How was your U.S customs experience?

[Max Jolicoeur]

Hi all!

We'll be travelling real soon to Orlando (MCO) for the 50th and will be going through customs at Pearson Airport (flying with Air Canada). We have a 3h layover, so hopefully that will leave us enough time to get to our gate.

This will be our first time travelling since Feb 2020, so of course everything will be different.

Should I be worried about going through customs? Will they be asking more questions than they did prior to the pandemic? Will they let us through even though it's a leisure trip (not to see family or friends)?

I know that Canadians are allowed to fly to the U.S, but my head is trying to plan around all the worst case scenarios lol.

Thanks for all your help, this forum has been SUPER helpful!

 

[ellbell]

Hi all!

We'll be travelling real soon to Orlando (MCO) for the 50th and will be going through customs at Pearson Airport (flying with Air Canada). We have a 3h layover, so hopefully that will leave us enough time to get to our gate.

This will be our first time travelling since Feb 2020, so of course everything will be different.

Should I be worried about going through customs? Will they be asking more questions than they did prior to the pandemic? Will they let us through even though it's a leisure trip (not to see family or friends)?

I know that Canadians are allowed to fly to the U.S, but my head is trying to plan around all the worst case scenarios lol.

Thanks for all your help, this forum has been SUPER helpful!

I flew out of Pearson on August 27 on a 10 am flight. From the time we got dropped off to the time we were sitting at our gate was 3 hours and 25 minutes. The majority of that was customs. It was a zoo and the lines were long. I'm very glad we opted to arrive early.

 

[MaMudduck]

I flew out of Pearson on August 27 on a 10 am flight. From the time we got dropped off to the time we were sitting at our gate was 3 hours and 25 minutes. The majority of that was customs. It was a zoo and the lines were long. I'm very glad we opted to arrive early.

Oh wow...now I remember why I fly out of Buffalo (in regular times). Im going in Nov. through Pearson, I was allowing 3 hrs but I was also hoping to do my Antigen test at the airport in that time frame...I may need to rethink this AGAIN.

 

[ellbell]

Oh wow...now I remember why I fly out of Buffalo (in regular times). Im going in Nov. through Pearson, I was allowing 3 hrs but I was also hoping to do my Antigen test at the airport in that time frame...I may need to rethink this AGAIN.

I usually fly out of Buffalo as well and hate pearson for reasons like this. This is the worst it's been in a long time though. I am flying to Orlando from there again next and week I'm dreading it

 

[MaMudduck]

I usually fly out of Buffalo as well and hate pearson for reasons like this. This is the worst it's been in a long time though. I am flying to Orlando from there again next and week I'm dreading it

please let us know how it is this time.

 

[CanucksRock]

I have flown to WDW twice during the pandemic and had zero issues. It was no different than before. It was the coming back that was the pain

 

[Baldy]

We flew out of Pearson on Aug 23. It took us 3 hours to get to the departure gate despite having no checked luggage and having done online check-in. We arrived at 7:10am for a 12:00 flight. We had no issues, but the lines were long and slow.

 

[Chickinvic]

I usually fly out of Buffalo as well and hate pearson for reasons like this. This is the worst it's been in a long time though. I am flying to Orlando from there again next and week I'm dreading it

Pearson is my least favourite airport of any major airport I've been to.

 

[ellbell]

Pearson is my least favourite airport of any major airport I've been to.

Agreed

 

[BlancheNeige7]

Flew out in August. Took a while to get through since they only had 2 agents working. Two questions were asked.Where are you going? What will you be doing there?

 

[KNovacovschi]

The length to get through is my concern as well. Our flight is at 10:15am tomorrow and we booked parking for 6:20am based on reading others experiences. We use Nexus so hoping that helps a little as well. We always fly out of Buffalo, except now of course, and I have never flown out of Pearson before but my husband has but to Europe not the US. This is my biggest stressor, I don’t want to miss our flight.

 

[ellbell]

The length to get through is my concern as well. Our flight is at 10:15am tomorrow and we booked parking for 6:20am based on reading others experiences. We use Nexus so hoping that helps a little as well. We always fly out of Buffalo, except now of course, and I have never flown out of Pearson before but my husband has but to Europe not the US. This is my biggest stressor, I don’t want to miss our flight.

If it makes you feel better they delayed my flight because people were still going through customs

 

[pigletto]

Pearson is my least favourite airport of any major airport I've been to.

I don’t like Atlanta much either . Making a connection there was tough depending on where you were coming from . But I agree Pearson is intimidating just from how large it is , and always feels overly complicated.

 

[spewey]

Here are three (very different) recent experiences, all flying out of YYZ to the US since they removed the quarantine requirement for fully vaxxed:

- July 29 my wife and DD out of Terminal 1 on AC to Nashville, 11:30AM flight. Got there by 8:30, quieter than usual, at gate by 9:30. Return flight held on plane for about 30 minutes - not bad, but remember this is before border was re-opened to Americans.

