Brazil tourist visa

Anyone have a good source to recommend for obtaining Brazil tourist visas (other than the Embassy in L.A.)? There seem to be a lot of online companies that offer the service. O wants $399, which is very high.

We used Travelvisa pro and were extremely happy with their services. They were cheaper than O. Depending on how fast you need the visa it will effect the price. The consular charge is $160 and travelvisa pro charges very. We did ours for about 260 per person but we were able to do it far enough in advance. The visa is done on line and then you send travelvisa all the info plus your passport and they will do all the leg work for you and double check your application. I have filled out a China visa and then the Brazilian visa and I think the Brazilian visa was the more difficult but you should be able to do it by yourself and Travelvisa is always available to answer your question. Also I don't know where you live but some people who lived in California had a major problem getting an appointment for for someone to present their paper work. I sent mine to Chicago and got it back in about 2 weeks. Travelvisa keeps you informed about were you are in the process.

We were on Celebrity this past Feb (for Carnival). We used Visa Central. Their service and communication was good but they have fees that they do not disclose until passports are returned which is when they invoice you. I would not recommend them for this reason. Our total invoice for 2 persons was $676.22.

BTW, if visiting Rio, I do recommend Do BrazilRight. He provided first rate tours and we felt completely safe at all times for the three day tour.

HTH

Anyone have a good source to recommend for obtaining Brazil tourist visas (other than the Embassy in L.A.)? There seem to be a lot of online companies that offer the service. O wants $399, which is very high.

We, too, used Travel Visa Pro for our Brazilian visas before our O cruise to Brazil a couple of years ago and were very happy with the service. We had a lengthy discussion about visas and visa services on our roll call, and many of us checked out various visa services. Each Brazilian consulate seemed to have different requirements and therefore some services were less expensive in some parts of the country than they were in others. In California, Travel Visa Pro was less expensive than the other services I checked out. They were very prompt and much less expensive than Oceania.

So no delays in California (we live in S. Cal.), as mentioned by the earlier poster above?

Kreastman - I am in Southern California. The consulate in LA only processes one a day, they told me. Do NOT do it at the last minute. I used a Visa Service, but do not know the name, but LEAVE A LOT OF TIME. The service is the only way to go. Pay it and live with it. My DIL is from Argentina, these SA countries operate on their time. Argentina didn't require a Visa but when she married my son they gave her a super hard time to get out. START EARLY AND SPEND THE MONEY.

Also need to know that while there are Consulates that are much easier than others. Houston requires little data and we did it on our own and were in and out of the Consulate in 20 minutes with our Visas in our Passports, no matter if you do your Visa yourself or thru a passport service, the Visa has to be issues by the Consulate serving your state, no using different Consulates. And awhile ago at least one of the Consulates was on a work slowdown and people tried going to others and were stymied.

Best to apply well in advance, especially if your Consulate is a PITA!!

When is the reciprocity fee payable and how is it paid. ? Is it a one time fee or do you pay it again should you be on a return visit to Brazil using the same visa ?

When is the reciprocity fee payable and how is it paid. ? Is it a one time fee or do you pay it again should you be on a return visit to Brazil using the same visa ?

No reciprocity fee for Brazil. Visa valid for ten years so keep old passport with visa when getting new passport or have to get new visa. Reciprocity fee is only when you don't have to buy a Visa like Argentina used to be.

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

So no delays in California (we live in S. Cal.), as mentioned by the earlier poster above?

The L.A. consulate is in Beverly Hills. You fill out the application online and are given an appointment for a specific time. If all is correct and the consulate staff is not on a work slowdown, you can pick your passport up a couple of days later (no mail-ins). We live in San Diego and traffic is now so bad that the formerly two hour drive now can take over four hours each way. I felt it very worthwhile to avoid losing two days of my life in bad traffic to use a visa service. I Fed Exed our passports to the service; their fee included returning our passports. They do have an expedited service if time is short. For our China trip last year, we had the tour company handle our China visas; it worked in the same manner; surprisingly, the tour company was less expensive than any of the visa services. YMMV.

Have used CIBT now Visa Central -- which the one Oceania uses.

The Oceania price is not that bad and is close to most visa services.

http://visacentral.com/tourkits?bookmark=1&login=44997

For business I use - Passportvisaexpress.com they have never failed me with over 10 passport renewals and over 50 visa transactions

Unless your cruise is a long way off, don't be surprised if you find that once you have completed the online part of the application, you will not be able to get an appointment in a comfortable amount of time for your trip. We used an expediter for our Amazon voyage last year, after our scheduled appointment was so far out that we were worried we wouldn't get our passports back in time for the sailing. The expediters make continuous appointments, so they always have dates scheduled. They can just cancel if they don't have a client. We, too, are in CA, but needed to us the SF office. Money well spent, in my opinion.

Our cruise is in mid-December.

Our cruise is in mid-December.

You can go ahead and fill out the online forms and then see what the earliest appointment you can get will be. Bear in mind, the forms must be filled out with complete information, and the accompanying photos must also meet the exact requirements... otherwise, you could have to resubmit corrected versions.

When we booked our Amazon cruise with O, it was a late enough booking (late August booking for a late Nov cruise) that O was not offering to provide visa service. In addition, the Brazilian consulates were on some sort of strike which involved a slowdown of visa prossessing, so we felt hiring an expediter was well worth our costs to do so.

I found the instructions for the application were a bit convoluted, and was very happy to have our expediter's advice along the way.