kiwipete

@kiwierin I was just in the process of making the same post 😂 ours just came through as well. Congrats! Crazy to think it's really happened after all this time.

That was the feeling I got as well so nice to hear it from someone else too. Oh thanks! Not sure how I'd missed this one. I have 'Administrative Processing' from 25 May. One more website to obsessively check 😂

@kiwierin sorry to hear that - it's tough being so close then back in the waiting game. That I-864 is a tricky form (I found it to be at least). Our joint sponsor is my stepfather (US citizen) because we were expecting to need a joint sponsor. The officer said everything else looked good, so hopefully it's just a case of waiting for them to review again. Hopefully keeping the passport is a good sign and we're not back in the 60-day review period! Wish the process was a little more transparent, but I guess that's the deal. Good luck! FWIW my overall case is just showing "Your case is currently at: Auckland", and the re-submitted I-864 is showing as "Submitted" (but the summary section for the joint sponsor still shows "Accepted"). Not sure if that's helpful and/or where the overall case status would change.

We've been through there a couple of times recently, once on a visitor visa as a family, and my wife and son recently (both US citizens). Immigration was straight forward, and lines in my experience a bit shorter than SFO (I lived in SF on a work visa previously, so went through immigration there a few times). The SFO lines vary a lot depending on which long-haul flights arrive at the same time/before you. For HNL the issue (from what I remember) is it's a bit of a hike between the international/domestic terminal, so you just need to factor in that time + immigration time if you have a short time between connections. This is mainly relevant if you're booking something like NZAA-KHNL-KOAK - my wife did this recently with our son and they just made it through customs etc. and to the domestic flight. If my visa's approved, I'm planning to go that way (NZAA-KHNL-KOAK) but going to try and book the domestic flight separately to get a longer connection.

Had the interview last Wednesday, but got caught out by a missing field on the I-864 form (affidavit of support). Our joint/financial sponsor is retired so selected retired and didn't fill out the Annual Income. We are doing it based on income as opposed to assets because he still has some income from his business, and thought tax returns would be easier than getting all the proof of assets together (possibly not at this point). Silly mistake I should have caught, oh well. Fortunately the Consular Officer said everything else was good so they held on to my passport and asked me to resubmit the form. Resubmitted the same afternoon, and now we wait (at least we're getting good at that part!). Unfortunate timing with them being closed on the last Friday of the month, and then Memorial Day yesterday. Hopefully that's the last thing that needs to be sorted -- been apart from my wife & 2 year old for 2 months now, so hopefully not too much longer 🙁 ... or at least I get my passport back so I can visit them.

@chevin thanks so much for posting the follow-up. It's very informative, but also so nice to have a recent experience posted for knowing what to expect. An update from me. Yesterday I had the medical exam at CityMed (9am) and dropped off the documents to the Consulate before (8am). I'll post a detailed recount -- never know which little piece of info someone might find useful (like I have - thanks everyone!) Rescheduling medical: I originally had it scheduled last week, but my flight to AKL was canceled. Rescheduling with CityMed for this week was no problem, but they mentioned the US immigration medical can be one of the trickier ones to schedule because they need nurse, doctor, and radiography appointments to be available all together. That said, I got the day I wanted. Time required before interview -- they use digital forms. Everyone advised that it takes about 2-3 days for the test results to come back, and for them to be sent to the consulate. My (rescheduled) medical was 8 days before my interview; everyone seemed to think that would be more than enough time. Accommodation, etc: I stayed at the Rydges on Federal Street. Price was OK, ~170 NZD. I joined the 'PriorityGUEST' rewards club when I booked on the website. It was free to join, got me a few $ off the booking, and 20% of food/drink (although the meals at the hotel were a bit spendy so I didn't end up going there). I caught the SkyDrive bus. $17 each way. Goes from the Auckland Airport domestic terminal to the Skytower (2 blocks from the Rydges). Can book ahead online (same price) or the driver has an EFTPOS machine and most people were just paying by Paywave as they got on the bus. Double-decker bus, lots of room for people & bags, very comfortable. There is an NZ Post (for the oft-mentioned courier bag) on Wellesley St West. It doesn't look like it from the street (esp. with construction) but it's there. You go down an alleyway - if you're on Wellesley St West looking at the Wellesley Centre, it's on the left. Go down the alley and the shop is on the right. It's small, but has the bags. Dropping off documents: Arrived early, about 7:45am. The security guard was there but no-one else. As you turn left out of the elevator, there are 2 drop boxes against the far wall - one for immigration documents. I think this is probably where you drop the documents, but I wasn't sure (and didn't want to put the pack with all the original certificates etc. in the wrong place!) so I asked the security guard. He just ended up taking the packet, scanning it through the x-ray machine, and saying he'd sort it out. Easy drop-off. Medical: Got in ~20 mins early to fill in paperwork. The paperwork was just a general CityMed registration form, no extensive background questions at this point. Handed it back and they said to go to Waiting Room 1. Appointment was scheduled 9am, got seen ~9:10am. First stop was nurse #1: Passport Quick eye test (I normally wear glasses but asked to try without, we went to the second-from-bottom row and he called that a pass). Took height, weight. Took a urine sample. Bit awkward because you have to walk through the waiting room to get to/from the bathroom, but what are you gonna do. Trickiest part was washing hands while trying not to drop the tube. I think this was where I got the test forms to take to each person (some wanted them, some didn't). Nurse sent me to Dr. Donna: Wanted to see record of vaccines - couldn't accept the print-out from MyHealth because it didn't have my name on it. I logged into MyHealth on my phone and showed her it matched up, that was fine. I had printed test results for Varicella that I got a few weeks ago because I had no proof of having had chickenpox. This did have my name on it and was fine. I also happened to have my Plunket book with vaccination records in it - she got reception to photocopy it and write my name on it. Apparently they have recently received an update about COVID vaccines. Her understanding was only 2 are required, but offered me the 3rd booster (was behind). I have a flu vaccine from July 2022 (so within the year) but they wanted a current one. Fortunately (at least in this case) I'm an asthmatic so these were both free. Asked some medical history questions - mainly concerned with gonorrhea, syphilis, TB, and mental illness as far as I could tell. Asked about smoking, not much about family history. Controlled asthma was fine. Physical test - stripped down to undies (a sheet was offered). Pretty brief, maybe 3 mins. Poked some organs, checked pulse, ears, eyes, tongue. No jumping jacks or anything like that. Back to waiting room #1 Nurse #2: Top-up jabs (current flu, and COVID booster) Draw blood for blood tests Then down to radiology for Chest Xray - waited for maybe 5 mins, then about 1 minute having the Xray taken All done. Total time - arrived 8:40am (early), left 10:40am. Hope that's helpful, happy to answer any questions!

