Kenya: No visa and no passport
 

Three weeks ago I sent to the Kenyan embassy via Fed Ex two completed visa applications, photos, money orders and return Fed Ex envelope. Fed Ex tracking shows the package was received. We have not, however, received our visas and Fed Ex tracking does not shown them as sent. I've sent e-mail to the embassy (no response) and called them several times and been put into voice mailbox each time by the receptionist. Is it time to panic?!

Keep calling.

Note that the embassies (at least Tanzania has) seem to be going with computerized Visas if you send to them, rather than obtaining on arrival where they just place a stamp in your passport.

Because of this, what did take 3 or 5-days, now seems to be taking 3-weeks.

So keep calling. Leave messages. Either you'll get an answer or just find the passport in your mail.

Pardon me, but I don't understand why folks bother to purchase visas in advance. Our recent trip to TZ and Kenya involved at most 15 minutes and in Kenya, maybe 5 minutes to get the visa at the border. It was cheaper and there was no worry about lost passports.

We attempted to get visas in advance since some people reported mob scenes at the airports.

hi,the first 6 times i went i mailed everything to the company that took care of my airfare-out of NY STATE. they had a service that did all that. i had sent everything US MAIL certified/reg. which ever i used. but this past time-i tried it not getting it ahead of time. this was uganda and kenya.neither country you needed any papers filled out.just that card they give you on the plane.
no issues at all.i will keep doing that now this way.
if it were me-yes i'd panic.not sure what the next step would be though.
so sorry for this,
d

I had a similar problem and in the end it turned out that a temp postal person marked the return envelope as "no such address" (although my building has been here for over 100 years and it was properly addressed). It was sent back to the Kenyan Embassy in DC. Took about 3 weeks to figure out.

In the mean time, I learned that
-they are most easily reached by phone between 10 and 11am (DC time). Be ready to tell them when it was received and who signed for it.
-try other departments - if you reach a live person they can likely help you (there can't be that many people that work there)
-figure out your contingency plan. Investigate what it will take to get a duplicate passport. If there's a passport agency where you live you can have it easily replaced within 2 days - so figure 4 days if you live somewhere without an office.

Good Luck!

when is your trip marija?

We're leaving on September 5th, so I've got plenty of time. I was just wondering if others are experiencing long waits or if I should start aggressively pursuing the matter. Guess I'll start looking for them...

You are dealing with the Kenyan embassy in the US?
My experience may not be pertinant then, but - My local travel agency took care of all the details:

I filled out forms for both Kenya and Tz with the details required.

The travel agency used a visa service that picked up the passport, the forms and the payment from their office and took it personally to each embassy.

The embassy phoned the visa service to pick up the passport with the visas in them.

The service then returned the passport to my travel agency who phoned me and I went to pick it up. No mailing of the passport at any time.

The whole thing, for 2 different embassies did take 3 weeks.

If you don't get your visa/passport back in the next 2 weeks and you can't reach someone in the Kenyan Embassy in DC than call your Congressman/woman's office. They can help you navigate the process.

Thanks for the suggestions/info. I'll keep trying to extricate my passport. I'm sure not going to send it away again for Tanzania!

Hi Marija,

I also sent my passport to the Kenya embassy in DC 3 weeks ago and haven't gotten anything back yet (also received confirmation that they received it). Will you keep the board posted with any news you hear? I am also getting concerned, as I leave August 16.

If this is in the U.S., here's what I did and it worked perfectly. I also was able to call the embassies very easily and they were very helpful. See below.

A thought about the visa applications. I spoke to the Tanzania and the Kenya embassies today. The Kenya agent did not recommend doing the visa at the airport. He said you would wait in long lines and anything could go wrong.

Based on this info, I did some further research and this is what I recommend. You send your passport with the below listed items to the Tanzania embassy and address it attention: Nema. She will process the visa and send the package to the Kenya embassy attention: CMuendo. He will process your visa and send the package back to you.
The cost is $50.00 per visa per person and the express mail cost. This is a better price than the Sita visa process. The visas will take approximately 2 days each to process. I suggest you do this right away.

