Chinese Visa Application Service Center 140 William Street, Woolloomooloo, New South Wales 2011

"Pros: the staff were friendly and generally helpful. Cons: the visa centre is very poorly staffed for the number of people resulting in excessive wait times (I waited more than three hours to lodge my application). The system has been changed in recent years to an online application but somehow it takes longer than the old system. It gives a poor impression to busy business people wanting to visit, trade with, and invest in China. Recommendations: increase the number of staff to avoid such long wait times. Increase the amount of seating so people standing waiting around. The centre could also implement a text message service when their number is near to allow people to go and do other things instead of waiting for hours."

"I’m not sure if the staff reads this review or not but I’d like to say thank you all for your efforts and kindness. Especially for the gentleman who greets visitors in front of the lifts. He is so welcoming and helpful. Also the man who was consulting individuals at the entrance (probably the centre manager or the consul?) guided us what documents were we missing. Sounds like normal, but I felt that he was trying to help us out our emergency situations. I can easily tell that it’s not easy job to handle hundreds of visitors every day but they are amazing. For visitors, prepare all documents without missing any single items before visiting, and get there 8:25 am. You won’t be disappointed."

"Submitting application: There’s no clear queue sign displayed, very confusing once you exist the lift. Appointment time is completely useless as there’s a lot of people waiting already. You have to wait twice as when you enter to the office you line up to check all your documents then wait to be called to submit your documents. Pick up: Come early at 8:30 and wait it will be fast! No customer service / no aligned uniforms."

"The staff were friendly and the actual wait time after check-in was reasonable, the bottleneck is that a lot of people don't have the necessary documents for their visa types, so the check-in staff needed to spend a lot of time explaining what else you need and where you can print them etc. Of course, the step by step guide on the website should have included all the required documents for the visa type selected, as well as the photo dimensions. Ideally the applicants need not go to another website to find the list of documents; all this information should be bundled into one form. This will reduce a tremendous amount of headaches for the staff and the applicants. Overall, I thought It was a fairly smooth process for me given that I had everything. I booked for 130, left at 245."

"Security guard at front entrance is so kind & helpful. Staff have a lot of patience, they are obviously doing long days, often not finishing until 7pm. The appointment system is so misleading, I found out after arriving that about 500 spots are allocated everyday via appointments, so definitely expect lots of people, even if you avoid the peak period of 10am to 1pm. I booked for 1:30pm, arrived at front of the building at 1:09pm, guard asked me to wait. Only gave me a number (46X) at 1:20pm. I head up stairs to join the long queue for check in. Waited over an hour to be assessed & given a number, there were already 135 people in front of me by then. Went and had lunch then came back to wait for my turn. The room was full at all times, with lots sitting on the floor and spilling out into the hallway. Finally at around 4:40pm I get called to the counter to formally submit my application & record finger prints. Luckily there were no problems as I meticoulusly prepared all paperwork. Get prepared for a 4 hour+ wait for pick up day, there is no appointment system so first come first served. This is such a long and tiring process, please hire more staff so we can ALL have an easier time!!! Please improve the step by step guide on website so that people can prepare properly!!! Add a checklist of documents / photocopies that need to be presented!!! Update 16/6: Went at 10:30am to pick my visa and it was no where near as busy as the afternoon. The room was about half full with plenty of empty seats. Line for the check in counter was orderly. There were only 50 people ahead of me and it was moving quite quickly. The short haired lady at counter 12 was rude though. My number flashed once on screen so quickly that I almost missed it, then in less than 3 seconds she called the next number. When I checked with her she claimed she gave me heaps of time. Guess her sense of time is different to the rest of us. Basically she had no sense of customer service, just threw passports under the divider. Thank god I don't need to do this again for a few years."