March Break at YYZ - Tips?
 

I travel a fair amount, but have succesfully avoided March Break crowds at the airport until this year. We sprung for a family cruise, we're very excited! I'm flying AC916 to Miami on Friday March 11, departs 11:30am.

Can anyone give me some tips:
- How much drive time should I expect from downtown to YYZ?
- Since I'm flying with the family, no Nexus. How bad does customs get?
- Am I entitled to use the priority security lane with my family of four?
- Any advice on when to leave downtown, taking into account traffic, parking, check-in, customs, security?

I have Elite status, hoping that will help us avoid some of the longer lines.

Thanks in advance,
Pete

4PM on Thursday? :D

You know, there's a lot of variables here. While I don't recall what it's like that day, I would say arriving at the airport 3 hours in advance would be fine. You shouldn't be more than 45 minutes from downtown. You can see about getting everyone into the lounge if you clear quickly. If your kids are teens you'll likely need to get them lounge passes.

Thanks, we'll plan to be on the road by 7:30am.

Pete

I think 07h30 is a bit early. If I had a flight at 11h30 I'd want to be sitting in the lounge about an hour ahead of that. So let's say for safety that you want to be in the lounge at 10h00.

To get to the transborder lounge at 10h00 means you did security around 09h45. This in turn means you went through Customs at 09h30. Since you're not using Nexus let's dial that back to 09h00 to get in line.

To be in line at 09h00 means you parked the car @ T1 by 08h45 (and didn't worry about check-in since you did that online last night). To be at the carpark would take me at most 45 min from downtown YYZ. So I think if you leave at 08h00 you'll be just fine. There's a reasonable amount of leeway built in to the timeline above.

How old are your kids? I find this is an inverse to the amount of time you require.

- How much drive time should I expect from downtown to YYZ? Going to the US with the family, I usually go by the boarding time. And plan to arrive 2 hours before that. We never make it by then of course, but that still leaves us time.
- Since I'm flying with the family, no Nexus. How bad does customs get? As an aside - you can get the family Nexus. Kids under a certain age (forget right now) are free. But, customs is a crap shoot. I've had 20 minute waits, 40 minute waits and even over an hour. Why I like the 2 hours buffer before boarding.
- Am I entitled to use the priority security lane with my family of four? I'm not sure what the criteria is (strollers, or just kids) but I've used the priority lane at the far left in T1 with family a few times. We have a stroller still and I find it's been much faster. We just walked over there and went right in. No need to step on the picker either.
- Any advice on when to leave downtown, taking into account traffic, parking, check-in, customs, security? Where are you parking? I find the parking rates expensive unless you're not going a full week. Even in park 'n fly. I usually take a cab. But, if it were me (I live downtown east side) assuming we're boarding at 11AM, we'd leave here at 8AM in a cab. Never missed a flight yet... But, might add a bit more for parking. Also, you could drop the wife and kids off and go park yourself. I've done that when I have a rental. Much easier. Air Canada has let my wife check-in and drop luggage off (flying back to Canada) while I drop the car off. Works nicely.

I'm flying out Monday morning - by myself for business - never even thought about the March break crowds.

This is where everybody underestimates. I've missed flights (pre-NEXUS) because it took more than an hour to clear just the T1 customs line. It may take 10 minutes, it may take 70. You just don't know until you show up, so you need to plan for the worst.

Furthermore, if you're traveling with family instead of on business you don't have the same flexibility to react to situations. I behave very differently with my family on vacation vs. running to catch a business flight after client meetings with just a carry-on bag.

Since the opportunity cost of leaving home a bit early is not very high, the OP would be well-advised to build in a lot of spare time. Better to breeze through everything and laugh at making it to the lounge two hours early than to try to rush a family of four through security while the gate agent is making last call.

A bit more background to answer some of your questions.

Kids age: 5 & 7 years old

Why park: We're actually from Milton, but will be downtown that night so that my wife can attend an awards banquet at the Intercontinental. So we'll have the car already, and I prefer to park at the Value Garage than to wait for a shuttle, fight crowds for a beat up taxi, deal with booster seats, etc.

(on a side note, even for business travel on my own I park at the airport now, I've been in too many towncars that feel like they're about to fall apart and am generally uncomfortable with the poor service provided by all of the airport car/taxi services I've tried)

Also, we'll be checking four bags so will have to deal with either the web dropoff line (usually long) or the elite check-in (usually better).

My POV exactly. Far rather have extra time in the MLL with minimum stress getting there especially travelling at one of the busiest times of the year. You do not wanting to risk missing the 'cruise sail away party'. :cool:

Have been on cruises where passengers missed the embarkation for one reason or another and heard them recount tales of woe trying to catch up at the next port and reconnecting with checked luggage.

IMHO, arrive at the airport as early as reasonably possible for this type of family vacation.

Hope you have a great cruise!

Not really. :) My timeline gives the OP + family 1.5 hours to get from beginning of customs to the lounge and still have 1h before wheels up. Personally I think that's plenty of time but I acknowledge that travelling for fun with family is significantly different than travelling solo on biz.

Agree with the "leave extra early" advice. Hell, I do it for my personal trips when I travel solo, much less with a family in tow!

You never know what can happen on the way to the airport. Car accident blocking traffic, little Jimmy's passport got misplaced and you have to tear the house apart looking for it, backups at security/customs...

Plus it's vacation time! Everyone will be excited and get up early anyway. I've shown up at the airport at 10AM for a 1PM flight because I was so excited I couldn't sit at home anymore.

It's funny how frequent fliers like us still get excited about going somewhere. :) I guess that's why we're all here on FT though. :D

Like I said - I find a lot of the time goes before you even get in the car. I tell my wife the time we want to leave. Then, it's always a mad scramble - no matter how well ahead we are, packing lists marked off, luggage ready to go, there's a rush. We have a 2 year old and a 4 year old - that kind of explains it.