer!!” 
True story.
Bumped.
US Customs official: “Do you have anything to declare?”
Oscar Wilde: “Only my genius!”
The end of an era, alas:
Not a big loss. Most are boring and you can’t even read them the way they stamp it.
When I went to Ecuador last June I noticed a lot of places that weren’t even border crossings were offering “souvenir” passport stamps, like you could get your passport stamped at the equator, for example (I had left my passport in the hotel safe, otherwise I would have). IIRC at the airport in Quito they specifically asked if I wanted a stamp, I assume they didn’t actually need to stamp it.
I wonder if soon we’ll see system where you don’t get a stamp at the actual checkpoint to keep the line moving, but there will be a separate station to get a stamp for those who really want to collect them.
The EU ones are kind of boring. Cuba was pretty cool, except the ink they used totally bleeds through the paper to the next page, and their stamp got pretty much obliterated when my passport got wet.
I think Canada moved away from their maple leaf one a while back.
This will be good for those who travel so often they need to get pages added to their passports. It has never happened to me, but I know several people who have had to do so.
//i\\
Peter Ustinov used to say that, filling in a US landing card (or was it a visa application) that asked (in all seriousness) if he intended to subvert the USA, he replied ‘Sole purpose of visit’
And don’t, whatever you do, reply to an Australian official asking if you’ve got a criminal conviction, “I didn’t realise it was still compulsory “
LOL 
If you’re ever crossing an international border and the officer asks if you have any firearms, explosives, drugs or other contraband, you should look around furtively, then lean in close and ask in a whisper, “Whaddya need?”
I biked into Canada, in my team kit; yanno spandex. The guard gave me the standard do you have any guns, any knives, any drugs speil. I really wanted to point to my thighs & say, “I got a shotgun here, & an Uzi there” but then again, I wanted to make it back that afternoon so I, begrudgingly, kept my mouth shut. Where the eff am I hiding guns in spandex on a bicycle???