Cool. Hope you get your letter soon. BTW, in case anyone is interested, here is my spreadsheet with the analysis of timelines.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=ptQ...0ZHVPtuQDlFV_Vw

New theory: the medical folks say that they do things in batches. So this is my theory:They book interviews mid month for the next month. Therefore we missed the mid July cut off for interviews in August, and since they don't do many interviews in September, there was no mid-August cut off for September interviews. Therefore, this tells me that they are preparing - or have already prepared to send a batch of letters out this week for interviews starting in October. Cross fingers, but if I'm right, we all should be seeing a flood of letters next week for October interviews.

That's kind of what I'm thinking too. Hopefully, we're both right and we'll get our dates very soon. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

Hello Everyone,

This is a great forum you guys have going. I have been a "on-looker" for a bit, as I am to waiting to the golden ticket.

WaitForever: Could you please add me to your spread sheet? My time line is below...

Thanks,
Anthony

Oops...sorry but my sheet is only accurate for K1s. You should probably be on Liz Legends sheet....

you're already on my spreadsheet...

Bump. Just making sure that if you do have an interview letter from Montreal for Sept/October that you a. report it here as soon as you get it and b. update your time line. Our sanity depends on it!

ACCIDENT MIRES MONTREAL CONSULATE

Special To The Montreal Gazette: (Montreal, Quebec, Canada - Sep 15th, 2008) - A concrete truck crashed into the US consulate here in Montreal at 1155 rue St-Alexandré, spilling its contents. The amount of concrete, which was substantial, flooded all three floors of the consulate, but hardest hit was the Visa Processing Center, where hard working processors were actually frozen in place by the fast flowing and fast setting concrete. Operator 5, one of the hardest working processors, was actually walking towards the mail room with a huge stack of interview letters when she was literally frozen in place by the concrete. "It happened so quickly, we barely had time to react" she said, still clutching the stack of letters for visa applicants interviews in her hand. Workers will be toiling day and night to free the trapped consulate workers. "This is almost as bad as the molasses spill last year, and the Super Glue spill the year before" recounted Operator 4. While another consulate worker who was on a smoke break offered to take the letters out of Operator 5's hand and mail them, she demurred "Once I'm free, I'll mail them" she said. Such dedication! The Montreal Search and Rescue Team hopes to have the workers freed by the end of this week. And possibly have those letters in the mail by then.








...jk

hehehe
good work

LOL that was awesome! I liked it so much I just forwarded it to the Montreal Consulate so they could get a giggle out of it. I made sure to include your info so you can get proper credit for that. Who knows they might even put you on the top of their pile to speed things up. I mean...I'm sure they have a good sense of humor right? Hmmm. (jk)

I still haven't received any info from them letting me know if they are working on my file or not. No mail at all. No RFE's. Nothing that would help to acknowledge our existance or progress.

How does one plan a wedding for December when they don't even know if they will have access to the country before then? This is stressing us out. Family can't book time off work or schedule flights with only a couple weeks notice. Crazy.

WaitForever,

That was priceless...

Glad you liked it! Have to try and keep our spirits up somehow! Seems like they are stuck in concrete now, whereas in the summer there was a oil spill and appointment letters were flying outta there in 20-35 days! So, we wait. And Wait. We are trying to hit 11/18 for our wedding date, so cross fingers. I mean someone said on some other forum there is a backlog for interviews? What, in typical government style, they were being TOO efficient and making others look bad so they had to ratchet it back? Who knows?!

I know the flight feeling. Mary is in Toronto, and will probably drive or train to Montreal. But there's others who have to fly. And the Whites only had 3 days notice via email. Syphyre's letter got lost in the mail. Us Montrealers don't seem to be having much luck lately. Mary and I joke that the only reason they are in concrete now is because WE are on the list. Its our luck. Once we get on a list, it slows down. I'm planning to fly to Buffalo and she's going to pick me up in Ft. Erie before we drive down. It would be nice to have some notice so we can plan movers, flights etc.

They are now processing Feb 01 2008 apps it seems. I'm almost 2 months behind that (March 28th). I wonder if I'm going to get married this year

Burnsis (IR/CR-1) got an interview letter for an end of October interview date. WTF is up with Montreal? Where are OUR letters!?! GRRRRRRRRRR. This is driving us crazy over here.

I hope that when the letters finally do come, the interview won't be set to, like, next week. Cause then that will make it difficult to get everything (including fiancee's plane ticket, hotel booking, etc.) together. So I'm hoping that they still give atleast a month between letter and appointment.

