in-country expenses

Planning was difficult because you will never know when you get the call to travel, where you will need to stay, etc. My husband, daughter, and I were asked to stay in an apartment in my son's orphanage. After the bonding period and court date, we were able to move to an apartment that someone on this forum helped me to find. You can take a look at ownersdirect.co.uk There are lots of places all over Poland. We were able to get a great place and because another adopting family stayed there previously, we got a fantastic deal right in Warsaw. Speaking of families, we were able to connect with other American's who were at various stages in the adoption process. One new Mom gave us her diapers, food, and toys that she could not fit in her suitcases. We visited with her often while we were there as it was great to connect with someone who spoke English and was going through what we were. If you are reading this Martha, thanks! Bringing things with you is also a great way to save money. Because we travelled with our 5 year old, we were concerned about her picky eating habits and wanted to bring her some comfort foods from home. Believe me it's hard to find mac and cheese in Poland! We tried to tell the airlines about the purpose of our trip so score seat upgrades, hotel bonuses, but no luck. Being so jet lagged during the first trip, we had late breakfasts so we usually skipped lunch. Shopping at the local supermarket (CarreFour) instead of the smaller skleps helped to save money too. Looking back it seems like yesterday that we were in your shoes. It may get frustrating to wait, but as I prepare to celebrate my first Christmas with our son, it's all worth it!

Hi. I don't know if I agree that there is no way of knowing. I have never gone on a trip without some idea of the expenses to be had. I understand there may be a spectrum, but to say "no idea" can only be acceptable to someone for whom money is no object. When you have a lot, it may not make a difference. But when you have to save it first, it matters if it's $5K or $15K, especially when this is in addition to the US side costs. If we know there must be two trips (I'm not taking into consideration leaving after bonding and returning for a third trip), and the first trip will be up to 5 days, and the second trip will be up to 6 weeks, and assuming it's in the farthest corner of the country (thus necessitating long in-country travel and expenses for facilitator), then I don't see how this can't be estimated up front? Unless there is some reason the bonding would be longer than 3 weeks, or the wait for the passport and visa longer than 2 weeks, then these costs should be predictable... based on season and region, but predictable. It makes me very nervous to say that it cannot be predictable. I've had enough unpredictability trying to adopt domestically. If I'm paying an arm and a leg for international adoption, I better at least have the predictability I couldn't have domestically.

I think you can probably get a ball park from people who traveled recently and then plan on a little more just in case. For instance my son had no pajamas and needed a few warmer clothes. We also ended up having to go back to another town to get his passport done or we would have had to wait in Warsaw even longer (we were already in the country for six weeks and a few days) We also ended up having to change my flight because something went wrong at the embassy and we had to wait an extra day for the visa. Of course each extra day means an extra day of rent and food. For our three week bonding we had to stay in a hotel in the region and that was expensive, but for the three weeks we were in Warsaw, we stayed in an apartment and that was much cheaper.

momraine - so during bonding you had to stay in a hotel? I understand region, since there's the visits, but do they really tell you where you must stay? Do they also dictate where you must take your facilitator to eat if traveling outside of Warszawa? Or that they must travel 1st class or whatnot? This is what I was afraid of, that they'd take advantage of the fact that we have no choice and live it up. I think if it's good enough for us, it should be good enough for the facilitator, but now I'm worried that they'll dictate where to go and thus how much to spend. And I guess no one who's traveled there recently wants to share this bit of info with me :( , bc I thought that's what I was asking in my original post.