@MaliceDaMeanest thanks - picked one up just to be safe. Hopefully I haven't forgotten anything, it's quite a stack of paper

I have a question about the pre-interview pack (IR1 visa) that I'm planning to drop off this week. I saw a few posts mentioning to include a self-addressed courier envelope, but I can't find this instruction anywhere in the correspondence from NVC/ACK, or on the ACK pre-interview document instructions. Does anyone know if it's required?

Following up my previous post. I just talked to/scheduled with CityMed. They said for the eMedical it usually takes ~48 hours to get the documents to the consulate. With paper forms it's longer, but usually less than a week. So she said booking the medical 2 weeks ahead of the interview date was no problem.

I emailed the consulate to double-check how early I could drop off my documents (just to see if I got the same reply as above). Here's what they said: So I'm considering scheduling my medical 2 weeks before the interview so I can drop off the documents at the same time and keep everyone happy. Is this too close to the interview date? I don't want to delay the visa being issued if the medical results haven't been received at the consulate by the interview date. But I also don't want to make a trip to Auckland just to drop off the documents!

Ours just came through as well, interview scheduled for 24 May. Sounds like it’ll be a fun little get together 😄

@kiwierin congratulations! It's a huge milestone. No interview date yet unfortunately but will keep you posted. @MaliceDaMeanest thanks for sharing the info, I think this will become the thread I was looking for a few months ago 😁 Did you find out whether you can drop the docs off to the consulate early (when you go for the medical)? I remember seeing threads about them actually being able to be couriered, despite the consulate instructions being that you have to drop them on site. Don't quote me on that though.

@MaliceDaMeanest very useful, thanks. I was assuming a trip to AKL for the medical, but saw somewhere the other day (can't find it now) a site listing Wellington and Christchurch as options. Good to know that's not the case & thanks for the updated info. Getting a definitive answer was on my todo list. I know I'm asking a lot, but it'd be nice if all the websites/forms were consistent 😅

@kiwierin that's awesome, good luck. For what it's worth (not sure about your situation) we thought we had a pretty straight-forward case, but NVC requested additional documents twice which added about an extra 2 months beyond what we were expecting. Although, review times are coming down now to ~3 weeks. You may already have been playing this game it was painful. If our timeline is the same as @MaliceDaMeanest (28 days from DQ to getting an interview date, then 57 days to interview) we'd expect: Receive interview date: 23 March Interview date: 19 May @MaliceDaMeanest I know you'd done a bunch more research on this timeline so please chime in if my dates are off. Good luck everyone

@MaliceDaMeanest congrats and thanks for posting the update. Nothing for us yet but helpful to have a rough idea of how far out they are. A little longer than I was expecting -- I saw reports of it being within 3-4 weeks, but it could certainly be worse.