What is the first thing you do after booking
your tickets to go on a long vacation of 16 days?
Scream!!!
Ok, yeah, what do you after
screaming?
In my case, the day we decided about
taking this long vacation, I started planning. Of course, when you are going on
a long vacation that to if it's an exotic location like Europe that too during
summer peak time, you gotta be really concerned about expenses. Everybody says,
book in advance but if your husband is in a consulting, travelling firm then
things are never hundred percent sure. Funny part is people suggested us to
book six months in advance and we didn't even book six weeks in advance!!! We
ended up booking our local travel and stay just ten days early (yeah, we just
finished it on 10th and we are leaving on this 20th).
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When you are already living in a
foreign country, every system and procedure is new. We were kind of lost during
the visa application. In spite of doing a lot of research on this area, we were
sent back not once but twice at the Etimad center.
Here are few information you need to
know about applying for Europe visa from Jeddah -
1. Check this Etimad website for all
the documents required and visa fees http://www.aletimad.com/italy_jeddah_document.html
2. Especially for expats, you need a
letter from your sponsor (more like a no objection letter)
"Original employment letter with
chamber stamp address to Italian consulate Jeddah. Employment letter should
furnish the details of Name, Nationality, passport number, salary, Designation,
Joining Date and Purpose of travel of the applicant. Employment letter should
also have a visa request"
This is what is mentioned on the
Etimad website, and we actually took the original employment letter with us the
first time. Hence, we were sent back to get a no objection letter. But yes,
even that letter needs to have chamber stamp!!!
You can follow this format if you
like,
To,
The Honorable Consul General,
Italian Consulate,
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
We would like to inform you that our
staff with details as below,
|
NAME
|
|
|
PASSPORT
NO.
|
|
|
IQAMA
NO.
|
|
|
NATIONALITY
|
|
|
DESIGNATION
|
|
|
EMPLOYMENT
START DATE
|
|
|
MONTHLY
SALARY (SR)
|
|
desires to visit your country on
vacation from _________ till _________in Italy (mention the country to which you
are visiting first or spending more days in).
We do not have any objection.
We request you to kindly issue the
necessary VISA for his travel.
Thanking you
Regards
Chairman
3. If you have recently moved to
Jeddah, then you can't travel to Europe as you need minimum six months’ salary
slip or bank account statement. This was one more reason why our visa
application was not accepted the first time as we had four months bank
statement of KSA and two months of India's bank statement.
At Etimad, they are very particular
about every single document and so, follow the guidelines properly or be ready
to accept a rejection!!!
We applied for our visa on
Monday and we got our visa on next Sunday, in one week's time. Entire visa application process to Italy costs about 350 riyals per person!!!
Just near the entrance of Etimad
building, there is another visa application center called Vega. They charge 50
riyals extra per head and take about 15 days for visa approval. But, if you are
not getting through Etimad, then you can always try out this option.
If you have recently shifted your
house or moved from a different place in KSA to Jeddah then have a copy of your
house rental agreement in ENGLISH. They are very specific about it being in
English!!!
The entire process easily took us two
months (including the time
needed to prepare an employment letter and to get the stamp of chamber of commerce) and at the end, we were literally
praying to get our visas as we had already booked our flights out of excitement
and to get a better deal on money.
Finally, all is well that ends well.
After all the struggle and running around we got our visas done!!!! And the
last two weeks have been crazy as we were finalizing on the plan, booking
trains, hotels and trying to look for the best deals to save money!!!
I will keep you guys updated about my
longest and most happening trip of my life (hopefully, it will help you all to
plan yours)
See ya till then!!!
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