About 15 couples met at our Chinese coordinator’s house to go through our itinerary in China. I found out that many of us are at different stages of our adoption. One couple is leaving for China this Tuesday, another couple leaving next month, others waiting for their travel approval while some waiting on consulate appointment.
Even though we are at different stages of our adoption, our two weeks itinerary in China is pretty much similar.
Itinerary in child’s Province (in our case, our son is in Wuhan City in the Hubei Province)
Day 1) Fly to the Province where orphanage is located
Day 2) Meet your child
Day 3) Take care of adoption registration, apply for child’s passport and attend some interview regarding adoption
Day 4-5) Do some sightseeing while we wait for child’s passport
Day 6) Pick up child’s passport and other documents and fly to Guangzhou
Itinerary in Guangzhou
Day 7) Have child’s picture taken for visa and child receive medical exam
Day 8 ) Sightseeing and apply for child’s visa
Day 9) Visa appointment and do more paperwork
Day 10) Swearing ceremony at consulate
Day 11) Pick up child’s visa
While in China, the family will have a local guide and a driver. The guide will meet the family at airport, take them to hotel, provide them with sightseeing places and help with paperwork.
Most families can leave Guangzhou after they have the child’s visa and passport. But my husband and I are planning to go to Hong Kong Disney with our son.
Once we have our updated I-171H, our coordinator will get our consulate appointment at Guangzhou. Once we know our consulate appointment, we will be booking our plane tickets to and from China. Our hotels, transportation, sightseeing, etc will be taken care of by China Women’s Travel Service (CWTS).