Post by nomad1234 on Jul 19, 2015 10:53:21 GMT
US Payroll - Last days of Ramadan:
Lufthansa flight was pretty comfortable - friendly staff on-board (a little bit less friendly staff on the ground). Some of my check-in bags were over the limits both in terms of dimensions (few inches) and weight (4-5 pounds) but we were not charged extra. They didn't even look at our hand-carry.
Dammam airport is not too big and it was super easy navigating around - especially pre-immigration area. We arrived at ~9PM - Aramco office before immigration is right next to immigration lines - not difficult to find at all. However, we didn't find anyone in the office and proceeded to "new arrival" lines. I had my Aramco badge on but no one cared
It was not very crowded but processing was super slow. I only had 3-4 families in front of me and I was out in 30-40 minutes. These 40 or so minutes included immigration officers scolding people in wrong lines, taking tea breaks, arguing with each others, shifting people from one line to another for no obvious reason, taking strolls from one end to another and back for no obvious reason, and finally, processing and fingerprinting new arrivals.
My luggage was already sitting off-belts (located right after immigration). Porters had small carts so I had to hire 3 of them to carry all 9 pieces. I moved on to the arrival area and saw someone (turned out to be the driver) with my name on a piece of paper. He took us to Aramco office where I had an Aramco rep waiting for me. He took our passports and issued us temp IDs and stamped copy of passports (which you must keep at all times with you until you get your Iqama). Friendly setting and he insisted that I relax and not worry about porters or taxi arrangements etc. We were the only family there and we were done in less than 30 minutes (I ended up wasting an extra ~1 hour or so to convert dollars to SAR as currency exchange office was closed and line at bank was very slow moving). You do get excellent conversion rate here at banks though (3.74 per dollar) compared what Wellsfargo was offering me back home (3.33). Total of 2 taxis were called as I had lots of heavy luggage including cardboard boxes.
Cost: Porters had shirts which said "10 SAR per porter" but I ended up giving 150 in total to 3 porters as they had to wait for me for over an hour. All of my taxi costs were covered by Aramco but I gave an extra 100 SAR to drivers at the end - they helped me quite a bit, including trips to 2 different restaurants on my way back (yes, I couldn't convince 2 folks in my family to agree on 1 restaurant ... even on their first ever arrival to a brand new country they knew nothing about).
Finally, a rep from housing gave us a quick tour of our villa once we arrived in Rakah compound. Homes are exactly as you see them in brochure - most of the stuff is brand new including beds/mattresses etc. All in all, it was a smooth ride and it was not anymore stressful than a regular international flight experience. However, it might have been quieter than usual due to last days of Ramadan and others may have a more hectic arrival.
Arrival was followed by the rest day and then 2 days of orientation followed by first day at work (and whole bunch of paperwork and appointments in between). I'll go over those observations in a later post.
Lufthansa flight was pretty comfortable - friendly staff on-board (a little bit less friendly staff on the ground). Some of my check-in bags were over the limits both in terms of dimensions (few inches) and weight (4-5 pounds) but we were not charged extra. They didn't even look at our hand-carry.
Dammam airport is not too big and it was super easy navigating around - especially pre-immigration area. We arrived at ~9PM - Aramco office before immigration is right next to immigration lines - not difficult to find at all. However, we didn't find anyone in the office and proceeded to "new arrival" lines. I had my Aramco badge on but no one cared
It was not very crowded but processing was super slow. I only had 3-4 families in front of me and I was out in 30-40 minutes. These 40 or so minutes included immigration officers scolding people in wrong lines, taking tea breaks, arguing with each others, shifting people from one line to another for no obvious reason, taking strolls from one end to another and back for no obvious reason, and finally, processing and fingerprinting new arrivals.My luggage was already sitting off-belts (located right after immigration). Porters had small carts so I had to hire 3 of them to carry all 9 pieces. I moved on to the arrival area and saw someone (turned out to be the driver) with my name on a piece of paper. He took us to Aramco office where I had an Aramco rep waiting for me. He took our passports and issued us temp IDs and stamped copy of passports (which you must keep at all times with you until you get your Iqama). Friendly setting and he insisted that I relax and not worry about porters or taxi arrangements etc. We were the only family there and we were done in less than 30 minutes (I ended up wasting an extra ~1 hour or so to convert dollars to SAR as currency exchange office was closed and line at bank was very slow moving). You do get excellent conversion rate here at banks though (3.74 per dollar) compared what Wellsfargo was offering me back home (3.33). Total of 2 taxis were called as I had lots of heavy luggage including cardboard boxes.
Cost: Porters had shirts which said "10 SAR per porter" but I ended up giving 150 in total to 3 porters as they had to wait for me for over an hour. All of my taxi costs were covered by Aramco but I gave an extra 100 SAR to drivers at the end - they helped me quite a bit, including trips to 2 different restaurants on my way back (yes, I couldn't convince 2 folks in my family to agree on 1 restaurant ... even on their first ever arrival to a brand new country they knew nothing about).
Finally, a rep from housing gave us a quick tour of our villa once we arrived in Rakah compound. Homes are exactly as you see them in brochure - most of the stuff is brand new including beds/mattresses etc. All in all, it was a smooth ride and it was not anymore stressful than a regular international flight experience. However, it might have been quieter than usual due to last days of Ramadan and others may have a more hectic arrival.
Arrival was followed by the rest day and then 2 days of orientation followed by first day at work (and whole bunch of paperwork and appointments in between). I'll go over those observations in a later post.
