Almost 18 months after getting our Canadian visas, we finally made that first trip to Canada, landing in Toronto last week!
We had booked round trip tickets using our United miles, to experience the only daily scheduled international flight from Kansas City; via Air Canada, which is part of the same alliance.
The flights is a small 50 seat Regional Jet, but the journey was relatively smooth. After landing at the Toronto airport, we picked up our rental car, and made our way to the airport Best western hotel where we were to spent the night before our southbound journey to Niagara falls.
Konzelmann Estate Winery
View from Konzelmann Estate Winery
We started off relatively early in the day, as we wanted to stop by a quaint little town called Niagara-on-the-lake, which is famous for it's many wineries, and on the way from Toronto to Niagara Falls, ON. The drive takes about an hour and half, plus add time for traffic depending on the time and season. The Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) is the major route from Toronto. There is also a faster route (407 ETR) however there is no way to manually pay the toll, and the rental companies may charge a much larger administrative fee, than the actual toll.
The falls lit up
From Skylon tower, the dam can
seen behind the falls
After reaching Niagara-on-the-lake we made our stop at the Konzelmann Estate Winery, where we did a guided tour of the estate and winery while learning about the history of the family, taking in the beautiful view of the vineyard. We finished the tour off with a structured tasting of four of their famous wines, including an ice wine, which is unique to this part of the word.
We reached Niagara falls late afternoon that day and checked in to our bed & breakfast. Evening, we went for a stroll to the falls, to get our first glimpse.
View from lower deck of
Journey behind the falls
For the next day, we had booked a tour with See sight tours, a local tour operator. Our excursion started early, with our driver and tour guide for the day, John, picking us up at our B&B at 8:30 am sharp. We then went on to pickup another family of 4, before starting off the day with a ride up the Skylon tower. The Skylon Tower is one of the top attractions in Niagara Falls and a must for those who want to see a bird’s eye view of the City and the surrounding area. The glass elevator ride up takes you to an 360 degree observatory where you can get some of the best views of the falls, and on a clear day, as it was when we visited, we could see far as the Toronto & Buffalo skylines on either side of the falls.
American Falls from Hornblower
Literally behind the falls
Our next stop was the bride/dam above the falls. It was built both by Canadians and Americans in 1954 for two reasons. It was built to hold back some of the water going over the Canadian Falls and force more water from the upper river to the American Rapids and over the American Falls and also to divert water from the upper river into intakes for Canadian and American power plants.
Horseshoe fall from Hornblower
Behind the falls
After this we were driven to the visitors area which underneath which is the entrance to the Journey behind the falls. This offers an unique view of the Falls from below and behind. Visitors descend 150 ft. by elevator, where a short tunnel (150 ft.) gives access to two outdoor observation decks and two portals located directly behind the Falls. Elevators descend 150 feet through bedrock to tunnels that lead and to the Cataract Portal and the Great Falls Portal which is one third of the way behind the massive sheet of water. Then you walk on to the Upper and Lower Observation Decks at the very foot of the Falls.
Floral clock in Niagara Parks
Our next attraction was the Hornblower cruise. This cruise takes you as close as possible to the thundering roar, awesome power and amazing mist of the mighty Falls!
We rounded off the trip with a visit to the Floral clock and buttery conservatory in the Niagara falls park area.
Next day, we drove back to Toronto to spend the rest of our week, but not before driving past the amazing Niagara falls for one last time.
View from the CN Tower
While in Toronto, we did an evening cruise of the harbor and a trip up the CN tower, where you can see some awesome 360 degree views of the city from a bird's eye perspective.
This brought to an end an excellent week in the Ontario region of Canada, and I hope we get to explore some of the other parts of this amazing and vast country in the coming years.
I recently applied and got a multiple-entry 10 year tourist VISA to Canada and below is my experience through the entire process.
The document submission process is almost entirely online and can be done by creating an account on their website.
The Canada Tourist VISA
However, before you create an account, you need to check your eligibility for an online application, and get a unique confirmation code that you will need, when creating the application. Please note, the maximum validity of the VISA can only be until the passport expiry date. Once you get the key and create the account you can start filing out the form based off the application.
The list of documents I submitted online are as follows: 1) Current Passport Scan 2) Application for Visitor Visa
3) Invitation letter from my friend with his passport and Canadian PR card scans.
4) Proof of Means of Financial Support (Bank statements, pay stubs etc.)
After submitting the application, you're provided with a unique applicant ID and an application number. You can monitor the progress of the application by logging in to your CIC account. Once the processing is completed by CIC, you will find a PDF letter in your CIC account online, asking for your passport to be sent to the Canadian consulate. Now this is the tricky part, as the New York consulate website is very confusing as to what are the next steps. There's another $31.99 fee(at the time of this writing) that needs to be paid to the VAC via Money order or cashier's check. This fee needs to be sent to a lock-box in Philadelphia, PA and a copy (as a confirmation) of the money order needs to be sent to the New York VAC processing center. PS: If you're sending your Passport to the LA consulate, there's a lock-box in Salt lake city, UT that you need to send the $31.99 fee to.
Here are the documents that need to be mailed in:
A) $31.99 money order/cashier's check to the below address. (Name with pencil written on the back)
CSC Consular Services Inc
Lockbox 3352 PO Box 8500 Philadelphia, PA 19178-3352
B) 1. 2 signed copies of VAC consent form
2. Copy of the $31.99 money order/cashier's check
3. Original current India passport
4. UPS return shipping label
Above documents mailed to: Visa Application Centre – New York 290 Madison Ave, 2nd floor New York, NY 10017
Here is the entire timeline for my application process: January 18th: Online application submitted in CIC, received an application # and an applicant # In CIC: "Application Status" was "Open" and "Final Decision" was "Not Started". January 20th: Letter asking for Passport submission in CIC January 25th: Passport reached New York CSC At this point, I received another tracking # from NY CSC and the below statuses started showing on their tracking website. January 26th: Passport in Transit to the Visa Office January 27th: Passport Received by the Visa Office - Under Consideration January 28th: In CIC: "Application Status" Changed to "Closed" and "Final Decision" to "Approved". January 29th: Application Processing Completed - In Transit to the VAC February 1st: Application Processing Completed - In Transit to the Applicant from the VAC After this my UPS tracking status was updated and I received my Passport in hand with the VISA stamp about 2 days after the last status.
