Our landing experience!
Yesterday, finally we had landed at Toronto Pearson airport.
Lets start with few words about airline. Against the advises of all friends, we had chosen Egypt Air to travel due to cost (5 passengers US$4,100/- return). There were various opinions about Egypt Air; not good air line as per safety view, no good staff, no good handling during flight (one had told that there's always water shortage during flight etc.). However, we have a pleasant experience, new 777-300 ER planes from Dubai to Cairo (3hrs) and then Cairo to Toronto (11hr flight). They accepted 2 pieces of luggage (23kg each so total of 46 kg per pax) plus 8-10kg of hand bag incl children allowance. So as a family of 5 we carried 6 hand pcs. At Cairo, there was 8 hrs stay so Egypt Air provided a 4* star hotel (free visa on arrival) and hotel pick & drop along with good dinner; all inclusive in airline ticket with no extra charge. Ground staff insisted to take rest with great hospitality. The onboard staff was very cooperative and food, water, kids meal, juices, etc served thru all the 11 hrs duration without fail. So, over all its a pleasant experience (we thought of this as PIA of Egypt) but the service standard was as matching as UAE's Emirates! Only issue with ground staff was their English language skills, I hope that it would be improved in years to come but Egyptians are very soft & nice friendly people!
At Pearson, the process was very smooth. No need of filling PR card forms in advance. The immigration officer (a lady of hardly 24 years & Muslim) had guided to new immigration counter & there another lady (again very young) had done the paper work within 5-10 minutes (may be due to an infant with us) and completed our formalities quickly! She said, 'you will get your PR cards in 60 days!'
Another pleasant experience, was at with CBSA counter. With 9 pieces of 62" baggage and almost 8 hand carry bags on 3 trolleys, the CBSA officer while holding dual copies of B4A forms with printed lists, had asked us only about photos of jewelry that would be shipped later. We didn't had that, so he informed us that "Pl go ahead now and bring the photos later (say in next 10-11 months) and complete your customs process (means handing over the stamped form of GOODS TO FOLLOW) then." So in next 5 minutes, we were out of airport with pleasant surprise! No bag was touched by custom officer!!!!
Just out of airport, with so much baggage, we were not able to accommodated in our friend's car. Police man standing there came forward and asked a taxi driver to take all our luggage in one taxi (though as per law only limited bags are allowed) and hence just for CAD$45 he took all out stuff in one go to our friend's place close to Etobicoke! Thanks to Canada Police Officer!
As Egypt Air staff had given us good seats (helping us to get seats where no other was booked, so each took three seats to sleep peacefully), hence after keeping our luggage & kids at friend's place, we proceeded to Services Canada office and started working f or our SIN. Canadians appeared to be very friendly and hence the lady at SIN office, guided us to another lady where we completed our SIN (only passport & COPR stamped by immigration officer, is required) process. The lady also handed over printed material to get social benefits claims for kids, if we want to for which we are not interested in. So we politely refused that as of now we are not interested in any social benefits for kids.
Around 12:30 CAD time, we moved to TD bank office to open our account. TD is offering new account (maintaining CAD5,000 average balance monthly) holders with a Samsung 7" tablet, so me & my husband had opened our account in 30 minutes, our debit card, cash deposit, locker, cheque book request (will get in next 7 working days) all done during that time even we were given preference to deposit cash though there were many standing in a que! Very friendly staff and nice experience there but that time were we tired!
My husband wanted to go back home but I insisted to talk to Estate Agent to complete the flat renting process, means signing the lease/contract. Before, arrival, we had (with the help of our friend plus Internet surfing) had chosen the flat (our friend had shown us the live photos of flat thru Skype) and deposited a bank's Pay Order to book the flat. The lady over there was very friendly, with our passport & COPR copy, she has handed over the lease contract (2 bed ground floor apt in Etobicoke for CAD$ 950/- month incl of hydro) and thats it, she gave us the flat keys and walked with us towards flat to inspect if anything further is required as part of flat maintenance. That's all with keys, we have our flat on our first day in Canada! Thanks to Canadian system its very friendly, smooth, & helping to newly landed immigrants!
Again, I wanted to take a SIM card, so we visited nearby shopping mall, Wall Mart, to get Chatr SIM. Their new offer is $20 pm with Ontario wide calls/text free and we have our new phone SIM in next 15 minutes.
I hope that we had done many things on our first day, so we returned back to our friends' place. Overall, weather is too good unlike UAE. It's like Dec or Jan UAE's weather, nice cool breeze and cloudy sky; a time to sit out side in lawn and enjoy! Canada is a lovely place, lush green parks, wide roads, organized system, no humidity, and friendly people! 'Thank you' and word of 'my apology' often used!
The only thing we missed is our Roza, as it is Ramadan, but we were passengers and in Dubai it was hot summer with 50 deg centigrade and handling of luggage, kids, and transportation was little difficult with fasting. Inshallah from tomorrow onward we will start fasting as we have visited the nearby Mosque to send our two kids for Holy Quran learning's!
While moving out of Dubai's home, I had prayed to Allah that 'O Lord! please make our this journey as easy as possible -as I have 3 kids- and successful as leaving our Dubai home is a tough decision (as my husband is leaving a good lucrative VP level bank job in Dubai but ready to do any sort of job without ego, after all Rizk is given by Allah, salary or job is only a mean) because we had spend 10 years of our sweet life here in this city!' I think Allah has listen to my prayers!
I'd be happy if our landing experience might help others in any way!
;D