# Visa run from Hell!



## DesertStranded (Oct 9, 2008)

FYI: To those of you that flew into Dubai and received a 60 day visa and are thinking of doing a visa run by flying from Sharjah to Oman, think again!

My fiance (currently stranded in Iran) bought me a ticket from Sharjah to Iran leaving at 9am today. So I woke up at the ass crack of dawn, spent 51AED on a taxi and arrived at Sharjah airport where I waited for an hour and a half to check-in. Then I proceeded to customs where I was told that while my passport had been stamped in Dubai, they had never entered it into the system. It gets worse from there.  So they fumbled around on the computers and passed my passport around to see if someone knew what to do and generally had their heads up their own asses. (Can I say 'ass' on here?) Then someone comes back to me 10 minutes before the plane is due to depart and tells me that while visit visas are good for 60 days in Dubai they are only good for 30 days in Sharjah no matter what it says on the stamp! So they inform me that I will have to pay a 2000AED fine before they will let me board my plane. I try to bargain, plead, cry but it doesn't help. Then they come and take my tickets saying that the plane is closed for boarding. My 600AED ticket was wasted and I didn't even get to buy any Dufry liquor which I really needed a drink of at that point I was so frustrated! I pay around 100AED on the taxi back to Dubai.

I have to decide to either go to the Dubai airport and hope I can get a last minute flight somewhere or go to the Immigration office. 

My fiance looked up plane ticket prices for a visa run from Dubai and it would have cost 2000AED anyway. So I go to the immigration office in Dubai instead and get shuffled from desk to desk around 15 times. They didn't know what to do since my passport had been stamped but nobody had entered my info. in the computer system. I get sent from desk to desk, but first I have to go pay. The website says it's 500AED for a renewal, on the phone I'm told it's 620AED, in reality I had to pay 720AED. Then I was told to go out and get a copy of my visa page and my front page from my passport. Then go back to the desk again. He enters something into the computer. Then I get sent back to the first office where finally I got the 30 day extension. Whew! A 40 dirham taxi ride later I'm back in my apartment with a headache, no booze and a plan to stow away on a ship to Belize as soon as my fiance returns from his exile in Iran.

Moral of the story: avoid Sharjah at all costs when looking to make a visa run. Either pay the extra on a ticket out of Dubai or just drive to Hatta. argh.


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## Andy Capp (Oct 5, 2008)

Really sorry to hear about your nightmare, Sharjah is "different". You should just drive to Hatta, compare and contrast your experience with a visa run I did there a month or so back....


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## DesertStranded (Oct 9, 2008)

Yeah, I'm not even gonna go into my fiances visa run nightmare that is still ongoing 3 weeks later.


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## sgilli3 (Mar 23, 2008)

So sorry to hear it didnt go well.

I had the opposite from Sharjah airport...BUT: my passport ( and kids were correctly stamped)
We arrived- handed in all of our paperwork ( as I was flying in + out of country to finalise residency)
Got on the plane to Bahrain
Arrived in Bahrain- and didnt get off plane as we were doing a visa run ( same as 1/2 the plane)
Arrived back in Sharjah,- straight through to visa counter, picked up forms.
Eye scan and out
No lines, no waiting- and really cheap easy way of doing it.
Total time from leaving home in Sharjah to arriving back in the door was about 4 1/2 hours.

We were once not stamped at the Al Ain border crossing- and it couldnt be fixed in Dubai- we had to go back to Al Ain- so I guess thats why they sent you back to Duabi, as thats where the problem occurred.


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## DesertStranded (Oct 9, 2008)

sgilli3 said:


> We were once not stamped at the Al Ain border crossing- and it couldnt be fixed in Dubai- we had to go back to Al Ain- so I guess thats why they sent you back to Duabi, as thats where the problem occurred.


Oh, but they would have solved it in Sharjah if only I paid them AED2000. *grumbles* Andy is right. They are 'different' there.


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