The border..

[dancin Disney style]

As for bridges...I have crossed over at the Rainbow bridge 3x since March and have not had to wait more than 5min. I don't know if it is b/c people want to avoid going right into Niagara Falls or if it is fear b/c of the construction but it has not been busy when I've crossed at all lately!!!

My theory on the Rainbow bridge is that there is very little space for the cars to back up so there have to keep it moving as fast as possible. We cross there a lot and have never waited more than 10 minutes. Often we find that there are only about 3-4 cars ahead of us.

Coming back is a little different but we did learn, the hard way, to stay over to the right. The buses must use the far left lane to cross and that lane is very short from the inspection area back to the bridge. So the buses end up on the bridge and they are very slow to get through.

 

[CanadianPaco]

Well, I have Nexus and even to get to that lane can take ages some times!

We have it too but it's never 2 hrs. Nexus is a dream!

 

[Disney Ontario]

Took a trip shopping n Buffalo yesterday, we ALWAYS use the Rainbow Bridge, a 45 min wait to come back and when we got up to customs, we told him everything and he said, yous are under $300.00 for the 3 of us, go on. DH was over $100. himself.WOW. We even picked up a vaccum and life jacket at Walmart.

 

[Alderbrook]

Took a trip shopping n Buffalo yesterday, we ALWAYS use the Rainbow Bridge, a 45 min wait to come back and when we got up to customs, we told him everything and he said, yous are under $300.00 for the 3 of us, go on. DH was over $100. himself.WOW. We even picked up a vaccum and life jacket at Walmart.

How long was your wait to go over? We've never waited more than 20 mins on a weekend.

 

[Disney Ontario]

Could of been 10 min, but coming back over home I looked over and only a couple cars going through.
My girls want to go overnight to port Huron maybe a Tuesday - Wednesday, is there a best time of day to go with a little wait?

 

[homebug]

Thanks for the twitter info - I can't believe the government is on the twitter bandwagon! Cool!

We always cross at Port Huron - we have had long-ish waits but never more than 30-45 minutes lately. Usually less than 20 minutes.

However, my co-worker had a client that was crossing there to catch a flight at Detroit. Unfortunately, she had recently had a bone scan done with the radioactive dye and set off the sensors at the US Border. There were 5 of them travelling and their daughter was driving them to Detroit. They said it felt like the US Customs officer was purposely delaying them and they missed their flight - it cost them over $2000 for the 5 of them to get on another flight. I always advise my clients to go the night before - I always go the night before. SO many things can go wrong on the way to the airport, I would rather have 12 extra hours to get there.

I can't believe the previous poster didn't get any hassle from Canadian Customs when they came back with $300 - did you stay over night? We've been over a few time in the past month - admittely, 3 weeks in a row - but each time we've come back they've been really snarky with us about how much we've spent. Last time they asked if we knew how much we were allowed after an afternoon. I replied "Nothing" and then he said we were pushing it with bringing back $300 of merchandise. I told him to send me in to pay then - I don't think he expected me to say that! Needless to say, he didn't because the majority was non-taxable food products. I was just annoyed with the attitude - either send me in or stop lecturing me!!

 

[minnie56]

I haven't been sent in to pay taxes at all of late thankfully (now I have said that..... ) and when we go over--we spend approx $500-$600 between 3 of us!

Came back this morning...was in Fla for 4 days and spent $700 and there was no issue. They are always more concerned it seems with what Duty free did we buy!

 

[dancin Disney style]

I agree...it's always the duty free. Last time we were over for the weekend we did bring back a case of beer that we bought in the grocery store. When we crossed back we told the guy we had a case of beer and he said 'only one?'. Which was all we had and he let us go but we were well under the exemption limit anyway.

 

[angela1044]

We crossed at Fort Erie around 6 pm on Sunday and it took about 30 minutes. The signs said it was 30-60 minutes.

We have found Fort Erie to be the best but we are considering getting Nexus passes the next time we need to renew our passports.