Hi! Just thought I would weigh in on our travel experiences from summer 2009. We did a first trip of 5 days in Aprill 2009, and a second trip of 6 weeks in July-September 2009. I'm just thinking off the top of my head, but I'll try to cover all the basics. For international air, people seem to end up getting the adoption fares which are a decent percentage off of a full fare ticket. We actually didn't do that route. We just bought restricted tickets that were subject to change fees if changed. These tickets were about 900 or 1000 for us each on the first trip, and 1400 or so on the second trip (I think it was generally higher because of the summer). Then we bought K's one way ticket on the return for 800 or so. We had to change our return ticket, and that was 150 each ticket. It worked out for us, but it was kind of rolling the dice. I see a big advantage to buying the totally changeable adoption fare tickets. I will say, it wasn't hard for us to change the tickets, there is a Lot office in the Marriott in Warsaw by the train station. They were nice, and spoke English, and it was pretty easy to change. About in country stay expenses, it can vary from region to region, so I think it is hard for the agencies to really spell out an itemized list of costs. It also varies tremendously depending upon the time of year -- in summer, I think some hotels and apartments charge almost twice as much as winter (I guess that can be said for almost any destination though). Our daughter was in southern Poland, in Silesia. On the first trip, we stayed in a hotel that cost about $150 a night, I think that included breakfast. We ate most of our meals at the hotel or restaurants in town, maybe spent 200 or so on meals total on that trip. We didn't have any say on hotel. The facilitator made all the arrangements, and from what it looked like, there were not a lot of options anyway. On the first trip, we flew to Warsaw, and were picked up by the facilitator's driver and driven to K's region, which took 3-4 hours or so. The driver also drove us to a meeting with the adoption authority in a town near Katowice, then to the town where K's orphanage was, and he took us back to Warsaw at the end of the first trip. The cost for that in-country transportion for us was 600 or 700. We paid the driver at the end of the trip. We did not have to pay for the facilitator's hotel room or meals (at least not directly). We assume that was all built into part of our foreign fees. I can talk with you in a PM about our agency if you wantsounds like it can be different from agency to agency. On the second trip, we spent 3 nights or so in K's town near her orphanage before picking her up. I think it was 150 a night or so again, plus meals in the hotel restaurant and in town. Then when we were able to take K with us, our facilitator arranged for an apartment in Krakow. I think the apartment ended up being 80 or so a night. We thought that was a great rate because it was in August and the location was only a 10 min. walk from the main square in the center of town. The apartment was small, one bedroom and it had its issues, but the location made up for a lot of that. We then stayed 4 weeks in an apartment in Warsaw. That also came to about 80 a night. We were fine with that tooŅthe location was ok, but the apartment was bigger, roomier, had a washer, was gated and safe, was cleaned once a week, and we had a bit of a view of the city being on the 6th and top floor. These were arranged for us by the facilitator who seems to have a good relationship with a property management company. We paid for both apartment stays to that property management company. We did not ask to arrange for our own lodging, so I don't know how our agency would have addressed that. In terms of in-country transportation on the second trip, I think we paid 500 or so to the facilitator's driver. He drove us from Krakow to K's town (a 1.5 hour drive), then from K's town back to Krakow, then from Krakow back to K's town for court. We trained to Warsaw, and I honestly don't know how much that cost. Then, in Warsaw, we walked most places, took cabs a few times, and our facilitator picked us up a few times (and we didn't pay separately for those times). In town costs can vary greatly depending on your location and how much you get out and about. We literally walked 3-5 miles every day to parks, old town, the mall, exploring, etc. so we didn't use transportation too often. Second trip food can of course vary depending upon your tastes and how often you go out to eat. I think $1000 is fair. You can eat pretty cheaply on meats, breads, pastas, etc. Our daughter's favorite was pasta with parmesan cheese, butter and just a little milk. She still loves that more than almost anything. We also went out to restaurants (and Green Coffee and Coffee Heaven), so that can add up! We never really itemized it all to see the total cost. I figured we would have spent money on groceries, going out to eat, and transportation (gas/commuting, etc.) at home, so I didn't really consider those adoption costs. To me the costs were airfare, hotels, apartments and in-country travel. And those basically totalled 10,000-10,500 for the two trips. On the timing for the trip, I think 6 weeks is the shortest amount of time you could spend there. We spent 3 days visiting K at the orphanage, then picked her up for 2 weeks of bonding. Then we had our court date. After the court date the order is not considered final for 21 days. So, you can't even start the social security, passport and embassy work until after thoese 3 weeks. We actually had our 21 day waiting peiord shortened to 14 days because our immigration approval was expiring and the judge was feeling nice that day! So total we had 2+ weeks bonding, 2 weeks waiting for the order to be final, then about 1.5 weeks doing to passport, immigration, etc, then we could leave. I think 7 weeks is a little more typical with the normal 21 day waiting period after court, or 8 weeks if bonding is 3 weeks and there is the normal 21 day waiting period. (hope that made sense!). Feel free to pm me with any questions. Lots of logistics and it is quite a process to figure out![FONT=Arial][FONT=Arial]

[/FONT][/FONT]

We were in a small town for bonding and could not find an apartment. So we were in a hotel. As for the restaraunts when we were traveling, there were not a lot of choices. In the region we ate at the hotel restaraunt mostly for dinner, breakfast was free, and for lunch we mostly just bought crackers and cheese and stuff at a local grocery store. The last week the guy who ran the hotel told us to make sandwhiches with the breakfast stuff and keep them for lunch, that worked very well. Our faciliatator went home during much of the bonding, so we didn't have to do too many meals for her. She actually had us to her home for dinner twice during our time in Warsaw.

