In Daniel Negreanu's latest blog one can read about the hassle he recently had to go through to be able to make it to EPT Barcelona. The reason for all this hassle was that his passport had expired, and due to some miscommunication between him and his assistant, Patty, the passport hadn't been renewed only days before EPT Barcelona - a tournament that Daniel had been looking forward to for a long time.
Patty had mailed Daniel's passport along with his birth certificate, expecting it to return within a week's time, but soon she found out that it can take up to 4 weeks for a new passport to be issued. Without the birth certificate and the old passport Daniel was now not even able get a temporary/emergency passport for his trip to Barcelona.
Daniel went online on MSN to inform a few "VIPS" that he would't be able to come and take part in EPT Barcelona, unless they they had some really bright ideas. Luckily for Daniel they had some good news! They had a contact in Toronto who could arrange everything with Daniel's passport. The hook was that Daniel had to be at the passport office in Vancouver by 4:30PM. In other words, he only had 6 hours to get there!
Daniel and Patty started looking for commercial flights to Vancouver and soon they realized that it would be impossible to get there on time. Now their only chance to get there in time was to find a private jet and pilots. After a few phone calls they finally managed to find a plane. The trip, one way, would cost Daniel $15,000 and they would "only" charge him $2,500 for the return.
At about 1:15pm the plane took off and everything seemed to be fine. Daniel could finally relax a bit and enjoy his private jet. Luckily he still didn't know about the hassle that was awaiting him in Vancouver.
The plane landed at 3:30pm in Vancouver, but unfortunately the pilot had messed up something with the protocol and now they weren't allowed to leave the plane before Canadian customs arrived. After about half an hour of waiting, Daniel realized that they would never make it on time to the passport office. He called the contact person in Toronto and, once again, he helped Daniel. This time he hired a lawyer and an agent to go to the passport office and try to keep it open a bit longer.
At 4:06pm customs arrived and about 10 minutes later Daniel jumped in to a cab and told the driver where he was going and that he was in a hurry. Finally he was on his way. However, the taxi driver didn't listen to the "hurry part" as he was driving extremely slow. Lots of cars passed by the taxi in the other lane and they didn't arrive at the passport office until 4:53pm.
Once they arrived at the passport office Daniel didn't expect the security to let him in, but to his surprise they just said "We've been expecting you". Daniel walked into the office and saw the lawyer and the agent standing there chatting. On the table in front of him was his brand new passport. He made it!
?you cant look sometimes when your document will expire?it same like I watch where I will go on holiday,pay a holiday and then I see that my pssport expired!it so silly for me that he dont know this!
