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| London, United Kingdom |  Review on February 1, 2011: |
Christi85
Rating:  | Review Topic: Direct Consular Filing
Had my CR-1 visa interview today at the London Consulate and it all went great. Final outcome...approval!!
So, here is how it all went: the appointment was at 8.00 am, so my husband (who was accompanying me) and I arrived at 7.30 am and queued up outside. The queue was shorter than I expected (about 15 people in front of us), but within 5 minutes of our arrival it tripled in length. So I guess we just got lucky! We went through the initial passport and Security checks and were in at 7.50. My priority number was the second immigrant visa for the day. As expected, the vast majority of people were there for non-immigrant visas. We sat in the (big) waiting room and waited to be called. What I liked was that, while the room was very big, everything was within easy reach - the toilets, the vending machine and the DX courier desk all in the same space as the waiting room.
At 8.10 my number was called to the first window. My husband stayed behind at the waiting area and didn't come with me to the window. I had a really nice young British lady who took all the required documents, photos, and did my fingerprints, and also sent me to the cashier in the next window to pay. We had a minor hiccup with the affidavit of support as my husband/sponsor is still in the UK with me, so she said it was required that he was US-domiciled, and didn't seem to think that all the proof of intent to re-establish domicile I had brought was any good to go around the problem. Luckily, as soon as she found out that we did have a joint sponsor, it became obvious that this was all she wanted. She took absolutely everything I brought in relation to our joint sponsor's income and was very pleased, no more questions asked. I guess that (at least in our case) they just cared about a name and an address in the US who they could claim money from if need be (lol!). Because of this little hiccup, this first part took a little longer than I expected, so I was at the window for about 25-30 minutes. That said, she was also processing and filing everything very slowly, so that didn't help speed things up, but I didn't care as she was nice, polite and pleasantly chatty. At the end, she gave me the pink courier slip to fill out while I waited to be called back, which I did. I went back to the waiting area at around 8.40.
My wait there was quite boring. The computer kept calling numbers one after the other, continuously, and after some point it just got on your nerves (lol!). I didn't have to wait that long, luckily, as I was called to the second window half an hour later, at 9.10. That went like a breeze. This time I had a nice American guy who took my oath of truth, asked a couple of questions "where are you moving to", "when are you moving", "what job you'll be doing", "how did you meet your husband", and then told me my file was very organised and that my visa was approved!!
I went to the courier desk, paid for the service, and we were out of the building by 9.20 am. A very nice experience all in all, and I was impressed at how quickly they were able to move around all those vast numbers of people.
Now waiting for my passport with the visa to be returned in the next 7-10 working days, according to the Officer - can't wait!!!
Good luck to everyone, and my advice: go over-prepared just to be sure, but be prepared to be asked only for a small amount of the paperwork you bring.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #7118