Visa panics and cutting it fine

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It's going to be a close call!

We've hit an unexpected hiccup today. Dad has his chinese visa refused, apparently due to the fact that he did not detail the hotel he was staying in, or flights home. Odd that, seeing as neither Peter or I did on our forms either, and they all went in at the same time! We're at a bit of a loss as to why that happened, so dad is revisiting the embassy tomorrow to try again, but that sets us back 3 days, which makes things interesting when certain other factors are considered...

The Uzbek Embassy states that they take up to 10 days to process visas
They only open 3 days a week - Mon, Tues, Fri (and then for 3 hours).

We have a number of bank holidays looming - this gives us 12 working days to get:
Dad's Chinese Visa
Then for all 3 of us; the Uzbek and Russian visas....
Courier Peter's passport to him...

Eeeek!

We do think we can, however do it with a day or 2 to spare. I finally managed to speak to the Uzbek Consular Section today - they confirmed a 5 day turnaround as the express method (cost yet to be determined).
Russian Embassy do a 2 day "Gold" turnaround...for a not inconsiderable fee.
It now hangs on whether Dad's visa can be sorted...and as far as we know there is no reason he shouldn't - particularly having been given visas on numerous occasions before!

The moral of the story is - get visas sorted out as far in advance as possible - and don't try doing them while there's a Royal Wedding on!

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