Alien life is certainly more than likely in some form and I believe that some intelligent lifeforms may exist. As one of the sections of the Fermi paradox wiki page states, scale is a huge factor in any communication between the two. The Aricebo Message was only sent out in 1974 and will take 25000 years to reach its intended destination. A reply will take some time after that, depending on the level of technology of the recipients to send a reply, and that is only after they have decoded the message and figured out where it has come from. The level of alien technology is very important as it can either be too adanced for them or not advanced enough (imagine people in 300 years time trying to play a VHS, there is a possibility that such "primitve" technology may have been totally lost). If we do get a reply, it will have been a very lucky shot with a massive coincidence in the technology the respective communicators have.

However if we consider ourselves as the aliens in the view of other beings, if we were to recieve a message first (which i think is the most likely situation) and if we were able to decode it, even with what is considered a highly advanced level of technology, we would not be able to go and visit for a very long time, probably not without the help of the group that contacted us anyway. Even the idea that we would be able to reply is questionable.