- August 28th I flew Delta from T3 to Detroit (one way, as my wife and DD are dual, they drove down and picked me up and we made our way south). They dropped me at the doors to T3 at 9:08AM for a 12:11PM flight. I was AT THE GATE by 9:22. That's not a typo - it took 14 minutes to check in at the kiosk, show test results (no baggage), go through security, and walk through a completely empty customs hall, where the officer asked maybe one semi-bored question about my reason for travel. No return flight, so no info to share there (I can say the land crossing at the Peace Bridge took less than a minute).

- September 3 a co-worker flew AC out of T1 on a 1PM to Las Vegas. He reports it was a nightmare. Arrived a little after 10AM, and got on the plane about 1:20PM - yes, it was held, which seems to happen quite a bit nowadays, until the passengers were able to get through customs. He said check-in and security were a breeze, but the customs was insane, with hundreds of people waiting and only two officers on duty. People in line were yelling for attention, saying they were going to miss their flights, and he says the couple behind him in line did end up not making their departure to Chicago. On the return his plane sat on the tarmac for about an hour, and it took another two to get out of the airport.

Unfortunately, the last experience seems more common than mine in August. I might have gotten lucky as I flew out of T3. I do hope things get sorted soon as my wife/DD are going back down to Nashville in just a few weeks over our Thanksgiving weekend - although that's Westjet in T3, so maybe not so bad.

 

[KNovacovschi]

If it makes you feel better they delayed my flight because people were still going through customs

Ok thank you

 

[Max Jolicoeur]

Here are three (very different) recent experiences, all flying out of YYZ to the US since they removed the quarantine requirement for fully vaxxed:

- July 29 my wife and DD out of Terminal 1 on AC to Nashville, 11:30AM flight. Got there by 8:30, quieter than usual, at gate by 9:30. Return flight held on plane for about 30 minutes - not bad, but remember this is before border was re-opened to Americans.

- August 28th I flew Delta from T3 to Detroit (one way, as my wife and DD are dual, they drove down and picked me up and we made our way south). They dropped me at the doors to T3 at 9:08AM for a 12:11PM flight. I was AT THE GATE by 9:22. That's not a typo - it took 14 minutes to check in at the kiosk, show test results (no baggage), go through security, and walk through a completely empty customs hall, where the officer asked maybe one semi-bored question about my reason for travel. No return flight, so no info to share there (I can say the land crossing at the Peace Bridge took less than a minute).

- September 3 a co-worker flew AC out of T1 on a 1PM to Las Vegas. He reports it was a nightmare. Arrived a little after 10AM, and got on the plane about 1:20PM - yes, it was held, which seems to happen quite a bit nowadays, until the passengers were able to get through customs. He said check-in and security were a breeze, but the customs was insane, with hundreds of people waiting and only two officers on duty. People in line were yelling for attention, saying they were going to miss their flights, and he says the couple behind him in line did end up not making their departure to Chicago. On the return his plane sat on the tarmac for about an hour, and it took another two to get out of the airport.

Unfortunately, the last experience seems more common than mine in August. I might have gotten lucky as I flew out of T3. I do hope things get sorted soon as my wife/DD are going back down to Nashville in just a few weeks over our Thanksgiving weekend - although that's Westjet in T3, so maybe not so bad.

Thank you so much for sharing! We're leaving on a Wednesday morning and have a 3 hour layover in YYZ. Hopefully customs won't be too busy at 8 am...

 

[HappilyEverAfter80]

We flew out of Pearson on Aug 17 to Los Angeles to go to Disneyland.
We arrived at the airport about 3 hrs 15 min prior to our flight which was about 5pm. I don’t know if it’s because we were later in the day or just got lucky, but we were through customs, luggage drop off etc in less than 40 min. Really there were no lines. The US customs agent just asked where are we going, I said Disneyland and he didn’t even bat an eye. Well said to us DS12 passport will be expiring mid September, better get on renewing that when we return. Oh and he asked how much $ we had on us.
We ended up going to a restaurant near the gate and still had to wait for an hour before boarding started.
Coming back same thing, no issues and very quick. Having said all that, I would still arrive full 3 hrs ahead of time, maybe just over 3. You might just beat the rush.Overall I don’t like flying out of Pearson either, but it was the only choice right now.
Have fun in WDW! We hope to go in December.

 

[KNovacovschi]

So our experience this morning was good. We parked at 6am and were at our gate by 7:17am. We had a couple hiccups on our end so in total it really only took us about 25 mins to clear security and customs. We are nexus holders and because of flight changes I made I had to go to a passport control person so we bypassed the regular nexus line. All in all it was a good experience and now wait until 9:35am to board.

The regular security line was pretty long but seemed to move quick, wasn’t able to see the customs one though.

 

[LuvMyEAR]

Wishing you all the best at Pearson. WJ had cancelled our late Nov non-stop flight and rebooked us through that airport. That layover was the only silver lining I could find when I had to cancel our whole trip. It is all but impossible to make the connecting flight in 1.5 hr. Glad you have more time!

 

[CanucksRock]

I'll report back how it goes for me when I go thru Toronto this time around. I might have different experience than some as I'm flying on a Sunday... going my flight arrives at 5:41am so I'll be going thru customs pretty early. (Just over 2 hour layover, I do have Nexus) I hate red eyes. But had no choice. My last time flying to MCO I had to do red eye too - I can't wait to have my direct flight back.