Passport delays: Arrival at 11th hour saves dream holiday

A family's £8,000 dream holiday was saved after a missing passport arrived at the eleventh hour.

Rachel Morgan-Williams and her family are due to go to the USA on Friday but were waiting for documents for her 11-year-old son.

They finally arrived at Newport's passport office on Tuesday.

The Passport Office said it had been advising people to allow 10 weeks for papers to arrive due to people putting off applying during Covid.

Ms Morgan-Williams took a call late on Monday to say her son's case had been transferred to Newport and she would be able to collect the document in time.

The 36-year-old said it was "such a relief" to finally have it.

On arriving to pick up the passport, Ms Morgan-Williams said more than 100 people were waiting to be seen, but she was able to go straight through.

"Seeing was believing," she said.

"When I got back [from the passport office] I made it a big surprise for the children.

"They were over the moon, shouting and jumping up and down."

The holiday was a Christmas present for them.

"You work so hard for these special moments for them," Ms Morgan-Williams said.

"To have gifted it to them for Christmas and to think they might not have their Christmas present, it was breaking my heart."

Ms Morgan-Williams, from Ogmore-by-Sea, Vale of Glamorgan, applied for five passports in late February and said she was told to expect a wait of four to five weeks.

While the other four arrived within that timeframe, there had been no indication her eldest son's would come in time.

Ms Morgan-Williams said they had been saving for "the holiday of a lifetime" since before lockdown.

Her children had been counting down the days and watching Disney films in the build-up.

Their Florida destination is the home of the Disney World resort.

"They were back watching Disney films straight away as soon as I told them," she said.

She said the children would have been devastated if they had not been able to go.

Ms Morgan-Williams said she only became aware of delays at the Passport Office after she applied.

"It was about two or three weeks after we'd received the rest of them back when I started to think 'oh gosh, there's a big gap here'," she said.

"I went on Twitter and saw the delays people were having. At this point it hadn't really hit the media yet.

"There were so many people who'd been waiting longer than me."

Ms Morgan-Williams said she had been cut off repeatedly when trying to contact the Passport Office.

She travelled to its offices in Liverpool last week to try to speed up the process, but was told nothing further could be done.

The family needed the passport to arrive on Tuesday to apply for their visas in time to travel to the US.

The family stood to lose all of the money they had paid if they were unable to travel.

"It's not just going to America. We've paid for all of the theme parks, going to the Kennedy Space Centre, our travel to the airport. Our insurance doesn't cover any of it.

"I asked the holiday firm if we could change the dates but they said it's too close.

"They said it's either go without your son or lose it all."

A Passport Office spokesperson said: "Since April 2021, we have been advising people to allow up to 10 weeks when applying for their British passport, as more than five million people delayed applying due to the pandemic.

"We urge people who need a new passport to apply for one as soon as possible.

"To deal with this demand, we have increased staff numbers by 500 since April 2021. This has helped us to handle more applications than ever before."