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| London, United Kingdom |  Review on May 19, 2009: |
RBAL_TN
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
We both went to the interview as its easier to help pack together for shipping and fly back across the pond together.
After driving down and spending the night in London, we arrived at the Embassy about 0730a to place ourselves second in line. There appears to be several queues so making sure you are in the correct one is pivotal (seems there were a few people in wrong queue). The proper queue is labeled for visas and is directly in front of the embassy. At the front of the building there are two security buildings outside. The visa queue is in front of the security building on the right side as you face the embassy.
You'll be asked for your passport and interview letter, then proceed inside the security building to go through the x-ray. They are serious about not having any electronics whatsoever and will not allow you to pass. This includes keys with car remotes, cameras and phones. We thankfully left everything in our hotel room (and secured a late checkout should we need it). After leaving the security building you walk along the outside of the embassy (but inside the fence) to the right side entrance where you present your interview letter at reception to get your ticket number (we were 5001). From there, you proceed up a short flight of stairs on your left to the waiting room. We were seated in the waiting room by 0745am.
Inside the waiting room, there are plenty of chairs all facing the center where the video monitors are. On these monitors, they show how many are in the queue and when you number is called, which window to proceed to. On one side of the waiting room there is the courier desk which will be the last step before leaving, and the other side is a small snack area. There is coffee, tea and some cakes and snacks for sale. This was helpful since we didn't have a chance for breakfast and were starving already.
The interview windows opened up at about 0800a and they started paging ticket numbers on speakers and onscreen. There are lots of non-immigrant visas (ticket number 1000's) being called versus the relatively few immigrant visas (tickets number 5000's). When called, they will scan your fingerprints and collect your documents and assemble them for the consular officer whom you interview with later. We were a bit concerned since we realized at last moment the (2) required photos were passport photos in UK specification and not US - but they accepted them saying it didn't matter at that stage. Not to mention, there is a photo booth in the waiting corridor should anyone need it (£4).
After collecting our documents we were handed a pink form to fill out for courier while sitting back in the waiting area to be called again for the interview. This was about 0830a. By 0900a we were called for our interview to another window were he asked her to raise her right hand, swearing her in and asked just a few basic questions like:
Where did we meet
When did we first see each other
What was longest stay in US
Do we have a travel date
Do we have a wedding date
Having me there didn’t really affect the interview. He did look at my passport before returning it to me but I simply let her answer the questions. The consular officer was a very pleasant gentleman whom jokingly apologized for how slow his computer was. He then said congratulations as we were all approved!!
From there were went to courier desk to pay the fees to have it delivered (3-5 business days) and were out the door by 0930a.
I will note that is does indeed pay to arrive early. We were second in line at 0730a and were heading back to hotel by 0930. They only seem to process one or two immigrant visas at a time (as opposed to the production line of non-immigrant visas). It seemed that by the time we were called for our interview they were only getting to the next person in the queue for document collection. Getting there early could mean the difference between hours in the process. But generally, we spent more time worrying than anything as it wasn’t stressful at all. (Although it did take me a few hours to get that repeating computer voice announcing the numbers outta my head). 
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #4404