TinTin had her interview today at the US Embassy in Manila. We are happy to report that 1) document verification was complete at the time fo the interview, 2) Her K1 Visa was Approved and 3) the embassy approved our request for a visa pickup at the embassy, thereby bypassing the use of delbros's delivery services.
BAYVIEW PARK HOTEL: We arrived into Manila in the afternoon the day before and checked into the Bayview Park Hotel for 1 night. It is located across the street from the US Embassy. We were on the 10th floor with a direct view of the Embassy Street Entrance for K1 applicants. Reservation was made over the internet on the Hotel's direct web site. Rate was $75/night for double. Web site provided efficient real time processing. Used US issued Visa card with no problem Immediate confirmation: both on-screen and emailed. One issue was that the Web "Advertisement" stated breakfast buffet was included, but the confirmation made no mention of it. On check in, was told confirmed reservation did not include breakfast. No big deal to us - but a little shady...
The hotel is a 15 story hotel. 200 rooms or so. 3 classes: DELUXE and two levels of "suites". By filipino standards, it was not bad. By US standards, it was like an old tired "Best Western". OK - just run down. frayed carpets, cracks on the walls, missing grout in the bathroom, chipped furniture. Mattress was good. Base room rate was $59 - but with all the taxes - total was $75. billed in pesos, conversion rate ok at 41.5/dollar. They are pretty strict about late checkouts after 1pm. There is an escalating late check out fee that goes up each hour until, by 6pm, its the price of another full night. The good news is that most likely you will be back from the embassy by 12 or 12:30pm and will be able to check out before 1pm.
Our interview time was at 7:30pm. We arrived at 7:15am. No lines at all at guarded street entrance nor the security checkpoint going inside the embassy building. We were in the "blue seats" within 5 minutes of walking up to the outside gate.
Step 1: All 7:30am appointments were seated together. Starting about 7:40am, the group was directed to the first station to get a ticket number and submit DS forms and appointment letter. There were maybe 70 people in the 7:30am group. The 70 people were sent in order of arrival. It took about 45 minutes for all 70 to get through and get there numbers. From a few inquiries, it seemed that the first of the 7:30am appointment group arrived before 4am and the last arrived approximately 7:45am. We arrived about 7:15. For my money, I wouldn't trade the 45 minute "advance" that the first folks in the group got for the 3.5 - 4 hour wait that it cost them. I was glad we came over to to the embassy just a few minutes before our appointment time.
Step 2. About 9am we were called for fingerprint scanning. Nice filipinos working at that station. TinTin had to redo her scans about 7 times, but finally they came out clear enough. There was some hypothesis being discussed that the problem was hand lotion she had used. Don't know for sure, but after wiping her hands off a few times, got a scan that was "good enough" to be accepted.
Step 3. About 10:45am was called to window for prescreening. Filipino woman was "efficient". She wasnt overtly friendly - nor overtly mean. Asked a few questions - Who was I? When did I arrive in the Philippines? How many visits did I make? How did TinTin meet me? Any prior foreign travel for TinTin? Collected NBI, BC, Affadavit of support, 2007 ITR, 1099s, Letter of Self Employment, Bank Account Statements. Did NOT ask for CENOMAR. Looked briefly at photo album. Not interested in any other proofs of relationships (letters, chat logs, plane ticket boarding passes, etc) She really acted like she was just interested in collecting information for the American Consul - she didn't seem interested in the information, just transcribing some things onto a worksheet and collecting documents. She didn't care if she got the info from TinTin or Me - she just wanted forms and info. Total time less than 5 minutes.
Step 4. About 11:15 was called to room for American Consul interview. TinTin and I walked in together, and said Good Morning. This guy was a total piece of work. Young, arrogant, disinterested. Didn't bother to reply with even a hello. Immediatey "dismissed" me with "Step outside, I'll let you know if I need you". That curt..no nice to meet you, could you step out for a while, I would like to speak with tintin in private..thank you....nothing. without even making eye contact: "Step outside, I'll let you know if I need you." Needless to say, I was pissed! So, I stepped outside after making a point to get his eye contact and say "Good Morning" again.. grrrr..... TinTin was inside only about 5 minutes. Simple questions. Any previous marriages her, me. Any children her, me. What do I do for a living. Very Simple questions, TinTin said he never even made eye contact with her - just kept his eyes on his computer and asked the questions. "After 5 mnutes, he said, Ok you are approved. Step outside." TinTin then said that we had a letter for him. He looked up - suprised - and said "a letter??" It was a written request to pick up the visa at the embassy rather than wait on Delbros. He checked with one of his colleagues and then came back and said OK. Now please wait outside. Just an all around pissy attitude - not someone who should be working with human beings! (I know, I know, we ARE happy that the day went smoothly, no tough questions, no issues, approved visa, approved for embassy visa pickup - but as an American, I was certainly embarrassed to have this guy be the "poster boy" for TinTin's first dealing with an American. And it was pretty damn insulting to be dismissed without even a "Hello, would you mind waiting outside for a few minutes" by some beaurocratic peon.)
Step 5: Releasing Window at 11:50am. Almost everyone that was in front of us (5 different people) was being told they were on A.R. pending a variety of documents that they needed and were missing. The list was quite amazing - many basic things like no Last Year's ITR, no W-2, No DS-157. No Medical exam yet (!), wrong size pictures, etc. And all 5 got the word that they will be contacted in 4-6 weeks after Document Verification was completed. Most seemed not to know anything about what Document Verification was.
A NOTE ON DOCUMENT VERIFICATION: We paid for Document Verification exactly 4 weeks before our embassy interview. We texted Delbros per their procedure and received back the confirmation texts from them the same day we paid. Even so, I called the embassy 3 weeks in advance of our interview to confirm that our document verification had been completed and make sure that all was fine. Suprise suprise - I found that the embassy had no information that we had paid the delbros fee yet and therefore the Doc Verification process had not been started. I called delbros that day, had them call the embassy that day and also sent a fax with payment receipts and delbros confirmation text messages to the embassy that same day. I then called back every day for the next 4 days until the embassy confirmed that we had been submitted to NSO for the doc verification to commence. Our name/paperwork was submitted to NSO on Monday 24 March. We confirmed during the interview today that that document verification had, in fact, been completed prior to our interview. (so that means it was completed in no more than 9 business days) There are a lot of threads on VJ on the document verification process. My recommmendation while they are still working out the kinks in this new process is that you pester the heck out of both delbros and the embassy well before your interview date to ensure that they get it done before your interview. They did have a copy of TinTin's Cenomar in her file, which they did NOT get from us - so my assumption is that it came from the document verification process.
Well, next stop is a last trip back to Samar to say goodbye to the family there, then CFO, then to the airport heading to the West Coast of the US.
Thanks to all here on VJ, from whom we have learned so much.
Warm Regards,
Samby & TinTin
