Embassy of Thailand, London — Local services in London

Caters almost exclusively for Thais'- eg wanting to renew passports, serking visa advice and other consular services. If you are non-Thai or want a simple service such as legalisation, you are made to wait until all Thais' in the queue are processed which can take between one and two hours. My experience is as follows. I required the Thai consulate to add a legalization stamp to an already UK FCO notarised document. In order to verify if the FCO stamp was acceptable and to understand what else they might need, I called the London embassy/consulate for 2 days (4 hours solid) and did not even get through to a single person. I called the consulate in Hull and they advised that they too 'never got through' to the London consulate. As my time in the UK was limited I made my way to the London consulate and arrived at 7.00am and was first in the queue. It was cold and wet waiting outside but I was comforted in the knowledge that I was first in line. Just before 9.00 we were allowed into the consulate and I was directed to take a 'legalization' ticket from the automatic machine. I should have realised that ticket 400 was not going to get priority - the Thais get tickets starting 000 and other services such as visas start at 200. There may be others. At 9.10 one of the service windows opened and sure enough, despite being first in line, all of the other ticket types were called. At 9.40 I queried with one of the people serving, why I had not been attended to. The answer was that legalisation is not a priority and they would be serving ALL of the other pending tickets before the 400 series. At 10.20 I approached the counter again to question the length of time that I had to wait. At 10.50, my number was called and it took all of 5 seconds to leave my document and pay the fee. I was told to collect in 4 days time - I will post as to how that experience goes:) Quite why it takes 4 days when visas only take 3 days, I do not know. My message to those persons wanting a simple legalisation service - there is no point in getting there early, it will take you between one and two hours to be seen, on top of the period that you waited outside in the cold. My question to the consulate, why do you not simply adopt a first come first serviced policy as is in place at other Thai consulates? It would be the fairest way. Oh, and why do you never...

I booked on line for a 9 o’clock appointment for Thai ID card. I arrived at 8.50 and there was already about 8 people ahead of me outside the consulate. I think they were mostly English guys getting a visa though. As you go through the front door, immediately to your right are two lots of ticketing machines, one that says “visa” and one that says “Thai”. You need to get a ticket!!!

Past the ticketing machines you’ll see a door to your right and a load of numbered kioks in this room. Number 1 and 2 are for Thai passport applications. The rest I presumed for visas for non thais

The room to the left is where they take your photo for the ID cards. I got lucky and had the guy on the you tube video who explained how to fill in the passport application forms. He was a really nice guy and super helpful. The ID card took 15mins max. Mine had expired for over 7 years and no fee for any of this!!!

I also booked an appointment for 10 o’clock to get a new Thai passport- again this expired over 9 years ago. I really don’t think there was any point in the on line booking as they only seem to go by the ticket number that you get at the front door only. Again I think I got lucky because I had the first ticket and got dealt with straightaway. So I went to kiosk number 1 for this. The lady checked my application and I paid the fee there as well. £33 -£25 for the passport and £8 for the postage for the passport to be sent to my home address-cash only. Then you have to go back to the room with the camera and they take your finger prints etc. Again less than 15 minutes.

The guy did say Mondays are their busiest days so don’t go then like I did. The best time is as early as possible. By the time I left at 9.28am all the chairs were filled with loads of people, Thais and non Thais

I was really happy with my experience at the embassy, super quick! I think it would be helpful if they explained the process though that you needed to get a ticket and some directions, but again you only need to ask and someone...

Truly aweful experience. Followed instructions on their website in order to obtain our sons Thai birth certificate and passport, filled in forms, did photos, booked appointment online. When we arrived the reception is on the basement level of the building down a very narrow and steep set of winding steps with no lift or provision for buggies or wheelchairs.

We have our son in a bassinet buggy and our 2 year old in his buggy so we struggled with the help of strangers to get to the bottom of the steps which are very dangerous.

As we entered a member of staff was directing people and told us to take a ticket and wait in line with everyone else even though we had a booking. We asked about the passport cost and was told it was £40 but they only accepted cash! I had to leave my wife on her own while I walked around for about 30 minutes looking for a cash point, on my return my wife had been seen and I was informed that they won’t do the passport because the baby needs to have their eyes open so they can take a retina scan! We told them he had his eyes open but they weren’t interested. Asked how we could travel to Thailand without his Thai passport they told me that we would need to book tickets, return to the embassy in London and get a temporary Passport. Absolutely ridiculous.

So after following their website to the letter, spending over £100 to travel to embassy, hours in the car with the kids bored and upset, all we achieve was handing over a form which can’t be done online and can’t be done by the post. This couldn’t be any more convoluted if they tried. Also taking cash in the middle of a pandemic when every other area of life is taking card to prevent transmission is a joke. I literally hate having to do anything with the Thai embassy, unfortunately we have no choice if we want our Thai/British kids to have dual citizenship.

Only use if you really have to. They really need to modernise, move into 21st century, and have better...