Finally Landed in Toronto on 26th October 9am!! (Etihad Airways, Kolkata-AbuDhabi-Toronto)
Detailed Landing Experience for the 2 of us (My wife and I):
Packing – We had no idea how Etihad would treat us with respect to baggage weights and dimensions of the suitcases. We took out lot of stuff and made sure we are at 23kgs or at best 24kgs. Hence, we had 94kgs in total for 4 Check-in baggages instead of 92 and the Etihad guy was cool about it and we felt we could have got 2 or 3 kgs more and that should have been fine. Our Handbags were not weighed or checked. We had around 10 kgs of Laptop Bag and a small suitcase stuffed with 14 kgs.
Flight – Flight service and hospitality was great, seats were good with comfortable leg space. Food was the best, we opted for Veg Meal and it was delicious in both our flights. We were served with Paneer, Rice and Dal Makhani.
Landing – Post landing, we went to Kiosks as mentioned in other landing experiences, and its easy and good. However, do fill your declaration card given on flight, as it gives you an idea and time to discuss on what to fill and what not to. The money declaration of $10k CAD on card seems to be per family, so we said yes to it. But when it comes to Kiosks, it specifically asks, which passenger is carrying 10k. Neither of us had 10k separately to our name, so we had to say NO to the 10k CAD amount on Kiosks and explained the same to the Immigration Officer. He was happy to know that and then he just confirms about the cash I am carrying. No one is interested in your POF, don’t sweat over that. We did not prepare a single list for goods we were carrying, and neither did we prepare any Goods to Follow. We had to wait around 1 hour in the Queue before our turn came for submitting COPR. He just asked for COPR and Address and the cash being carried. SIN counters did not open until 11am, which was quite weird as it was a weekday. The officer said, they come in by 1pm, which was surprising. We were the last to leave the Airport from our flight and so our 4 bags were scattered over 3 different places, which was quite scary, as baggage getting lost or stolen thoughts come to your mind. The whole process from Kiosk to Baggage collection took less than 2 hours.
We never carried POF documents with us, as we believed that’s a thing while you are applying for PR. Once you get PR, it is not mandate to carry that amount of money with you while landing.
Don’t prepare any list of goods that you are carrying with you, unless it’s gold or any specific declaration that you want to make.
We did not carry any Good to follow list, as whenever we would get anything back from India on our next trip, it would be regular stuff.
Will go for SIN, Mobile No. and Bank account today in Brampton (staying with Friends family until we find accommodation). Thanks for reading this long post, hope it help you guys. Please message me separately if you have questions, as I might miss to see your question in between the chats.. Expect a delay in reply, as I might be out most of the day with out Internet. And yes all the planning to avoid Jet Lag is a waste of time and energy; it hits you no matter what. This post was written at 4am ET.
Utsav Jain
Detailed Landing Experience for the 2 of us (My wife and I):
Packing – We had no idea how Etihad would treat us with respect to baggage weights and dimensions of the suitcases. We took out lot of stuff and made sure we are at 23kgs or at best 24kgs. Hence, we had 94kgs in total for 4 Check-in baggages instead of 92 and the Etihad guy was cool about it and we felt we could have got 2 or 3 kgs more and that should have been fine. Our Handbags were not weighed or checked. We had around 10 kgs of Laptop Bag and a small suitcase stuffed with 14 kgs.
Flight – Flight service and hospitality was great, seats were good with comfortable leg space. Food was the best, we opted for Veg Meal and it was delicious in both our flights. We were served with Paneer, Rice and Dal Makhani.
Landing – Post landing, we went to Kiosks as mentioned in other landing experiences, and its easy and good. However, do fill your declaration card given on flight, as it gives you an idea and time to discuss on what to fill and what not to. The money declaration of $10k CAD on card seems to be per family, so we said yes to it. But when it comes to Kiosks, it specifically asks, which passenger is carrying 10k. Neither of us had 10k separately to our name, so we had to say NO to the 10k CAD amount on Kiosks and explained the same to the Immigration Officer. He was happy to know that and then he just confirms about the cash I am carrying. No one is interested in your POF, don’t sweat over that. We did not prepare a single list for goods we were carrying, and neither did we prepare any Goods to Follow. We had to wait around 1 hour in the Queue before our turn came for submitting COPR. He just asked for COPR and Address and the cash being carried. SIN counters did not open until 11am, which was quite weird as it was a weekday. The officer said, they come in by 1pm, which was surprising. We were the last to leave the Airport from our flight and so our 4 bags were scattered over 3 different places, which was quite scary, as baggage getting lost or stolen thoughts come to your mind. The whole process from Kiosk to Baggage collection took less than 2 hours.
We never carried POF documents with us, as we believed that’s a thing while you are applying for PR. Once you get PR, it is not mandate to carry that amount of money with you while landing.
Don’t prepare any list of goods that you are carrying with you, unless it’s gold or any specific declaration that you want to make.
We did not carry any Good to follow list, as whenever we would get anything back from India on our next trip, it would be regular stuff.
Will go for SIN, Mobile No. and Bank account today in Brampton (staying with Friends family until we find accommodation). Thanks for reading this long post, hope it help you guys. Please message me separately if you have questions, as I might miss to see your question in between the chats.. Expect a delay in reply, as I might be out most of the day with out Internet. And yes all the planning to avoid Jet Lag is a waste of time and energy; it hits you no matter what. This post was written at 4am ET.
Utsav Jain
