I must have been lucky, didn’t face any issues with my renewal. Sent it at the beginning of February, with the new one arriving within 12 days.
I recall been quite surprised at the time as to how fast they had processed the renewal.
Mine expires in August, meaning I can’t go anywhere now pretty much 
May renew and just see what happens.
I had to get mine in a sort of emergency in Feb, got it in 3 days via the in person pick up without issue. So for people who needed them urgently there was an option.
This is why you do what I did, and renew during the second lockdown (where foreign travel was not permitted).
New passport in 6 days.
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I’ve got to apply for a first passport for my youngest. I’m anticipating much fun ahead. But I’m not going to book my holiday until the passport is in my hand.
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I think it is much quicker if you do everything online
Surely there would be some common sense that if your passport is out of date just wait to renew/receive the new one and THEN book the holiday to avoid cancellations.
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If only everyone had common sense 
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Well, my problem was that I didn’t realise my passport needed to have 6 months left to go where I was going. This is a requirement of a few European countries now and I think that’s what’s tripping people up, it’s easy to forget to check passport requirements for Europe - people still sort of assume it’s all ‘easy’
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Mate told me he made an application for 3 kids online, was told to send the countersigned pictures or whatever they ask for nowadays to 3 different passport offices, 1 came under two weeks, the other 2 he’s still waiting around 4 weeks now.
Oh definitely - I understand your situation my point was referring to people who are just leaving it to the last couple weeks to order a passport just because they didn’t feel like ordering it sooner. 
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