Losing My Passport and a Trip to Consular Services

I had checked in online with KLM. Packed my stuff and gathered together my documents.

Passport.

Passport?

Passport!

After looking everywhere, nope. Gone.

My friend stopped me from panicking.

I had to apply online for an emergency passport. https://www.gov.uk/emergency-travel-document

The application process is straightforward, you don't need any details about your lost passport, and pick up the passport yourself from the Embassy. (Courier takes an age.) It took a couple of attempts to get an acceptable photograph, but the computer seemed to be happy to wait.

There's an irreversible point where you push a button to continue and the cancel your lost passport. Take one last look around before doing that.

It costs £100. What choice do you have?

The application was done by 11:00 or so on the Monday, and I was told I should hear within two days.

About 15:00 on the Tuesday, I got a mail telling me the passport was ready for collection, between 10:00 and 13:00 Monday-Friday, from the Consular Services office at the Embassy.

Wednesday morning, we set off to The Hague from Utrecht Central at about 08:30 on a train that was only a third-full. Navigating between the station and the Lange Voorhout by map turned out to be more confusing that we thought, and a kind lady on a bicycle put us in the right direction. We had overshot the left turn we needed by some distance.

The Lange Voorhout is where a lot of the Embassies are, and it's less than a hundred yards from the Dutch Parliament. All very tree-shaded and historical. Consular Services is on a side street. We got there about 09:45.

I was expecting a line, if not around the block, then at least up the Kliener Kazernestsraat. Even by 10:00 we were the only people there. Clearly, losing one's passport is not a thing that happens a lot.

Just before 10:00, a jovial man appeared, wished us a good morning and asked if we were for the Consular Services. I said I was, and he let us in, asked my name and vanished into the offices.

About five minutes later, a woman called my name from behind a customer window, and talked me through the emergency passport.



Yep. It's bright blue. Nobody on passport control anywhere is going to miss it.

The page you show passport control looks like a normal passport. The document number will be accepted by online check-in systems, and it is good for one journey to the UK by "any available route", and expires months into the future. The rules say there's a limit of five intermediate countries, and you should check if they accept UK emergency passports, but that may only be an issue outside Europe. It took no more than five minutes: no interview, no interrogation, no sermons.

Travelling the next day, the Dutch passport control (on leaving the country?) asked if I had lost it in the Netherlands.

When I arrived in the UK, the Passport Control officer took the passport from me, and asked where I had lost it and how much it cost. I wondered if the latter was a test question, but I think he didn't know. He gave me a you-won't-be-doing-that-again smile and waved me through.

I was impressed by the whole process.

The only bit that wasn't easy to take was waiting for the e-mail. That really is being in limbo.

How did it happen? It had been three years since I had travelled anywhere, and I had just lost the habits of travel, including putting the passport in the case (or room safe if you're in a hotel). So I'm going to look for a neck wallet to carry it next time.