I have completed my PR landing today(July 13th, 2017) and PR now.
This forum helped me plan so thought of sharing latest information here.
After reading other members experience I targeted to complete my landing on Thursday Morning.
We started from Toronto Wed 7:30 PM reached Niagara by 9:15 PM. Stayed in lodge overnight.
Started from lodge on Thursday at 6:00 AM. Picked coffee and bagel from Clifton Hill Tim Horton. It's Hot but foggy. Falls invisible. Reached at Rainbow bridge entrance at 6:30 AM. Noticed few people already on bridge and standing there, thought they are tourist.
Went on to US side reached at 7:00 AM, US side officer was friendly checked our passport and provided with White paper.
We are back to Canadian side through same walkway by 7:15 AM and realized people whom we saw earlier were actually standing there for their landing. I have around 30 members ahead of me for PR landing. at 7:30 AM they start letting us in to check purpose after 3-4 members went in lady officer comes out and says they are not doing flagpole anymore they have received enough applications already.
We waited till our turn to see officer he said the same thing that no more flagpoling. I asked what is good time to come as I have taken day off for the purpose. He said he is not sure and doesn't guarantee if they will be able to do. It's our wish if we want come again in evening and try. He said better to go back and do inland landing.
We are done at Rainbow bridge with unsuccessful by 8:00 AM.
I knew chances were less at Rainbow so I had another plan in mind. We decided to try our luck at Peace bridge. Another family joined us. Now we are 4 adults and 3 kids. Rain started and public transport seemed unfeasible we decided to check if taxi will take us to Peace bridge as we have no car seats with us and we need to do flagpole in US and come back.
Luckily we saw a 6 seater taxi(Central Taxi) standing there. We inquired with driver he agreed to take us with condition that he will charge $10 for extra passenger and if there is wait time at US side then he will charge $20/30 mins. We were more than happy that he was ready to take us.
We started towards Fort Erie around 8:45 AM. As we were reaching to Peace bridge, it started raining heavily. We started to think did we do mistake by taking this decision in such weather with kids going to US side, what if Taxi leaves us at US side. We don't have US visa or even provision to make a call to get another taxi. Whether we will get taxi to get us from US to Canada back, all thoughts started.
I read somewhere on forum that Peace bridge has U turn available where you need not go US side and can come back to Canada but this way you don't get white paper from US side. But read earlier that somebody did landing this way. We decided to try our luck without going US side.
At 9:30 AM we crossed Canadian border took U turn and reached at Canada Custom, a lady officer greeted us. she asked from where are we coming and what is the purpose. She was kind of wondering that 2 families with kids came to do landing in a Taxi from Niagara Falls. She allowed and gave us Yellow paper.
We got sigh of relief.
Taxi dropped us to the attached building. We thanked taxi driver for his help and went to complete rest of process.
Peace bridge office welcomed us. There was not much rush.
Officer did formalities for each of family one by one and congratulated us for becoming PR.
It took us around 1 hour to complete. By 11 AM we are done with process.
When coming out met 3 other family who were sent back at from Rainbow, they went to Lewiston-Queenston Bridge and were denied for landing. They were happy to know that Peace Bridge is accepting for PR landing.
We called central taxi for our journey back to Niagara. I was surprised to see Taxi came from Niagra falls to pick us.
I rescheduled our return journey from 7:30 PM to 12:30 PM and we are back to Toronto by 3:00 PM.
Bottom line:
- If you are not in hurry and can wait for 4 weeks to do landing, better to do inland landing by taking appointment.
It takes 2 weeks to get response from Local CIC office with appointment date. You get appointment of after 1 to 2 weeks.
- Chances of successful landing at Rainbow bridge is 0.01 %, that too if you reach morning 4 AM(Tuesday to thursday only) and stand at Canada side till 8AM when they start accepting .
They don't do it night saying come in Regular hours. They don't accept applications in day time saying it's peak time and they already have lot of waiting.
- If you have a Car can can try Peace bridge or Lewiston-Queenston in night time.
- Peace bridge turned out to be better option. If getting landing done is time critical, it's worth taking risk at Peace bridge(Fort Erie).