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!