Get your passports now

Raising $750 for a Royal Caribbean cruise to Mexico is already a stretch for some Clark Fork High School students. So Claudya Shane was relieved to learn that passports won’t be required for the April trip.

“We’ll only be in Ensenada, Mexico, for eight hours, for pity’s sake,” said Shane, a retired teacher who organizes the annual trip for second-year Spanish students. “For some of them, paying $100 for a passport is a lot of money.”

New passport regulations take effect in late January – just as some sun-starved Inland Northwest residents start heading to tropical destinations to escape the winter blahs. Shifting dates and requirements have left travel agents scrambling to keep clients up to date on the latest rules.

The official answer: Beginning Jan. 23, flying into the United States from Mexico, Canada or Bermuda will require a passport. Taking a cruise that originates in U.S. waters can still be done with a birth certificate and driver’s license for identification.

The comprehensive answer: Many travel agents are recommending a passport for cruises as well.

“It’s good insurance,” said David Pratt, general manager of Time to Travel in Coeur d’Alene. Travelers will need that passport if an emergency arises and they have to fly home from a foreign port, he said.

But at a cost of $97 per person – $82 for those younger than 16 – getting a passport can add considerably to the price of a trip. Shane opted to leave the choice up to students and their parents.

Sixteen people are going on the spring break cruise, which leaves from San Diego and includes one stop in Mexico. The cruise is a 10-year tradition and “a touch of finishing school” for kids from Clark Fork, a town of less than 600 near the Idaho-Montana border, Shane said.

Some students have never sat down to a formal meal with linen tablecloths, multiple forks and a maitre d’. Bartering in Spanish in the open-air markets of Ensenada is also part of the cultural experience, she said.

“This may be the last year that we can go without passports,” Shane said.

The new passport requirements are part of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which emerged after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Federal officials say the passport rules will make U.S. borders safer by standardizing the identification accepted at the border.

Currently, only a birth certificate and a driver’s license are needed for a U.S. citizen to re-enter the country from Canada, Mexico and many parts of the Caribbean. But with more than 8,000 state and local agencies issuing birth certificates and driver’s licenses, it can be difficult for customs agents to quickly verify the documents’ authenticity, federal officials said.

Last year, more than 75,000 forged or fraudulent documents were seized at U.S. ports and border crossings, according to the federal government.

Government officials have pushed back the new passport rules several times. The date recently changed from Jan. 8 to Jan. 23, which means the rules will have less overlap with the busy holiday air travel season.

For people traveling by land or sea, passport requirements are at least another year away. U.S. citizens re-entering the country by land or sea from Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean will need to present a passport at a yet-to-be determined date between Jan. 1, 2008, and June 2009. The government is also developing wallet-size “pass cards” that can be used in lieu of a passport.

About 26 percent of eligible U.S. citizens have passports, which is one of the highest percentages on record. Another 10 million people are expected to apply for passports in the next year.

Local passport offices are already seeing the influx. At the Kootenai County clerk’s office, passport applications jumped 40 percent this fall compared with activity a year ago. The clerk’s office is one of several locations where first-time applicants can submit their documents. Requests for passport photos, meanwhile, were up nearly 20 percent in September at AAA’s downtown Spokane office.

Procrastinators, however, are running out of time. If you’re planning a trip to Cancun in January or February, travel agents recommend paying an extra $60 to put a rush on your passport application. With the $60 expedited service, passports can be issued within several business days instead of the normal six-week processing time.

Gary Barrier, owner of Oceans Away Cruises & Travel in Coeur d’Alene, has been urging his clients to get their passports for the past two years. With heightened security after 9/11, it was clear that passports would become the preferred identification, he said.

But for one of Barrier’s elderly clients, trying to obtain a passport has been a long, drawn-out process. The woman doesn’t have a copy of her birth certificate. Requesting a duplicate copy isn’t an option because a fire destroyed the courthouse records in the Oklahoma town where she was born. The woman’s family is trying to assemble alternate documents to satisfy the U.S. State Department, Barrier said.

According to federal figures, only a few thousand Inland Northwest residents are likely to be affected by new passport rules for air travel. Last year, about 3,300 passengers flew out of Spokane to destinations in Mexico and Canada, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

For Mike Urso, a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen living in Spokane, the upcoming land crossing requirements are a greater concern.

Urso and his wife, Edie, frequently head to a ski condo at Red Mountain near Rossland, B.C., for weekend getaways. The couple’s two daughters like to bring friends along. Future invitations, however, might be preceded by the question, “Do you have a passport?”

Urso said he supports Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire’s proposal for a three-month pilot project to scan driver’s licenses at the British Columbia border. The scan is geared to identify fake licenses and people wanted in both countries. Washington and B.C. officials view the pilot as a possible high-tech solution to the passport requirement.

The flow of travelers is important to both countries, Urso said.

“When we bring the girls and their friends up to ski, they rent movies and go out to eat,” he said. “You think they’d be able to come up with a residency card so you wouldn’t have to show a passport.”