Holiday Prep - Passport Woes

So all was going well with my holiday prep which basically consisted of applying lotion to keep my legs moisturized in anticipation of a tan!

Fortunately, as I was browsing Facebook, this popped up on my feed....

It was a notification from the US Embassy in Dublin that from the 1st of April you must have an electronic passport in order to travel to the USA on the Visa Waiver Scheme (which most people from Ireland use when travelling on holidays to the States).

The directive advised that there would be an icon (see above) on the front of your passport if it was suitable to use.

When I got home, I immediately checked my passport. Bad news.

This is my passport on the left. The one with no icon on the bottom.

So this means I need to apply for a new passport and send it in by passport express and hopefully get it back in time for my holidays in 30 days!!  Eeek!

I will also need to apply for a new ESTA Visa Waiver even though my current one is in date - an ESTA can not be transferred from one passport to another.