I noticed my passport was going to expire in about 6 month time at the end of November. Around the same time I was looking into getting a passport for my daughter. Having looked into the process for renewal by mail on the US Embassy Citizen Services page I learned that I could renew my own passport by mail and the process would take around 25 working days. I should of course plan for possible delays during heavy travel periods.
Seeing as the description also mentioned that once my old passport was in Bern it would have to be sent to the U.S. for processing I was not optimistic. But having planned to stay in Switzerland for Christmas this year it sounded like a perfect time to renew.
After a day of running around an collecting my photos and paperwork to be mailed I put everything in th epost on December 2nd and didn’t expect o hear a word until early January. You can imagine my suprise then when I got a letter that included my new passport on the 10th of December. Finally the first time ever that a government agency has done something quick and efficient. Kudos to the people in Bern for getting this done so fast.
Hopefully I will have the same experience in getting my daughters passport.