2007 General Reports

[Exec Talent]

When a buddy of mine from Texas used that phrase I loved hearing it so much I asked him to repeat it several times. In the much drier world of accounting, it is form over substance. In Georgia, it is that dog don't hunt.

Rio Joe your research is spotty at best, you write like an ad for Amway, not Hemingway and the only reason your stuff sells at all is because there are too many magazines and web sites starving for content. Any content.

If Sperto or EA were to write a book on Brazil to be published in 2014, I would buy an advance copy today. However I have a hard time reading what you write beyond the hyperbolic titles.

I think I am going to call my friend in Texas right now. I just love to hear him say it. Rio Joe may I conference you in?

[Pipe Layer99]

I went for my third Visa within a year, and they keep giving me 90 days. My last time in October, they held off approving the Visa until they got a fax from my employer about the nature of my visit even though I checked the tourism box for my reason for visiting!

Get on-line and find out which office will accept the visa application via mail and then use them. Call them to confirm you'll get a 5 year visa.
I got a 5 year visa in Chicago last year. It only took 3 days. DD

[Doug24]

Which Brazilian Consulate are people using, when getting the 90 day visas?

I went thru the DC consulate in March and got a second 5 years visa.

[Rio Joe]

Exec Talent, I would have to agree that your opinion echoes mine. RioJoe... has a very different mission than the others in this forum.

I'm not really sure what my mission is except have as much fun in Rio as possible and write interesting stuff about it. Admittedly, the first part's a lot easier than the second because I'm no Hemingway. But occasionally magazines pay me to go down there and get laid. (Well, mais ou menos: they pay me to write about the things I do there. Since I'm relatively poor, it helps me afford to monger.)

[Dcsplicer]

Which Brazilian Consulate are people using, when getting the 90 day visas?

I went for my third Visa within a year, and they keep giving me 90 days. My last time in October, they held off approving the Visa until they got a fax from my employer about the nature of my visit even though I checked the tourism box for my reason for visiting!

[Monger X]

Los Angeles, a year ago was still doing 5 year.

I got my 5 year visa there in August.

[Chris H]

Which Brazilian Consulate are people using, when getting the 90 day visas?

The one in Houston. I used this same place, but they gave me a 5 yr visa.

Chris H

[Off Road]

Not necessarily, If you use a visa service, they can use the consulate in whose area the service is located.

I do NOT know this for a fact, but the LA Consulate web site says:

Applicants not applying in person must also present a proof of residence within the consular jurisdiction for the past 12 months (i.e. utility bill, driver license or voter's registration);

I belive in person they ask for your drivers license. Maybe this is just LA or just something they do not enforce.

In looking at the Houston and San Francisco consluate web sites, they do not ask for proof of residence. Los Angeles will not do any visas by mail, San Francisco will not accecpt by mail but return by mail, Houston will accecpt and return by mail. This just illustrates the frustratiions you can have with dealing with Brazil. They all have their own interpretations.

I have always found it best to work with an agency that knows what it is doing, they can tell you what to expect and what they have been seeing.
I like the local ones that deal just with Brazil, and are typically close to the consulates.

[Lorenzo]

You know you do not get to choose a consulate, you are stuck with the one that services where you live.
But it would be nice to know which ones people have had luck with. Los Angeles, a year ago was still doing 5 year.

Not necessarily, If you use a visa service, they can use the consulate in whose area the service is located. If the LA consulate is still giving 5-year visas, best to find a visa service in LA. I have used Passports Plus before for other visas. Although they are located in Houston, they told me they have a courier who takes all visa applications to the respective embassies in Washington. So if a 90 day visa was issued through Passports Plus, that means it was the embassy that did it.

I don't believe for a minute that Brazil wants to eliminate sex tourism, since it is a main source of revenue. But they would like it to be more discreet. I know that the behavior of some of the more loutish mongers offends middle class Brazilians. I have had some Brazilians express outrage when their teenage daughter was approached by drunken gringos and treated as if she were a GDP. I'm sure things like this get back to people in power. I have a hunch that a 90-day visa is a way to make sure that a person who gets in trouble--like, say, arrested or made the subject of a police report--doesn't get another visa. Just my not-so-humble opinion.

L

[Looking For Eden]

I got the 5 year one in Miami.

[Off Road]

Which Brazilian Consulate are people using, when getting the 90 day visas?

You know you do not get to choose a consulate, you are stuck with the one that services where you live.
But it would be nice to know which ones people have had luck with. Los Angeles, a year ago was still doing 5 year.

[FLRoadWarrior]

I have a 5 year Visa. I went to Miami in person. I had no problem. My friend sent off for his. He took and wrote a note attached to his paper work. He explained that he will make many trips in the next five years, because there are so many landmarks he wants to see. And he wants to travel the country to become more educated on Brazil and the people and customs. And he wants to learn the language. He was given a 5 year. My other friend who is Asian. He is from the MidWest wrote the same letter was denied. So maybe Miami cuts us a little more slack.

FRW

[Benjoe]

My friend that went down with me to Rio a couple of weeks ago got a 90 day Visa and he was pissed. He called Passports Plus, (which is the agency he got it from), and they said they don't give out 5 year Visas anymore, because people were going down to Brazil and staying there.

Chris H

Which Brazilian Consulate are people using, when getting the 90 day visas?

[Mr Enternational]

Sexual tourism. The brazilians are trying to cut down on it as bogus as it might seem. I've had plenty of friends who have gotten stuck with the 90 day visa and one who was denied altogether. He later fought it and got a 90 day. What you mentioned (boycotting brazil) is exactly what they want.

Or could they be trying to make more off of sexual tourism? 5 years worth of 90-day visas would total $2000 whereas 1 5-year visa would only be $100!

I don't see any reason they would want you not to go to the country, because everybody loses out. The airlines, the taxis, the hotels, the restaurants, and the girls who would otherwise not have a means of support, which would mean more people in poverty. Why would they want less money to come into the country?

Brazil just has a tendency to say things as a front. They make laws but then after make jeitinhos (favors) to go around them. It's just the culture.

[Chris H]

My friend that went down with me to Rio a couple of weeks ago got a 90 day Visa and he was pissed. He called Passports Plus, (which is the agency he got it from), and they said they don't give out 5 year Visas anymore, because people were going down to Brazil and staying there.

Chris H