Sounds like the facilitator has contacts and makes arrangements for the sake of convenience, which is good and has it's place, but I do hope that this is an option they offer and not a necessity, as far as where to stay or eat. I wonder if there are restrictions on where we can stay during the bonding period (I would hope that if there are restrictions at all, they only apply to this trial period) - as in type of accomodations. Private hotel, someone's basement, a specific apartment reserved for such occasions, that sort of thing. I guess I will have to put these questions to our agency, but they probably won't know anyway. Maybe they'd be able to put me in touch with their own facilitator so I can get this info?

Our judge required we stay in a certain town, she did not specify where, just that we stay in that town. we got invited to another town for a visit and were told we could not go. We had to stay in that town. The reason we stayed in the hotel was that it was a small town and there were no apartments we could rent for just the three weeks.

A lot depends on the agency you're working with, the facilitator, the location of your adoption and the travel requirements. There are so many factors that go into this calculation of costs, that it's tough to give you one blanket response on the costs. It also depends a little on the time of the year and your own preference for accomodations. In our case, we had no control over where to stay during the 2 week bonding. So we paid for the hotel we were told to stay at. But then after the court date we had freedom to stay wherever we wished as long as it was in the town we were told. You don't have much control over the bonding period because the judge tells you where to be for that period. Once you get the referral it will be easier to get you all the answers, and give you more suggestions on where to cut on costs.

Where you stay depends on the judge and the orphanage director as well. For the second trip, we were required to stay in the orphanage apartment for a certain amount of time by the judge and then we could move to an apartment in the town where our daughters orphanage was and the court was. We were told which apartment to stay in and were required to have that rented the entire time. I'm sure there were some kick-backs going on, but it was a nice apartment in a good location. It had unlimited internet, washing machine, and a good kitchen though lousy kitchen table and was reasonably priced. After walking the town I don't think there were other places to stay besides two hotels and we really liked our apartment. The price was apx $60 a night. We bought our food at the grocery stores and the open air markets and also ate out a decent amount. Food overall was very cheap. If you are on a budget the potatoes are not only cheap, but the best potatoes I've ever tasted. My husband kept insisting that I was adding butter and cheese to the mashed potatoes, which I didn't have in the kitchen:) Helping prepare food was great for bonding and it also helped us work through what it meant to eat a family dinner. Your food budget is probably high. If I remember right you are Polish so you will have it easy figuring out what to buy and order. We were translating Polish and German menus trying to figure out what we might be getting! We were in a northern town that never saw a tourist so prices were reasonable. We decided to go to the beach for the week (30 minutes away via bus) and were required to pay for both places, even though we wouldn't be staying at the apartment. We even said we would take the risk that the apartment would be rented when we came back and would stay at the hotel in town. We were told no. We were just annoyed about being required to pay twice for something that we never signed an agreement on. But, we needed to do something vacationish for our 5yo son that came with us so we did. Besides the money issue, it was a good thing to do. In Warsaw we stayed used frequent hotel points and stayed for free at a hotel. There was no pressure to stay anywhere particular. I think the facilitator will give you a bit more free reign than others because you will be comfortable with the language, food, etc. The first trip the facilitator also told us which hotel to stay at and we did pay for her room, food, and train ticket to the town. There were only two hotels in the town and she chose to stay at the one closer to the orphanage and train station, it was reasonably priced, clean, and had free wireless internet access (our only requirement). Overall, I think the facilitators know the area and listen to what the different families say are important and then help find appropriate places to stay. I hope this lack of numbers helps somewhat. --Basically, the answer just depends.

menlo - were you required to stay at the same hotel where the facilitator stayed, eat out together, etc? I am really not liking what I'm hearing about the micro-managing of things that do not need to be arranged by third parties and are not directly adoption-related in my opinion. I realize I don't really have a choice bc I have thoroughly considered other options to parenthood, other types of adoption, other countries, so it's not like I feel the least bit empowered to do anything about this, which really sucks. Still, if it was $5K or $15K for these in-country expenses would be beneficial to know. I'm not sure why there is this resistance to share this aspect of the expenses. If everyone who's gone through it were willing to share what was the case for them (THANK YOU Jenmullet!), then a pattern could be observed. Otherwise, I just have this sense of maybe we'll need to take out a second mortgage on the house and not be able to send our child to college, or maybe not.

