Schengen Visa from Spanish Consulate

[sad traveller]

Hi there,

I'm hoping someone can shed some light on my situation.

I am South African, living and working in London. I had planned to travel to the South of France and Spain and therefor needed to apply for a Schengen visa. I booked my appointment with VFS Spain (as it was the country I'd be staying in the longest) and proceeded to attend at the VFS centre in London.

After waiting for 3.5 hours I was eventually seen and submitted my application. I received text notification that night stating that my passport had been sent to the consulate.

Now I must state that I was well aware of the stated time limits however I assumed (my first mistake) that the process would not take longer than five days as I have applied for a schengen visa twice before (albeit from the French Consulate) and my friend, who is travelling with me had obtained her visa within 3 days. Because I was aware of this tight deadline I asked the VFS official handling my file whether it was worth me paying for the application and she then assured me that it would be fine.

I was supposed to fly out this morning and am yet to receive any sort of indication as to where my application is in the process.

I have tried phoning the VFS help line - where the assistants either struggle to understand me or they are just not very helpful.

I'm not quite sure what my chances are of getting a visa in the next few days so I dont knoe if I should cancel all my flights and accomodation so as to get some sort of refund.

I am so sad about this, it's been an incedibly tough year and have been looking forward to this trip for the longest time. (And I just broke up with y crappy boyfriend!)

Do you guys think that there is any merit in going to the Spanish Consulate? I have tried calling but the line just rings to disconnect or is always engaged.

Has anyone applied for a visa from the Spanish embassy and how long did it take to get processed?

Many thanks in advance.

sad traveller

[mulderpf]

I have applied for a Schengen visa from the Spanish consulate in South Africa and it took 6 working days to process if I remember correctly (and they were not busy at all!!). I applied for one through the Netherlands a few weeks back and that took three working days (this was also through VFS London - horrible place!!!).

Not much you can do other than to wait and learn from this mistake - don't leave it so long in future...don't forget your slip when you go and pick up your visa btw.

[sad traveller]

Thanks:)

I tried to get the earliest appointment and the 28th was the first one I could get - and that was in May!

I wonder why Spain tends to take so long here, I've seen a few posts about how dealing with them van be a bit of a nightmare...

I long for the days when the likes of VFS did not exist - I just don't see the point of having an application centre servicing 10 countries!

I'll just have to wait and see I guess.

I also wondered about getting my passport back and applying for an express schengen through France (2 days) but it would take VFS 3 days to get my passport back...

heavy dejected sigh

[Directive/2004/38/EC]

Everyone has such bad experiences with the Spanish embassy in London. It is amazing that anyone goes there on holiday. I certainly would not waste my time if I was required to get a visa...