Star Princess and Brazil VISA**** must Read

[NishaSF]

8 of us are booked on the Star Princess on Jan 4th 2016

We just found out that the first date available to get out visa is January 8th 2016

 

Princess is no help.

Visa Central no help.

Brazilian consulate couldnt care less.

 

What should we do..... that alot of money wasted.

 

HELP please.

[chsalas]

When did you book? You shoupdated have checked, but the Brazilian government has been at odds with the US and it's citizens over trade disputes. The Brazilian government has been harassing tourist by leving fees and excessive wait times for visas. The Brazilian consulate or embassy might be your only choice. Have you scheduled a meeting there yet? As for Princess, they aren't really responsible for visa requirements. Goodluck

[sammiedawg]

We used CIBT and had visas in two weeks, check out their web site for specific instructions, they are an expediting service. You fill forms out on their site and Fed Ex needed documentation to them. They take the documentation to the Brazilian consulate and then mail everything back to you.

Some cruise lines including Oceania use them. Good luck and don't give up.

[moki'smommy]

When we needed a visa on very short notice, we used a company called Travisa that hand carries the applications thru the various embassies for you. Yes, there is obviously a fee for their service, but they got the job done very quickly. They are also available on line for assistance with the application process.

 

We actually got the visa we needed a week before Travisa promised it...which was months before the embassy said it could be done.

 

NOTE--the visa we were rushing was not for Brazil.

[Missymo]

IWe applied for our Brazilian visa during the FIFA world cup when it was super busy. We ended up making direct appointment with the Brazilian Consulate in Miami, made sure we had ALL paperwork, photo, registered return envelope and postal money order for exact amount (nothing else excepted) they will send you away if you don't have all forms. It took 3 weeks for the consulate to send our passports back to us with the visas attached. You need to make appointment at the closest consulate that has a earliest opening. One person can go and bring all paperwork for spouse. Good luck

[moki'smommy]

Another hint--if your application requires a clearance thru a US Homeland Security office (ours did), you can ignore the stuff on line about when the closest appointment for the fingerprinting and screening is. We called the 800 number that was on line and spoke with a lovely lady in DC. She told us to sign up for the "first available appointment," but then to go to the office in our small city and literally beg them to work us in. She also suggested that we be prepared to wait as they would take people who were on time for appointments ahead of us.

 

We probably had to wait all of 15 minutes. The people were very understanding about the "rush" issue on the visa. They did give us the speech about waiting and being worked in, and then they took us as soon as they had a break in their action. It took longer to go thru the security screening to enter the federal building than it did to get the Homeland Security processing!

[piper28]

With a relatively short time frame left, your only option is likely going to be going through a visa service. It'll cost an arm and a leg for 8 people. And depending on how much of a pain the Brazilian consulates are being, even that can be iffy (back when I had to get a visa, we did it ourselves, but at the time, they were limiting visa services to a handful of visas a week. Back then, they were intentionally slowing the process down - and to make matters worse, you had to get your visa within 90 days of entering Brazil (which as far as I can tell no longer applies to US citizens any more).

 

Not sure when you booked the trip, but given that the 90 day rule isn't in effect anymore, but if you booked a while ago, the obvious question is why would you wait till the last minute to get the visa process going? Obviously if you booked recently, that doesn't apply, but I'd have probably looked into the requirements before plunking down the reservation.

 

I'd shop around the various visa services and see if you can find one that can handle it fairly quickly. But even at the best of things, I'd expect the process to take 2-3 weeks minimum, so I'd start doing that as quickly as you can.

 

But trust me, bad as it might seem now, back when I did the Amazon cruise, it was far worse. Most of the consulates were being actively hostile towards granting Americans visas, and the 90 day entry rule was causing a lot of problems, a lot of people couldn't get appointments at all withing that 90 day window. The LA consulate in particular was basically only granting a few appointments a week, and they required an in person appearance. We were lucky, the consulate for our area was the Chicago one, which a) was being pretty reasonable and b) allowed applications via mail. Thankfully, we didn't have to use a visa service as a result (key was make sure you filled in the paperwork properly), but the visa services at the time were charging a premium (on top of their normal fees) of about $300+ a person because of the problems they were having getting their appointments. I know there were people that ended up having to cancel last minute because they couldn't get the visas.

[eagletwo]

A few years ago, our flight department was asked to pick up a famous Football player in Brazil on short notice. We were to pick up the passenger at a major airport in Brazil and fly him to Miami. Our flight crew did not have a current Visa to operate in or out of Brazil. After three days of telephone calls with our Embassy, the Brazilian authorities and anyone we could think of, it was a no go. The passenger ended up taking a flight from Brazil to Miami and we picked him up and took him to his scheduled meeting in New York. By the way, the passengers name was Pele, the most revered "Soccer" player in Brazil.

[shredie]

We did Visas for Brazil earlier this year at the Consulate in Los Angeles. It took about three weeks. It's always a good idea to check when you book for any visas or other paperwork you will need. Good luck. I do think you are looking at using a visa service now.

[azbirdmom]

We used My Brazil Visa a couple years ago and it was extremely quick and they also had lower fees than other visa service companies. They have a website with all of the info if you want to check. Good luck!