OT question for my friends up north

[1000th happy haunt]

Next weekend my husband and I are flying with friends to visit Niagara Falls. We're flying into Buffalo and renting a car.

Our return flight leaves Buffalo airport 11:00 am on Monday, July 24th. What time do you think we need to leave our hotel on the Canadian side to get to the airport. Please take into consideration the time it takes to drive from Niagara Falls to Buffalo, and the time it will take to get through customs. I don't know if this speeds up the process, but we all have passports.

I'm thinking we need to leave the hotel about 7:00 am, but maybe someone here can provide better insight into the process.

 

[tone.def]

Well, the drive itself with no problems at customs from Niagara Falls to Buffalo airport is roughly 20-30 minutes.

Customs is hard to predict, I've personally never had to wait more than 15 minutes in line to get over to the States, but saying that, it might be just your luck it takes an hour!

Leaving around 8 a.m. is a very safe bet. The Buffalo airport takes about 10 minutes to go through.

 

[sean-1966]

7 am you're probably good. The border is very unpredictable though.

 

[Donald - my hero]

7 am you're probably good. The border is very unpredictable though.

NO kidding. We were in Niagara - on- the -Lake this weekend and we sat on the bridge 1.5 hours in the heat going into the States . Coming back into Canada took us about 30 minutes cause we waited a long time on the other side before we even attempted to come back. Main reason we went over, hubby loves Chicken & Dumplin from Crackle Barrel and I need to check out the Park & fly hotels.

 

[1000th happy haunt]

I'm going to shoot for leaving the hotel about 7:00 am. It will be a bit tough getting our friends up and running at that hour, but maybe we can try and catch breakfast at the airport. I'll let them know what you said about the border being unpredictable.

Thanks for your help.

 

[1000th happy haunt]

We made it to the airport with ample time. We left our hotel about 7:15 and headed directly to the border crossing. We had to wait there about 15 minutes, and while we were waiting the line behind us grew and grew (Rainbow Bridge).

I told everyone we would eat after crossing the border. They all agreed it was a good plan, especially when they saw the line growing. We ended up having breakfast at a Denny's in Niagara Falls on the US side.