Visa Appointment!

The dreaded Visa appointment – aside from the early start, its not that bad!

Before you can make your visa appointment, you need to have received the I-797 Q1 Visa Petition form. Yummy Jobs will email you when they have received it and it should be with you around a day later. You can then call up to make your Visa appointment (telephone number 09042-450100) at the US Embassy. This is an EXPENSIVE call. The appointment at the embassy will cost you $190 – it had gone up since I received my paperwork from Yummy! The calls are also charged at £1.23 per minute from a BT landline and my call lasted approximately 12 minutes. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE EVERYTHING READY. If you have to faff to find your passport or I -797 form it will cost you!

The things you will need for your call are:

• Passport
• I -797 form
• Payment card (it is worth noting that they do not accept Visa Electron or Maestro card)

You then need to ensure you have the following documents to take with you to your appointment:

– Your non immigrant visa interview confirmation letter and MRV application fee receipt
these will be sent to you in an attachment via email by the Embassy after your call

• Your passort
• Your job offer letter from Walt Disney World
• Your I-797 (the letter that notifies you to make your Visa appointment)
• A visa-sized passport photo – just in case!
• Confirmation page of the DS-160 form
• A payment card to pay a courier fee (from around £15)

The DS-160

This is a LONG form you need to complete online prior to your appointment. A lot of it is a very simple formality of checking you are not a terrorist, addresses, previous work experience, checking you are not a terrorist, making sure you do not plan to outstay your visa, checking you are not a terrorist and finding out why you want to go to the USA.

It is a simple enough form and the Yummy Jobs website – in your documents section when you log in – gives you plenty of advice on how to complete the form. The only additional advise that I can give is not to worry. The form isn’t trying to catch you out, its just a case of filling in the form as honestly as possible. If you are not sure of exact details (e.g. the exact date that you entered the USA previously) just put the information to the best of your knowledge. If they have any queries about it they will ask you at your appointment.

It is worth mentioning that at the end of the form you need to upload a photograph of yourself which is ‘visa size.’ This photo will be glued into your passport so make it a good one! I got my mum to take a photo of me against a white background and uploaded it although you can get a photo taken to visa size in the photobooths and scan and upload this.

My visa appointment was for 8.30am on Friday 13th July. I met up with Rachel who also has my start date the night before and we stayed in a hotel – thank you Matt!

We were up at 5am (eurgh) to get the tube over to Marble Arch. We left literally ALL of our stuff at the pharmacy around the corner (£3 for electrical items and £3 for an additional bag) and were at the embassy for 8am.

The best way I can describe the Visa appointment is like a glorified Argos. You get a ticket.. wait for it to be announced on the screens.. go to the little counter and talk to a representative. They check through all of your paperwork then you go and sit back down. Then your number is called again, you go to another window and have your interview. Then you need to pay to have your passport returned to you (costs start from approximately £15) and you’re done! We were out by approximately 10am so make sure you allow at least 2-3 hours to get everything done.

My passport arrived back on the Tuesday (my appointment was a Friday) so it was relatively quick. Luckily I had people at home to sign for it when it arrived – just note that if someone else it to sign for your passport they need your ID (e.g. drivers license) to pick it up.