Most people know that as of today (January 23 2007) you do need to have your Passport in order to fly into the United States. This also includes any US citizens who are flying back into the US.
What a lot of people do not know is that the line ups for the passport offices are HUGE! Some people have been reporting that they have been in line for up to 4 hours just to fill out the paperwork so that they can apply for their passport.
What I have heard on the radio is that due to the huge boost of people coming to the passport offices that they do not have enough staff to handle it and that is what is causing the massive line ups. People are being advised to fill out the forms electronically on Passport Canada’s website.
Passport Canada is saying due to the increase in volume of applications it can take anywhere between 5 to 20 business days to process. If you want to pay more you can also have your passport a bit quicker as well.
Not sure if you need your passport? Passport Canada has a small FAQ available.
As I write this the Canadian Passport website is extremely slow due to the increase of web traffic they are receiving.
At least we won’t need a password to cross the border going into the US by ground, not until at least 2008-2009. It’s a good thing that I got my passport a while ago when I went on an Alaskan cruise a few years back.