15 European countries belong to the list of Shengen countries, the basic idea is that there are little or no border control between them, one visa fits all.
This is a great idea and really makes European travel very easy. The problem is that the criteria for getting a Shengen visa is up to the individual countries. As anyone who knows anything of the European community can tell you they absolutely love bureaucracy . Entry requirements range from the impossible to simple depending on who you are, where you are going and what country you are from.
For South Africans in the UK it is mostly easy, you get a French Schengen visa, go to France usually using the Eurostar to Paris and get the stamp there. Once you have that you can go anywhere in the 15 countries for the duration of your visa. The problem is of cource the fact that you have to deal with the French visa people. While they are the easiest to get of the lot it is still hell.
I remember standing outside in the freezing cold 3 mornings in a row at 7am waiting for the doors to open at 10am. Only on the 3rd morning did I even make it inside the main building, I was there till 3pm when I finally got leave to remain in the Schengen countries for 6 days! These days it is all by appointment, via a phone call that costs £1.50 per minute and can last a long time, I have never actually held on the phone long enough to get any use out of the line but I hear it can take 10 to 15 minutes.
It is now easier, you can send a agent on your behalf though there are only a handful of agencies who are allowed in. It used to be that the default answer to this was to just use 1st Contact. Their service was great, personal, friendly, they gave advice over the phone and they were affordable. This has all changed now. They do not speak to you over the phone, they won’t see you, it takes weeks to get a visa out of them and the whole experience is just really crap, I would rather queue myself than deal with 1st Contact again.
A friend told me about Mobile Visa Services who does a fantastic service. They are clearly geared at busy people. They provide very friendly advice over the phone and know what they are talking about. Once you decide to use them they will come fetch the passport from you and other documents and do the leg work, then bring it back to your office. You do pay a bit extra, £55 for the service they offer and £25 for the French but I can recommend them for anyone who wants to get a Visa without hassle. In this case I gave them my passport on Monday and had it back today, amasing.
Schengen Visa Hell
9 Responses to “Schengen Visa Hell”
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About the French visa people, our provider http://www.willq4u.com pointed out that the French embassy is one of the better organised embassies. They are strict because people used to abuse the efficiency of the embassy by applying for French schengens but didn’t actually visit France once they had obtained the visa. So we owe the ‘hell’ to the people that abused the system!
Anyway, Willq4u managed to get our visas sorted out within 2 days. The downside though is that they only deal with companies on business, I don’t think they bother with tourist visas.
That was: http://www.willq4u.com
Sorry guys, cannot figure how to link to your site!
I have a Zimbabwean passport with a 5 year Ancestry Visa to the Uk starting February 08. I would like to travel through Europe this summer and was wondering if anyone could recommend the best method for me to obtain a Schengen visa? And the cost, thank you
Rich
i don`t know what was your problem in obtaining french visa !?
I went there last week , yes there was a lot of peoples, but within 3 hours around 50 peoples received their visas and was on they way out . All it cost is 46 £ . And as wife of EU sitizen i did not paid a penny .
Could you please you interpret this clause;
under the provision of art.4, point 2 of the T.U.286/98 and later modifications as per Law n.189 of 30 July 2002, you are notified that your request for BUINSESS Visa has been rejected
Dear Sir,
I wish to know how to get 2months visa from your company and i will like to know what it takes to get becuase i have my passport with me already and also how much will i pay for in dollar.I will really appreciate your effort if you can really do it for me becuase i really believe so much in your company and i will not want anything to happen to my money .i will appreciate it if you can do everything for me and i will also introduce most of my friends that are willing to travel to belgium and you can be their agents if you can do it very well for now.
I will also want to know how many days will it takes me to get my visa from your company.
Thanks very much.
N/B
You can contact me by this telephone number:+2348076174032
I have french visa and a st lucia citizen, can I travel to belguim, ofcourse i have been to france.
Hi guys,
Does any one know any agent in SA I can submit my chezch visa thru?
I would appreciate if you send your answer to bluemediter@hotmail.com
Thanks in Advance
Italian visa application is worse!
My family and I had thought that visiting Europe during our children’s summer holidays would be a great thing to happen. We applied for Schengen tourist visa at the Italian Embassy in New Delhi with all the required documentation, air tickets, travel insurance, proof of financial soundness, etc – in short, everything that the visa requirements stipulated.
Shockingly, our visa application was rejected on grounds of “you have not indicated the purpose of your travel”. If the Italian visa officials possessed a basic understanding of English, I am sure they would have read the purpose clearly written in the covering letter submitted by me with the visa application. But, of course, Italians have never been known to possess intelligence above that of a jellyfish.
Saddened by this turn of events, I reapplied for the visas (after paying the hefty visa fees once again), this time taking care to write a two-page covering letter detailing all the places that we intended to visit, along with revised itinerary, rescheduled travel tickets, revised hotel bookings, insurance, etc. Every single day thereafter, I checked the online status on the VFS Global website.
For full three weeks, the status did not change from “your application has been forwarded to the Embassy for processing”. I wrote repeated reminders to VFS as well as to the Embassy. VFS mailed back a standard reply – “it takes between 3 & 21 days”. The Italian Embassy did not even bother to respond.
Finally, when 21 days got over, I wrote again and this time VFS replied saying that the Italian Embassy had advised that a revised itinerary, tickets, insurance, etc be submitted. While I was impatiently waiting for the visas, the Embassy staff was probably busy gorging on pizzas and spaghetti for over three weeks.
By this time, my children’s schools had reopened after their summer holidays. The Italian Embassy held onto our passports for 21 days without responding to my repeated e-mails. VFS, on its part, was mostly clueless. VFS is possibly the dumbest front-end agency in the entire world with a bunch of the most inarticulate men answering the phone. This visa fiasco has resulted not only in our not being able to undertake the trip, but also in the loss of a huge amount of money towards visa application (on two occasions) and cancellation of tickets (twice), hotel cancellations (twice), etc.
To add insult to injury (or maybe pungent jalapeno sauce to fetid pasta), the Italian Embassy had the cheek to seek travel details & documents for a third time! How much more ridiculous than this can it possibly get! My family and I have travelled abroad in the past and our passports carried proof of our travels.
If the Italian Embassy is unable to process the visas in time, it has no business to seek confirmed travel tickets and hotel bookings as a part of visa applications. It also has no business to hold onto the passports for such a long duration. Withholding the passports for such a long period without any communication to the visa applicant effectively prevents the applicant from using his / her passport for travelling to another country.
After all, Italy is not the only country in the world that people visit (unless one is a paedophile clergyman or a philandering politician, in which case this is the only country that one visits!). Simply put, the Embassy of Italy had no right to hold onto our passports for more than 3 weeks without eventually issuing the visas. We plan to travel elsewhere shortly to compensate for this jinxed vacation. Italy can go to hell for all that we care.
PS – Few things have given me more pleasure in recent times than seeing Italy get knocked out of the World Cup. Of course, a world cup defeat is less disgraceful than having a prime minister with an uncontrolled libido who hosts orgies in his official mansion and can’t keep it a secret!