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| London, United Kingdom |  Review on August 13, 2013: |
Jeannie & Al
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
My beneficiary fiance is not a member here so he wrote this up on his Ipad on the bus back to Cardiff and I'm cutting and pasting..hope this helps someone like the other reviews helped us 
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I'm writing this on my way from London having been approved for my K1 Visa. Apologies for the length of this but I've tried to include as much detail as possible.
My appointment was at 9am so I went down to London the night before and stayed in a hotel. I had decided to store my electronics at Gould's Pharmacy so headed there for 7.30am (opening time, although it was actually open at 7.15am). There are little desks with picture lists of what you aren't allowed to take into the Embassy. They put your electronics into plastic envelopes with your contact details on them. They also wrapped one of those envelopes around the handles of my small bag (I used a small combo lock to ensure it was safe). Keep the receipt (£6 for my bags and the electronics) and yellow raffle tickets for when you return. Then I headed to the Embassy some 100 yards away.
There are two queues. One that goes along the black bollards and, right next to it, a shorter queue that leads to a small desk - you need to get in this shorter one first.
There are two or three visa reps walking around in black jackets. They ask if you have anything you shouldn't and hand out clear plastic bags to put your money, belt and wallet in so you have nothing in your pockets etc. I put mine in my own ruck-sack.
The first queue leads to a small desk where they check your passport. They also ask for your DS-160 - which is not required for K visas, they're for working visas only. Instead she checked my email from the Embassy (my letter didn't arrive before I left) and my name against separate list for K visas.
Then you join the longer line next to the black bollards - make sure you queue in a straight line next to the bollards or you'll be told off. The guy next to me said this line is often around the block with 100-200 people in it. Today, there were 20. At the front, they check your passport only but make sure your documents are out for them too. Then you line up to go into the security "shed". You go into this 4 at a time. Your bags get put on the conveyor belt while your documents and passports go into a blue tray. Everything is x-rayed and you go through an "air point scanner".
(I had nothing in my bag to worry about BUT they said I had a USB with a cable. I had to empty my bag to prove I didn't. However, I did have a TSA combination lock I use at the air port. They re-scanned this and said I had to go out, get rid of it and re-join the queue. Dammit! Twenty minutes of re-queuing later, I went through security just fine, although I was asked to drink some of my water in front of them to prove it was water and not something dangerous.)
Despite my appointment being at 9am and going through security twice, I was inside before 8am. Getting there early really helped.
You exit the security shed and go right around to the main entrance for visas. Your passport/letter are checked again and they put some stickers with a reference number on it (K visas start with the letter I with some numbers after it). Then you sit in the waiting area. It's a large room with 300 plus chairs. It wasn't full but you are cramped.
At the front is a series of TVs making up one larger screen that rolls through a video commercial telling you how amazing the US is. On the left portion of the screen, is a list of numbers and which window that reference number must go to. Each time a new number and its window goes up, there is a beep. Underneath the large screen are some vending machines with the usual stuff in. To the right side of the waiting room are windows 1-11. To your right and down the hall, are windows 12-25 and the toilets.
Following a thirty(ish) minute wait, I was called to window 1. She (a small woman of American-Asian decent, probably late 50s) asked for my passport and 2 photos. She didn't like my photos saying the quality wasn't good (I'd had them done in a photo booth near home) so I made a joke about it being my face that was the problem. She said "No, it is a handsome face." in a stern manner with absolutely no humorous undertones. It took her ages to scan my photos for the computer records and kept getting annoyed with the machine and my photos.
Then they couldn't find my medical stuff from the doctors. I showed her the receipt etc I'd been given by the Medical Centre but she didn't care. She disappeared for 2-3 minutes before returning to confirm my name. Then she left again, coming back 5 minutes later with my medical records.
She took my birth certificate, police check, receipts, I-134 and financial support/backup (only cared about my fiancee's pay stubs, not the tax returns - I didn't have a letter from fiancée's employer) as well as the photocopies of each - she liked that mine were in colour and was impressed. This woman talks to herself A LOT and she's quiet which isn't particularly helpful in a noisy room.
She gave me some documents back and told me to sit down and wait. Which I did. For around 45 minutes. I read my book. After a while, my number was called by a female voice which told me to go to window 16 that was around the corner on the right, passed the toilets.
Behind the window was a very pleasant, smiley, cheery African-American lady in her 30s. She skimmed through the documents they'd kept from the previous window plus then forms I'd sent in a few weeks before. Then we started to chat. I was only asked four questions:
1) When and how did you meet?
Simple. If you get this wrong, you're in trouble.
2) Your fiancée is ...
And I told her what my fiancée's job was. She was immensely impressed with what my fiancée did and said that between our jobs we must have an fascinating life - not what most people say but nice nonetheless. Also, she asked for my opinion on two topics relevant to my job for her own personal information as she's having to deal with them in her private life.
3) Tell me about her family.
I did and she genuinely listened before asking a follow up question about my-soon-to-be-brother-in-law's family, which I also answered.
4) When do you intend to travel?
ASAP.
She then asked me sign the DS-156K to indicate that everything I'd written and told her was the truth. She said I was approved and described how I would get my visa, passport and sealed envelope for US Customs in the States. I'd paid for my courier on line a few days earlier which really made her happy. She wished me the best. I turned and left through a door behind me that led back to the front desk where we were given reference numbers.
I returned to Gould's Pharmacy to collect my stuff. There was a short wait but I was out and in a cab back to the station before 10am.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #12536