Brazil, Ghana, Russia, oh lord!
Man, visas are serious work. I know that we are going to a lot of countries, and luckily only five of them need tourist visas, but there is a lot of paperwork to fill out. Semester at Sea says that we need to get a Ghana, Russia and Brazil visa before we embark on the ship and we will also get a Cuba and Senegal visa on board the ship. Travisa is the company hired by SAS to deal with tourist visa stuff so we have to fill out the visa applications, the travisa application and include lots of other goodies like extra passport photos, copies of proof of address and a yellow card copy.
* Recently, SAS shortened our stay in Russia from 5 days to 3 because staying in Russia for 3 days and only going on SAS generated excursions does not require a visa. Some students will get visas anyway because you have to have one if you are leaving the ship on your own (outside of any SAS created activity). I think they were trying to save us money (since the Russia visa is like $350) but students are not happy about the shortened trip. My class is already doing a field lab in Russia so I opted not to get one but I am looking forward to some of the field programs.*
It took me a couple of hours to get through all the rules and paperwork, time well spent to make sure that the applications are done correctly and stuff doesn't get delayed. But, there is a slight glitch - Brazil is hosting the world cup this year! So, visa applications are severely backed up! Fingers crossed it gets here by the end of July!
Man, visas are serious work. I know that we are going to a lot of countries, and luckily only five of them need tourist visas, but there is a lot of paperwork to fill out. Semester at Sea says that we need to get a Ghana, Russia and Brazil visa before we embark on the ship and we will also get a Cuba and Senegal visa on board the ship. Travisa is the company hired by SAS to deal with tourist visa stuff so we have to fill out the visa applications, the travisa application and include lots of other goodies like extra passport photos, copies of proof of address and a yellow card copy.
* Recently, SAS shortened our stay in Russia from 5 days to 3 because staying in Russia for 3 days and only going on SAS generated excursions does not require a visa. Some students will get visas anyway because you have to have one if you are leaving the ship on your own (outside of any SAS created activity). I think they were trying to save us money (since the Russia visa is like $350) but students are not happy about the shortened trip. My class is already doing a field lab in Russia so I opted not to get one but I am looking forward to some of the field programs.*
It took me a couple of hours to get through all the rules and paperwork, time well spent to make sure that the applications are done correctly and stuff doesn't get delayed. But, there is a slight glitch - Brazil is hosting the world cup this year! So, visa applications are severely backed up! Fingers crossed it gets here by the end of July!
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