I was just at the Harry Hay's passport office this morning. I arrived at 7:25 and there were already 80 people in front of me. The person at the front of the line arrived at 5:30. Even though the website said they opened at 8:30 they had some staff on at 8. The line went relatively quickly, I was out by 9:22.
Fill out your application online using Epass if possible because it does speed things up. Basically while you're waiting in line a guy goes down the line up to ask if you filled the application out manually or online. If you filled it in manually he'll give you a number, if you filled it out online you get your number inside the passport room. It doesn't allow you to jump to the front of the line, but once you get into the passport room you get to jump the queue. When I got into the passport room the people in front of me, with manual forms, were number 72 while they were serving number 52. So I pretty much got to jump 20 spots and was out of the room in under 5 minutes.
Some things to be careful with is to make sure your picture has no glare whatsoever, sometimes the T-zone of your face is oily. I almost had to get another picture done. Make sure your guarantor is correct, I saw a guy get turned away. They do check to make sure you have all your docs in order when you get into the room, but that's after waiting in line for a couple of hours.
Service time for when you drop it off in person at a passport office is about 4 weeks (20 working days). The guy said not to mail it in because they were still working on applications from November. If you need it rushed you can get that service, but you have to bring in proof that you need it by a certain date (ie flight itinery, confirmation).
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