For the first trip we did stay at the same hotel and ate out together for the time she was there. She used those times to "conduct business" explain the process, ask us our feelings, talk about next steps, etc. Potentially, there was a lunch that we went to seperately because she wanted to make some phone calls and we just wanted to talk between ourselves. The second trip, I don't think she ate with us at all or even stayed in town overnight. When she was in town she was with another family that was paying her hotel, etc. Truthfully, we didn't track the expenses since we hit the tax limit without the details. The only thing we considered expenses was the lodging and airfare. The train tickets were relatively cheap and food was cheaper. The only surprise expense was a $600 "car ride" to make it to Warsaw before the embassy closed. Taking the train would have meant we missed the deadline. Food - $50 per day w/ facilitator (unless in Warsaw) - on your second trip I would decrease this to $30 per day since you would cook in sometimes. First trip lodging - $500-600 unless in Warsaw - 100 per day for a room. The facilitator may not stay the whole time (ours left after two days).---Lodging for your second trip seems on budget. Travel/airfare seems reasonable. We used miles for the first trip and bought the adoption fares for the second. The adoption fares were actually cheaper than buying non-refundable tickets at the time we went. My guess is that you won't have so much micromanaging. We were really left alone because we had so much international travel experience that it was easy to drop us off and we fended for ourselves. People won't try to take advantage of you so much either. They can't pull the, "this is just a cultural difference" thing with you. As far as where to stay??? The judge was notorious in our area for being very strict. Our orphanage director also had "her way" of doing things. By the end of the trip we figured that our facilitator didn't really have much of a say in some of the details. The orphanage director was really in charge (seems unusual from other stories I have heard.) Luckily, we liked her and she was helpful. But, I think your estimate is close to being accurate - when you budget is 50% airfare it is difficult to decrease it much. Tip - use kayak.com to look for the cheapest fares. You can see with this if a different day will lower your airfare cost.

menloAve- thanks. You bring up a good point - the taking advantage of people bit. I hate to say it, but I think Poland is no exception to treating Americans as if they/we all have money trees growing in our backyards. I guess they will never know the cost for an international adoption themselves, and it's easy to assume that just bc someone pays this much to adopt it means that the money was just lying around. Ok, I've heard the adoption fare mentioned a couple of times now - how is this noted when booking a flight? I've never noticed it. We may be able to use points/miles, but with the timing of the trips being mostly beyond our control, these may fall on blackout days. Does an adoption fare mean you are able to make changes to your itinerary for no additional cost? Is this the same as insuring your flight? Also, thanks for the kayak.com tip. I think I might've come across that website before, so it's good to hear someone else recommend it.

Oh no - Poland is no exception and I don't think it is related to the adoption. I think it is just the view of Americans, based on their experience with American tourists. Prior to the adoption, Dh and I (w/ son) traveled throughout eastern europe for 5 months and then 3 months in Indonesia/Bali and everywhere we went people acted like we were the dumb Americans that would shell out money whenever asked. We frustrated more people by negotiating, walking away from quoted prices, etc. We would even speak some other language when walking into some restaurants so that we wouldn't get the english menu with higher prices:) Then we just had to figure out what to order....Our 5yo son became adept at eating whatever happened to come out from the kitchen. The adoption fare has to be booked by calling customer service of the airline you want to book on. Do your research first as to what routes you want to fly and what airlines you want. By looking on kayak.com you can get an idea of how the airlines are pricing tickets - ie going a day or two earlier than they asked you to in Poland to save several hundred dollars. The ticket is completely refundable and doesn't seem to have blackout days. However, if a flight is full there is nothing they can do obviously. The prices also assumes a one way ticket back for your child(ren) without the cost of a one-way ticket. I don't believe it is the same as insuring your flight - my guess is it is probably better, but you should ask what happens if you need a complete refund.

Here's our experience, even though it was Dec 2007 to Feb 2008, for what it's worth. We had one trip, just less than 8 weeks. We stayed in Sosnowiec for about 4weeks, at the hotel we were told to stay in. It was about $1000 per week for a suite, including breakfast. It didn't appear that there were any other hotels in the town. We paid for ourselves, and maybe one meal at the hotel with our facilitator, she stayed only 2 nights. Before moving to Warsaw I asked our facilitator if we could have some say in where we stayed. She said of course. I picked a few, and she told us the best location. I can send you the website we used to find our apartment if you'd like. We ended up paying about $70 a night for 4 weeks in Warsaw for a very large 2 bed room apartment, with washing machine, on what we consider the second floor. Very good location. When we signed our agency's contract our in country travel was included, unless it was sight seeing. We did tip our driver, of course. I think with food, lodging, and all other expenses our in country expenses came to $11000-14000. That includes airfare which was $350 for our son, and $900 for each of us. We also changed tickets in the LOT office in the Marriott. It cost about $300 and was very easy.