One can only hope that they are that generous. Here's to continued waiting...

*tapping fingers on desk*

It's been like that - but the last folks on VJ having a K1 interview (The Whites) got notified via email 3 days(!) before the interview. While we can scramble and make it in 3 days, others can't. I have no idea whats going on over there and its getting pretty frustrating. Its almost like they have just decided to stop having interviews, period. I hope not. I hope they haven't decided to stop doing them in Montreal and are in the process of moving them to some other consulate. Be just our luck.

If they don't get here this week, I'm losing hope that it will be October after all

Just and FYI, I had my interview the same day as The Whites. They had 3 days notice because they had an expedited interview. The consulate called them to discuss this. This was by no means standard operating procedure - Montreal was kind enough to get their interview scheduled at the earliest convenience for this couple - for which they seemed most grateful.

If my interview was for tommorrow I'd be very happy. I would gladly skip work..fill up my tank and head on over.

WaitForever - Great joke you posted two days ago. Loved it!

ChasingAmy - You said "They are now processing Feb 01 2008 apps it seems." You mean according to the date you filed the I-129? If that's the case, I'm getting concerned right now 'cause we filled ours in January and got our NOA2 in June

Hello Everyone. I'm now in the group waiting on the elusive interview letter from Montreal, lol. Glad to be on to this phase...but it seems from what I'm reading I'm in for almost a NOA2-like waiting period =(

I have a question for those of you that have already done your medicals...I thought that you had to have the interview letter with you when you go, but since some of you that are still waiting for one have already done your medicals, can I ask what they accepted in lieu of it?.

Thanks in advance =)

I'm in Montreal and I went to Dr. Seiden. The cover letter from the Consulate with my name, address and case number on it was sufficient proof for them. Depending on where you live, it might be different though. What I would do is call the clinic you want to go to and check with them.

Oh and, welcome to the Montreal waiting list!

Thanks for the reply, and the welcome =) David did actually talk to someone from Dr. Seiden's office in Toronto this morning and they told him the same, that the cover letter was all they needed. So he's booked...just need those darn passport photos now, lol.

Wow. Some people get personal phone calls from the consulate and expedited interviews. The rest of us get brusque one line emails saying that we would have to wait at least another 6 months for an interview date, or none at all. Either you've got a bi-polar workforce over there or the rest of us are dealing with the wrong operators

Welcome to the Club! Sorry to say that it looks like it might be a while. Better get comfy.

Just FYI, I did a quick sort of the average wait to interview dates of every consulate in the world (there are 132 of them which track interviews according to VJ) and guess what, Montreal comes in near dead last - around 121. We surely lucked out. And not in a good way.

Maybe we can talk about what you guys do in order to try and make the wait more bearable. This is driving us crazy and maybe sharing tips might help. We used to visit each other every other month or so but with this looming over us we dare not travel in case it comes through and we have to jet.

Planning is becoming impossible. Mary doesn't even have the will to pack in earnest until we know more. How can you plan when you have no idea when things will start happening?

WOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

WE GOT IT!

Mary just checked the mail and the letter was there:

Postmarked: Sept 16th, 2008
Received: Sept 18th, 2008
Interview Date: Oct 14, 2008

I guess the prediction that they book and send mid month is accurate. And that Sept is a light month for interviews.

OK: So everyone who filed P3 after mid-July should start getting their letters around now. Please report your good news as it comes in!

Thanks...Carl

Everyone, don't despair! I just received Packet 4 (I'm at work but my dad called me to let me know). My interview is set for October 17 at 8:00 a.m. Woohooo!!!

So I'm thinking those appointment letters will start coming in for the rest of you guys as well.

Liz, please update the file with my info. Thanks!

WaitForever - How cool, we posted at the same time with the good news!

Waitforever...see you there on the 14th

Pandora01 & WaitForever,

CONGRATS!!!

That's got to be an amazing feeling!

I can't wait to go home this evening, to check my mail box...

I actually am pursing both routes K3 and I-130...My final I-130 docs were received today by NVC...by this time next week my I-130 case "should" be complete, and I can use my K3 interview date for my I-130, or which ever comes sooner...

All the best, and keep us posted...

Anthony

So what do y'all think? Interview is October 14th...should I solidify the wedding date according to the interview date or wait till after the interview and I have the K1 in my hand to solidify the wedding date? We are aiming for Dec 27th but have family coming from Canada down to Texas for the wedding. It's tricky timing.

