Rainbow Bridge landing hell

[figtoria]

Hi,

We took my 12 year old step-son to land last night. We started the evening by entering the US and having dinner and doing a bit of shopping. We had a very nice time. Just before 9pm we headed back into Canada at the Rainbow Bridge. The line was pretty long and it took about 20 minutes to get to the window. The officer directed us to the parking area and we went inside. The first person at the desk took our paperwork and told us to sit down. There were a lot of people there, but I had read before that "landing" people get handled differently than people stopped at the border for various other reasons.


But 2.5 hours later we were still sitting there! People who had arrived AFTER us were being called up. My husband went and asked how much longer it would be and they said there were 6 groups ahead of us and the first one had arrived 2 hours before us!! That would have meant waiting another 2 hours at least! We couldn't help but notice that the officers were moving around SO slowly and chatting to each other the whole time. They looked like they were in slow motion!! That's part of what was so frustrating, they just didn't seem to care at all how much they were inconveniencing other people, just meandered along at their own pace.

By 11:30pm our child was exhausted and we were all getting cranky so we asked could we just take our paperwork and land another time. They said "yes" and mentioned OFFHANDEDLY that Lewiston had no wait right now.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wish they had mentioned that at ANY time in the previous 2.5 hours!!

So we made the decision to drive back into the US and drive the 15 minutes to cross over at Lewiston. There was another wait to get through the border, but it was only about 10 minutes and then the guard directed us inside. We were the only people there. The border officers were SO nice and understanding and realized that it was a big deal for the 12 year old and were very kind to us all. They commiserated about the crazy wait times at the Rainbow Bridge and were very helpful and sympathetic. They confirmed his paperwork, his dad initialed and signed everything and they welcomed our son to Canada. We were in and out of there within literally 10 minutes. By then it was just after midnight.

Two BIG thumbs up for the Queenston/Lewiston bridge group and two huge thumbs down for the complete disregard from the Rainbow Bridge people.

At least we are done.

That's two PR's I've participated in; one inland(husband) and one outland(step-son) and I am SO glad to be done with the whole thing!!

Best of luck to everyone else!!

 

[DuberBlue]

Rainbow bridge probably accounts for 90% of my crossings in the last 5 years. It's very hit or miss...sometimes I will go through in 5 minutes, sometimes we will be stuck on the bridge (backed up to the US side, even) for over an hour. My wife actually landed there in 2013 and we had virtually no wait issues whatsoever. The office was relatively empty at that point.

All I can surmise is that because it's at a tourist hotbed they may see in increase in people, who shouldn't be there, trying to sneak under the radar with the rest of the tourists, so that probably puts a strain on their resources.

 

[Ontariobat]

Wow that's terrible. I went through Lewiston at rush hour and it took about 45 minutes because there were other people there. Very friendly to deal with. I have to think that a lot of paperwork and processing gets done behind the scenes as it really doesn't look like the officers are doing much at the desks.