Please help! In Bahrain applying for family visa

o Frankieb

Sorry I'm completely lost but, did your relocation advisor send you and your family to KSA without your visa stamped in your passport??? How were your arrangements done without your visa? There was an Aramco representative at Damman airport waiting for you to give you your temporary ID and all that? I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one not getting this, can you elaborate just a little?

I'm sorry, i think the main thing i left out was that we were intentionally in Bahrain in the beginning, applying for our Saudi visa from here. Then we had that epic fail at the border where we were refused entry to both Saudi and Bahrain and were temporarily in No Man's Land on the causeway.. after that we renewed our Bahrain visas by flying to Doha and back into Bahrain again. And now here we sit, wondering how to proceed since HR aren't really able to help us, which is unfortunate. Anyway, hope that paints a clearer picture.. we're hanging in there, but might eventually go up the wall

Prolly want to start from the beginning. I've never heard of anyone coming through without a real visa in their passport and Aramco arranges the visas.

Is your husband an Aramco employee?

Hi guys - yes, we've managed to grasp at this point that our situation is unusual, given that nobody knows exactly what to do with us! The British Embassy in Bahrain had me call the British Embassy in Riyadh who had me call the Saudi Embassy in Bahrain.. . who aren't answering their phone today, apparently.

Yes, my husband works for Aramco as a direct hire, as of January. We begun our visa application from the UK, but my husband chose to have us come and live with him in Bahrain (he's a commuter) while we sorted out the visa process and we've been here since the beginning of the Easter Break.

We weren't told about police reports and medical reports etc. - although of course it makes sense that I would need all of that done, as would any person applying for a visa to another country - but we thought that once we got the yellow paper from MoFA, that was all we needed. Or rather - my husband was told that that was all we needed.. which is true in a sense, since without that you can't apply for a visa. It's the "applying for a visa" part that we didn't anticipate! If that makes any sense.

And so basically, we are a mum and two kids who need to get all this over with as soon as possible and get to Rakah so that my kids can get back into school. As of this week we're working with a tutor to keep them on track, but clearly this isn't what we'd planned.

If anyone knows anybody that has recently applied for a Saudi visa via VFS Tasheel (the one agency that you can get a visa with now, KSA only accepts applications from them) I would be hugely grateful for any advice on police reports and medicals. For example, I don't know if I need a full background check as a wife joining a husband in Saudi (not that i wouldn't pass it, but it looks like it takes over a month!) or something else called a "subject access check".

I think the medical side of things we have covered and know where to do that... it's the police report I'm a little stumped by...

trying to go back and answer some of your questions.. no, my husband has family status and already has a villa at Rakah that he would like to put us in..

I wish that HR at Aramco could help us, but apparently they cannot. I don't understand that, but apparently that is the case - they don't really know what we should do as they don't deal with people applying from Bahrain.

I guess it's a good thing that my kids still think they're just on an extra-long vacation with some tutoring thrown in for good measure.. but whether we can keep this up for another month I really don't know! And the joke is that our return flight is on June 27th to the UK for the summer... will it all be done by then?

How was your husband recruited? Where was he living, where were you living? How was your husband's visa to KSA obtained? I assume he hasone since he is commuting to work.

I suggest you go back to the recruitment personnel and ask who your relocation coordinater is. I think you will actually find it easier to sort out from the Uk than from Bahrain, but I don't know. If nothing else, there will be other stuff which has been missed other than the visa (Aramco ID's certain vaccinations for schools, application for iqamas etc). For whatever reason you are out of a process and you need to step back in to it, somehow.

The medical is quite specific, it needs to clear you of commutable diseases, chest xrays for TB etc. I don't think that we were asked for police clearance from the UK. And no, we didn't have to wait until husband was in kingdom before the family came.

For information or interest, when you first arrive in Kingdom, you generally cannot do so over the causeway. You visa will specify your method of arrival and it is generally stated as by air.

About this one I agree with Maursh, your entry visa is going to specify you are entering by air as is Damman the point for Aramco newcomers to arrive (first time you come you can't leave until you have an iqama, not even to Bahrain, not by land at all), at least the agency can sort out differently (let's hope for that)