I am at home sick today but haven't felt this good in a looong time. That letter is so simple and yet made me smile so much. Hands were shaking while opening it. lol

Just got my interview is October 14, 2008 at 8am...

Woo hoo...!!!

Congratulations! Good luck at the interview and please let us know how it goes afterwards.

My wife just mailed in the I-864 and DS-230 together today so I hope they process it quickly and assign interview times out.

I call first in line on Oct 14th lol

ChasingAmy - I would wait 'til I have the visa in my hand to solidify the wedding date. Just to be sure.

Congratulations to you and all the ones who got their appointment letter! Wooohoooo!!!

Well in theory, you could base your wedding date on your interview date. Granted the approval rate is not 100%, but
I think its a safe bet that you can plan around it. That's what we are doing, ONCE we get our date

I would gladly take last in-line...because I know by the end of that day...this horror story will all be over!

CONGRATS! Mary and her son will see you there.

I say go for it. You still have time to change plans if anything does happen. We are looking to come down 11/5 and get married 11/18, but we are having a civil ceremony to start with and then a "realer" wedding in Vegas later. If you can call getting married by Elvis "real". Its the Blue Hawaii package, BTW

Well today I read all of your posts and was like.. "WTF, why didn't I get a letter??". Then at some point tonight, my upstairs neighbour slipped something under my door. Yep. It's the letter!! I got a DATE!!!!

October 14th. 8:30am.. but I'll line up at 7:15

Now starts the mad rush to get all the papers in order, photocopy stuff, staple other stuff, book plane tickets, hotel rooms. Very last minute. But I'm happy that we got it at last.

Congratulations to you all who got interview dates....that is neat all the Oct 14th that will get to meet each other in person (and race to be first in line.....lol)

updated all your interview dates
congrats everyone!

thanks for the PM Pandora!

Congratulations everyone on getting those letters finally!!

We are looking at several hotels nearby:

- Sheraton Hotel - only 1.3 K walk. Very nice rooms.
- Square Phillips - Has kitchens in all the rooms and is 4.5 stars. VERY close to the embassy.
- Fairmont Queen Elizabeth hotel - also nearby, but the website is down so I can't get a good description of it.

We're making sort of a nice mini vacation out of this. So if any of you have any recommendations on where to stay and what to do and see please let me know. It's been quite a while since I've been to Montreal, so I am not really familiar with it.

First here is a link to a visitor guide for Montreal.


Amy and I were there for the Just For Laughs festival when she was up last. We stayed at the Days Inn in downtown.
215, boul. René-Lévesque est
Montréal Québec
H2X 1N7 Canada
514.393.3388
1.800.668.3872
reservation@daysinnmontreal.com

While we were there we went and saw the Basilique Notre-Dame. they have nice carriage rides but might be too chilly for that by the time you go for your interviews. They have lots of nice restaurants but you should really check out the underground shopping that they have in Montreal as well.

Mary's just booked at the La Tour. http://www.booking.com/hotel/ca/la-tour-ce...ontreal.en.html

Looks like its right there. Well, really close at least. Now to get the paperwork all lined up.

I need to get her a new letter of intent. Do I need to mail an original or do you think they will accept a scan and email and print?

You have time...send an original.

I'm going through everything and quadruple checking to make sure I can't get tripped up by anyone that might be having a bad day at the consulate.

Seems like the batch idea of letters was a good assumption.

We got ours October 17th

Good luck to anyone else waiting.

Liz - You're welcome

Danielle-Justin - What time do you have your interview? I'm on the 17th too, at 8 a.m.

Hey thanks! The quide will come in very handy. There are so many hotels, restaurants and activities to chose from... 2 days just doesn't seem like enough time.. We're now deciding between the Square Phillips and the Sheraton. I am also doing some extensive research as to good places to eat. The only thing I remember from Montreal (being there about 7 years ago) was the amazing Chinese food (way better than Toronto Chinese food - which is pretty good in its own rights) and that chicken place... I think it was called Le Coq?? I think a nice hike up that mountain were you can see Montreal at night would be romantic, and I will also hang my head, hand my wallet over, and let my fiancee go shopping (her sport! lol) It's too bad that there's no Just for Laughs in October. That would have been an excellent show to check out.

I'm really looking forward to this little excursion!

now remember everyone, don't go there for your scheduled appointment time! they mean nothing!
you want to be outside the building by 7am or so and stand in line to get in!
I was first in line and I was done @ 9:05am I think!!!