I wanted to share my landing experience on Wednesday June 8, 2016 at Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls, ON with you as I know many of you may consider this option for your landing.
Firstly, it took me 1.5 hours roughly to drive to Niagara Falls from Etibicoke , stopping for gas and quick stretch along the way. I live in North York, but I pick-up a friend in Etobicoke who was doing her landing as well (so two of us).
I looked up the cheapest parking in the area online and found Fallsview Casino ($5.00 for the day). You don’t pay as you enter, you pay upon return. We parked and got out of the parking area around 8:30 pm. The walk to Rainbow Bridge from Fallsview Casino is appox 20 minutes with brisk walking. It took us 30 minutes because we walked slowly to enjoy the scenery a bit.
Mind you, had I known the walk was this long I would have tried to find parking closer to the Rainbow Bridge, even if I had to pay a little extra. If you don’t like walking, or unable to walk for long distances, find parking a little closer but you may have to pay $10-15.00.
So we got to the entrance of the bridge at around 9:00 pm. If you are coming from Fallview Casino, you walk all the way down the hill, pass the falls, to the base of the bridge and cross the street go up a set of stairs for the entrance of the bridge for pedestrian crossing to the USA. There is another Casino right at the bridge, much closer than Fallsview Casino.
You have to pay .50 cents to enter the bridge on the pedestrian side (don’t know how it works driving across). To walk across the actual bridge is a 2- 5 minutes’ walk. We got to the USA side and there was a sign on the door of the US border service office, “Wait to be called”, I thought “Oh man, now I have to wait”, the second I thought that I heard an officer yell “Come on in”.
LOL there were no one there – guess the officers were so bored they were glad to see us. So I greeted him politely and told him we came to do Canadian landing. He said, he will give us a flagpole paper. I told him my friend and I both have US visas so we don’t need the flagpole, we just want to cross and reenter . He assured us flagpole is much faster and it won’t go on our record. He gave us one form for both of us, my friend and I. Took less than 5 minutes there. They were very friendly, we thanked them and left – reentering Canada.
Back on the Canadian side, we first enter this small office. There was a young officer at the desk, we greeted him politely and told him why we there. He requested passport and asked if he had anything to declare, if we had shipments coming in from Jamaica (my home country – I have a Jamaican passport). LOL, I could tell he’s still new on the job he still sounded scripted but he was very straight forward and polite. He directed us to another office for the official landing after checking our passport and other documents.
At the 2nd office an officer met us at the door immediately. He took our document, showed us to some seats, pass or documents to and young female officer. Within two minutes the officer processing or documents called us verified our address and told us to retake our seats. After about 6-8 minutes she called us and read us our rights as new PRs together.
The whole process on the Canadian side took no more than 10 minutes because even though we were separate applicants, we came as friends, both names being on the same flagpole form, and were processed at the same time – which I was happy with.
Documents we took:
• All documents returned to us by CIC with our passport (CoPR, Passport), plus my current work permit, which no one asked for. Work permit was not necessary but you can still take it just in case.
Before leaving we prayed for speedy success, because I heard of people waiting over 2 hours. Plus keep in mind we went on a Wednesday and got there after 9pm ( i.e. at the offices), so on both sides there were no one! Officers on both sides seemed happy to see us. There were a couple other people on the Canadian side – doing whatever, not sure if landing but there were literally one officer to a person or more in terms of ratio.
Note, please be very polite when dealing with officers on both sides, it goes a long way. Canadians in general are very polite and friendly and even US officers can be too – so it pays off to be nice.
When you get to a officer don’t just shove all your documents in their face – tell them why you are there and they’ll tell you what they need.
Have fun – thank God and enjoy your landing experience.
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