Friday, May 24, 2019: Visa Update

Last week I followed the instructions that Silverseas had sent to Maxine for the visas I would need for the world cruise. There were four that they said I would need to apply for. I successfully applied for both the Brazilian and Australian visas but ran into problems on the Sri Lanka and India. Both of the later required that the visas be applied for within 90 days of visit. This would be after I had started the cruise so Maxine sent a note to Silverseas asking for guidance.

In the mean time, I got a message from VFS informing me that as of June 1, 2019, visas will no longer be required for Brazil. That was great, except I had already charge the visa application fee to my credit card and they would not cancel or refund. Hence, I got the worthless Brazilian visa for only $44.24.

While my credit card was charged for the Australian ETA application ($13.80US) , I have not received anything yet and when going on-line to check the status, they say they have no record of my application...even though they did charge me for it.

Not to worry however since, in the mean time, Maxine got a response from Silverseas saying that they would apply for all required visas and I did was stupid for following their previous instructions.

Whew, for only $58.04 wasted, I don't have to worry about visas anymore. I told Maxine this level of incompetence on the part of Silverseas is not a reassuring beginning.