Trip to DFA

Our whole family will be going to the states this December for my father-in-law's 70th birthday so I needed to get Phoenix a passport asap so that I could also apply for his US visa. Applying for a passport was different this time. You aren't allowed to use Travel Agencies anymore so you have to apply on your own either via their website or using their telephone hotline.

It wasn't easy to make an appointment. Their website could not process my application for unknown reasons and their hotline was sooooo hard to get in touch with. It took me a couple of days before I could lodge my application. The good thing is that their operator was very well mannered and knowledgeable. I thought that DFA was becoming very structured and organized so I thought that getting Phoenix's passport would be easy.

On the day of his appointment, I really got scared because there were soooo many people that they were already outside of the premises. When we entered I told the guard that we had an appointment and he told me to line up to go to a certain table. The line was LONG!!!!! when I got to the table they told me that I shouldn't have lined up because the applicant was an infant and they get the special treatment. They even said na kawawa naman yung baby. I wanted to hit the guard who told me to line up on the head. It was very disorienting for Phoenix when we were lining up because the wind was so strong and there were just so many people and they didn't give much regard to us that they just kept on cutting and passing us when they could see that I was carrying an infant in front of me.

Thankfully, that was the hardest part that we had to go through because we did get special treatment so we didn't really have to line up that much and when we had to wait to be processed, it took them just about 15 minutes. I highly recommend that all families renew or apply for their passports with a newborn  because it will make your life a whole lot easier. If you're just a regular person, be prepared to wait wait wait and line up and stand up. You could easily be there for a whole day with the amount of people applying or renewing their passports. If that's the case, don't forget to bring stuff for your own entertainment ;)