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Tuesday 9 April 2013

Oh Visa, where are you? *Minor rant*

Day 37 after submission, and still no visas in sight.

It's been a long 5 weeks already, and with seemingly no light at the end of the tunnel, it's hard not to start worrying. It's not so much just the waiting, it's the fact that you are waiting with no information or updates, or a way of contacting them. This is only made worse by hearing that people who submitted their applications a considerable amount of time after we did have already been given their visas. We are by no means the worst suffering applicants, there are also a heck of a lot of people who submitted a lot earlier than we did and are still waiting too. There is no method to the madness, it seems your visa will turn up at random, and you have no correspondence from the CIC whatsoever, not even a 'We're looking into your application and will get back to you in the next 7 days' type of message which would at least ease a few fears for people. Nothing. Just silence and a badly managed system which leaves everyone second guessing.
 
That being said I am if anything an optimist, and I know that one way or another we'll get a response and take things from there. It's just the unknown is getting rather scary, and I'm beginning to get really impatient!

In 5 days we'll hit our 6 week mark, (the CIC placed a 6 week deadline on themselves, which I will make a point of highlighting) at which point we have decided to start pestering the CIC for information. As we're applying from the UK there is no number we can call, our only option is to email, and this apparently takes around 20 days just to get a response. Fingers crossed we hear back soon, I really don't want to have to go down this route.

We have yet to book any flights, we mistakenly thought we would get our visas before now, (considering the applications were expected to open back in December) and so we chose to wait till we had our visas in hand before we booked. I now find myself checking flight prices daily and praying they don't skyrocket before we get the chance to book them.

If Canada does go tits up, which is a possibility as we cant wait around forever, our back up plan is now New Zealand. Having looked into their process, it takes 5 days to get a decision (five days CIC, FIVE!) and they have no quota to worry about, and we already have everything they ask for. So if Canada do for any reason let us down, we're still going to be off on our travels this summer. I just really hope Canada hurry up!



7 comments:

  1. Hey Rachel. I know exactly how you feel, I'm on Day 38 after submitted my CIC. Very frustrating process.

    Funny you submitted this, as I pratcially wrote the same one on my blog yesterday haha - http://ournorthamericatraveladventure.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/dear-loi-where-are-you/

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  2. Hi Rachel. That's a shame you're still waiting. Last year we applied in Feb and I didn't get my visa until the end of May, so I know how you feel!! That was the old system though, hopefully this time it won't be so long a wait for you! I'm sure you'll get the visa any day now. Hold off for Canada, it's worth it! :)

    Natalie

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  3. Laura - sorry to hear you're in the same position, but its kinda comforting to know we're not the only ones left! It is very frustrating, I wouldn't mind so much if they just let us know we're in a queue or something and not just lost in a random system.

    Natalie - I thought the online system would be a lot quicker, but apparently not for everyone. Thanks for the encouragement, I'm definitely up for waiting for Canada, it looks like you guys are having an amazing time!

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  4. Has your LOI arrived yet? I'm still waiting for mine...I've got my flight booked to fly out on Friday. Stress levels are pretty high right now. Haha.

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  5. Our visas finally showed up 2 days ago! We booked our flights yesterday for May 15th! If you haven't heard anything in awhile you can contact the london office, we messaged them and they emailed us our LOI'S within 2 days. Turns out we were approved back in mid March but a technical fault meant that we weren't sent them. You can contact them here: https://dmp-portal.cic.gc.ca/cicemail/intro-eng.aspx?mission=london

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  6. You must feel so relieved to finally have it! The next few weeks will fly past! I'm due to fly out on 26 April (I posted above) I submitted an enquiry through the link above but got an email this morning saying that the consulate in Sydney (I'm in Australia) can't help me and to email questions@cic... so hopefully I hear back from them overnight tonight.

    I'm hoping I have no issues at the border entering as a tourist with my work visa pending... :\

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  7. Good luck, hopefully the Question email will help you out, we sent an email out to that one too, so I'm not sure which got us our response. Fingers crossed for you!
    I haven't heard of any problems entering as a visitor, as long as you don't work your not doing anything wrong, so I can't imagine why there'd be a problem.

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