Road To Canada Forums

Hi, been a member of ths forum forever it seems, but first post lol

I am English, hubby dual UK/Canadian, I have my visa and am planning on activating it next week. The problem is how to go about it lol
We will be flying into Detroit and staying there with friends as I only got my passport back end of Jan and visa expires Feb 18th which left me no time to arrange things properly. We were planning a visit to Detroit later this year anyhow so just brought it forward.

We were planning on using the tunnel to do the landing as I see they have a tunnel bus and we won't have a car. Now our US friends say they want to drive us..... but they have not got passports or enhanced licences so would not actually be able to enter Canada I assume. Is there any way for them to take us? or is our original plan of them dropping us at the tunnel bus station and waiting for us to go through, activate visa and come back on the next bus the only way to do it? They seem to think there is gonna be some way to turn around at the booths and come back? but surely they will run into the same problems re lack of travel documents either way?

Help on this would be appreciated as obviously it would be better for us to do this in a private vehicle than holding up any poor commuters while I *land* using the tunnel bus lol, but I need to be able to tell them definitively why they can or can not take us in their car lol. I would hate for them to get into trouble on my account.

Thanks in advance
Sara

If your friends don't have proper travel documents to enter Canada, then I suggest they don't accompany you when you land, because it will just cause more hassles for you.

Ditto.

Of course they can indeed approach the PIL on the Canadian side, have to go inside, then be turned around to return to the States . . . where, without passports or Enhanced Identification, and having been just turned back, they will very likely go through a fairly inconvenient interview and identification checking process on the States' side . . . it could indeed be an unpleasant one. In the meantime their presence could indeed (though it shouldn't) incite concerns about your landing, cause you a bit of inconvenience as well.

BTW, I would not volunteer that you plan to immediately leave Canada. You can, of course, but there is no reason to say so and you need an address in Canada at the time you land, so you confirm that (or change it if it is not the same as listed on your CoPR) anyway . . . what you do after you land, after you have left the Border station, is your personal business, including if you decide to promptly return to the States.

Enjoy!

Thanks guys, I figured as much.
They will have more trouble trying to reenter the US than it is worth lol.
I will persuade them to drop us at the bus stop and pick us up again later.
Thanks again
Sara