No horror stories but I can tell you a good one. My wife, after 30 years as a resident alien, received her citizenship at the end of January. She applied for, and received, her US passport in less than a week. The process that took the longest was getting her citizenship papers. You would think that when a person has been in the country legally for 30 years, the process would be much easier.

She had to apply twice to renew her "green card" so you would think that the background checks, etc., would have been enough for an expedited path towards citizenship.

I don't know what the fees are now but I know they are going to rise. That cost is going to be prohibitive for many people. We paid in the neighborhood of $500 plus another $200 because her "green card" would expire before the citizenship paperwork was processed. Of course the "green card" was surrendered after only on month of validity.

Oh well, alls well that ends well.

Encouraged by success stories, I bravely put my passport in the mail for expedited renewal on June 22 for an August 9 departure to London. My cousin's daughter got her brand-new passport in 2 weeks, and a family friend got one in just over 3 weeks. I have also renewed my prescription for Valtrex, because I just KNOW the stress of not knowing for sure is going to cause my lower lip to blow up with a major herpes outbreak...

Thanks for that lovely visual Karen

Bear in mind that the regional passport office 800 numbers are open 24 hours a day. You might have better luck calling to make an appointment at an "off" time like 11pm or 6am. Friends of mine have had luck with calling to make whatever appointment they could get (even if it's after their travel date), and then going down to the office with that appointment first thing in the morning as soon as possible to say, "See, I have an appointment, but that date doesn't work, as you can see with XYZ documents. Can you get me an earlier appointment, if not see me today?" The appointment seems to be the foot-in-the-door, after that passports can usually be picked up in a couple of days.

I applied for an expedited passport renewal about two weeks ago. My new passport arrived in ten days.
No horror stories for me.

Carolyn, that's astounding. Did you pay a commercial service or use the Passport Agency's expediting service?

My daughter and I travelled to London the beginning of April.....she received her passport 2 days before our departure. We applied in January. Mine was current. Before receiving her passport I called several times a day to the phone number listed and repeatedly got the recording to "make an appointment" and was not directed to an extension that enabled me to do that. Finally, after numerous phone calls at all hours over a 2 week period of time with no live person answering, I was connected with a "real" person who I immediately named "the god of passports". I took the person's name I was speaking with and they assured me that I would receive it before I departed and discouraged me from driving to Washington D.C. to the passport office (1 1/2 hours away) to try and obtain it. She expressed to me that an appt. was not necessary and I would receive it on time; this conversation took place 5 days before we left. I'm extremely glad I was home to sign for the package which is required by Federal Express esp. with a passport. It was shipped overnite which is a service I did not pay for and I was not charged for it. Despite the passport STRESS we had a wonderful trip. My suggestion: Apply 6 months ahead of time at the least.......also making follow up calls late at nite made a phone connection successful for me. Make sure you talk to someone at the office; just keep calling......

I renewed my passport in March. I paid for the expedited service, but not for express mail service in either direction. I got my new passport in about 3 weeks, mailbox-to-mailbox.

i sent my passport in on june 12th, paid the additional $60 (so $127 total) for expedited service and received my new passport on june 27. the state dept even paid for priority mail service back to me. so there is still hope if you're willing to pay the additional $60.