Included items in the package:
-passport for each of you
-completed visa applications for both countries
-(to download application forms go to www.tanzania-un.org and www.kenyaembassy.com)
-2 passport photos per person
-1 pre-paid express mail envelope addressed from the Tanzania embassy to the Kenya embassy
-1 pre-paid express mail envelope addressed from the Kenya embassy to you
-a cashier check in the amount of $100.00 to each embassy

Here are the addresses of the embassies

Tanzania Embassy
201 East 42nd St.
New York, NY 10017
ATTENTION: NEMA
212 972-9160

Kenya Embassy
866 United Nations Plaza
Room 4014
New York, NY 10017
ATTENTION: C MUENDO
212 421-4741

I just called the DC embassy and got put into voicemail too. Noticed on the website that they were adversely affected by the rainstorms - maybe this has caused some kind of delay in their response?? Hope it's something that can be resolved quickly. Am going to try and stay calm, as this is my honeymoon trip, and I have lots of other wedding-related issues to keep me up at night. Based on comtnboy's posting, I wish I had sent to the NYC consulate instead!

Katesy,

Yes we had a lot of rain in DC but everything is up and running again. But this could be why things are more delayed than usual. However, if you are worried and you can't get a hold of someone at the Embassy, really just call your Congressman/woman's office. I work for a Member of Congress and believe me, we get similar requests all the time.

Hi, katesy,

I did another round of voice mail this morning as well. Now that we know that there are at least two of us, it seems less likely that the problem is a lost passport. They're probably just slow. Congratulations on your wedding! Let's keep each other posted.

I just got my visa for Tanzania. I sent it in to the D.C. embassy via Fedex - took about 2 weeks total for the whole process. No troubles doing so.

As to why send it in beforehand, we did ours so that we didn't have to wait with everyone else who's getting off the 777 that night at Kilimanjaro airport.

Katesy,
Fed-Ex shows that our visas were sent back today!

I did it in May and it took about three weeks. I did call three times to ask a question before sending and noone ever called me back. Hang tight! It's on it's way.

Hi Marija - our passports showed up in the mail yesterday. Glad to hear we're all going to be able to make our trips! Thanks everyone for your help.

We just got our Visas yesterday for our trip to Kenya in September. We went directly to the Kenyan Consulate in Los Angeles..it took about an hour (she was very slow) and for some reason it was $120.00 for 2...I thought it was only suppossed to be $50. per visa. Anyway, it's done, and it's just 1 less thing to worry about before we go!

Our passports and visas have arrived. It was $100 for the two of us. Guess I have time to try Tanzania...

My 2 cents.
I mailed my USA passport in the passport office to have pages added. I sent it with certified signature accepted thing. I get receipt back showing they got it. Two months later no passport. I call them, yeah they got it and yeah they put it in mail back to me 4 weeks ago. How did they mail it back - just ordinary first class, no signatures required. One week later it shows up. It had been delivered to the wrong address and those dummies just held it for 4 weeks. But if the passport people would have sent it back with signature required, I doubt if this would happened. I really really really don't like to put my passport in the mail.
regards - tom

We are going to get our Tanzania visa at the Zanzibar airport (flying there at the end of our trip from Nairobi) - I'm guessing that's easier. Definitley not taking my luck with the mail again so close to departure!

The people behind the counters in JRO in Tanzania move the line along quite quickly, so the wait really isn't so bad.
We probably waited a max. of 15 min. and we we're at the end of the line. I know some people feel that it's safer to mail their passport to the embassy but I don't like to part with mine.
Good luck!

We only have 45 minutes between planes at Kilimanjaro airport so I'm concerned about having to change planes and get visas.

That could be a problem if running late. If it's an internal smallish plane they may wait but your right to be concerned. Some airlines will even radio down to prioritize you and arrange for you to be put in line first but then again ....... probably not worth the stress to not know.

There was a recent thread on the US forum talking about the in's and out's of this same thing.

Tom,
I never send my passport anywhere without including a prepaid return Fedex envelope. The risk is too great with regular mail. My sister lost a passport through the mail once.

I also always pay for expedited passport renewal. It's worth whatever the fee is now.

Patty
Great idea. And whoever gets it actually uses it? Even US Government (passport) offices?
regards - tom

Yep, I put the return envelope, application, old passport, photos, all in the same outer envelope together. I do write a little note saying "return envelope enclosed" or something like that, but I think they'd see and use it even if I didn't. Always get it back in the return envelope I provided.

Received the Tanzanian visas in less than a week from the NY office (no digitized photo)!