Guys, if you can help it, please DO NOT land at Rainbow Bridge. Take the time to travel to another border. I read a few posts on here about refusals at Rainbow Bridge but thought I'd chance it anyway and assumed all would be fine.
I travelled from Toronto to the Rainbow Bridge border with my boyfriend (who is Canadian) yesterday around 3pm, anticipating a long wait but we didn't mind. We paid our 50 cents each and walked across the bridge to the USA side and waited there for less than two minutes to be called. The USA agent was super friendly, made jokes with my boyfriend about being Canadian, congratulated me on my PR and gave me my slip to take back to the Canadian side. We walked back across the bridge (taking pictures of me with my papers, with the 'to Canada' signs etc etc hahaha) and waited about 10-15 minutes to be seen by the Canadian agent...
We walked in and she asked me my status and where I lived, I told her 'Canada' and that I was there flag poling to confirm my PR. She told me they weren't accepting anymore flagpoles for the day and the way she said it, we thought she was joking and we laughed. But she told us, no, sorry, that she was being serious and they shut down the line at 7.30am as they already had 60 people in line and that those 60 people were still waiting to be processed (at this time around 4pm). I asked when the line would reopen and she kind of shrugged her shoulders and said 'probably tomorrow.' She told me that its an Ontario wide thing, that they're all super busy and will close the lines down early in the day. She told me I have plenty of time left on my visa so I should "just keep trying", or book an appointment, which kind of annoyed me a little . I thanked her for the information (went outside to cry haha), grabbed a beer and decided to just enjoy our day in Niagara.
Going to try again at Sarnia next week and if I don't have any luck there, I'll wait it out for an appointment!
Please don't risk landing at Rainbow Bridge- being declined is so horribly stressful. Take a road trip elsewhere and make a day of it!
I travelled from Toronto to the Rainbow Bridge border with my boyfriend (who is Canadian) yesterday around 3pm, anticipating a long wait but we didn't mind. We paid our 50 cents each and walked across the bridge to the USA side and waited there for less than two minutes to be called. The USA agent was super friendly, made jokes with my boyfriend about being Canadian, congratulated me on my PR and gave me my slip to take back to the Canadian side. We walked back across the bridge (taking pictures of me with my papers, with the 'to Canada' signs etc etc hahaha) and waited about 10-15 minutes to be seen by the Canadian agent...
We walked in and she asked me my status and where I lived, I told her 'Canada' and that I was there flag poling to confirm my PR. She told me they weren't accepting anymore flagpoles for the day and the way she said it, we thought she was joking and we laughed. But she told us, no, sorry, that she was being serious and they shut down the line at 7.30am as they already had 60 people in line and that those 60 people were still waiting to be processed (at this time around 4pm). I asked when the line would reopen and she kind of shrugged her shoulders and said 'probably tomorrow.' She told me that its an Ontario wide thing, that they're all super busy and will close the lines down early in the day. She told me I have plenty of time left on my visa so I should "just keep trying", or book an appointment, which kind of annoyed me a little . I thanked her for the information (went outside to cry haha), grabbed a beer and decided to just enjoy our day in Niagara.
Going to try again at Sarnia next week and if I don't have any luck there, I'll wait it out for an appointment!
Please don't risk landing at Rainbow Bridge- being declined is so horribly stressful. Take a road trip elsewhere and make a day of it!