Anyone use a Visa service or get them yourself ?

[Maryandi]

We are going to need a visa for The Gambia and Turkey next year.

 

Does anyone have an experience getting them yourself or is using a service the only way to go ? I have found 3 services - Travisa, Traveldocs, and ZVS - with dot com after the names. Any good or bad reviews ?

 

Thank you for any help, MaryAnn

[petlover]

We have used Zierer Visa Service (http://www.zvs.com) twice....once for visas to China & India and once for visa to Brazil. Both times they were excellent and very prompt. The cruiseline (Regent) paid for our visas so I didn't pay attention to the cost, assuming it's quite a bit more than doing it yourself. You will need 2 passport photos regardless of how you go about getting your visa.

[Saga Ruby]

A highly negative experience for me this July. Oceania suggested I use ZVS for $279 so I sent them the downloaded forms from their website plus all the necessary photos and paperwork. Had to resubmit the India visa application because the forms had changed and ZVS had not updated their website.

 

Got charged $415 on my credit card. Protested. ZVS says as of this April, they are now merged with CIBT Services and ZVS does only expedited, expensive individual visas. If you are a member of a group, or have a group account number, it is cheaper because it is not expedited.

 

I related my story to friends and they used Travisa which they liked and with which they had no problems.

 

Ruby