?? about crossing border in Detroit

[caribbean]

We are looking into booking a hotel for a trip to Detroit. Never been there. I see a couple of nice places just on the other side of the river in Canada that are really good deals. How much of a problem is it to cross the boarder? Most of the things we would be doing are actually in Detroit, but was wondering if it would be worth it to stay on the other side? Anybody know???

Thanks,

 

[dioxide45]

If you will be crossing back and forth multiple times, you may arise suspicion and be questioned more thoroughly when crossing. Otherwise the crossing at the Detroit Windsor tunnel is rather simple. Windsor is a good town; we stayed at the Hilton last July, great shopping and easy to get around. Depending on how long from now you will be traveling you may need a passport to cross. Not sure when the requirements change though. They have been postponed several times.

 

[caribbean]

Hi - thanks for the input. We have passports so that is not a problem. We are going for a 3 day weekend and would be visiting places on both sides of the river so would be going back and forth. I'll think about it.

Thanks,

 

[SherryS]

Sometimes it takes a while and there's LOTS of waiting to cross the border there. You might need some patience!!

 

[hibbeln]

It's hard to say. Sometimes car traffic is 15 minutes each way. Sometimes longer.....up to an hour or even more. Weekends would have lighter traffic in general than weekdays.
They do punch your plates in and track you, so they will be very aware that you are going back and forth and back and forth repeatedly. Whether that will raise their suspicion.....?! Interestingly enough, we have had the most problems crossing the border when travelling with a friend that is of Asian descent (though she's only 1/2 Chinese). We get questioned heavily each time and they want to hear her speak.....apparently there is a lot of smuggling of illegal immigrants from Canada to the USA across this border and they tend to be Asians????! So depending on what profile they are looking for, you might trigger questions each time, or might be waved through quickly. It's so hard to say. I would tend to think you will be fine, but.....

Here is a link to the government Border Wait Times listing. It's up to date. You might want to track it and see what it is like at the 2 Detroit border crossings on weekends. There is a lot of construction around the Ambassador Bridge right now, which would make it hard for you to navigate (and the neighborhoods surrounding that area you don't want to get lost in). The Windsor Tunnel would be your best bet.
http://apps.cbp.gov/bwt/

 

[CaboColl]

We had tickets to the Detroit Lions vs. Chicago Bears football game on Sunday of last year.
So we decided to make a long weekend out of it, and also go to Canada for the day.

We (10 of us) drove across the border at Windsor in a rented Winnebago at about midnight on Friday. We had no problem, but we all did have to get out of the vehicle at Windsor with all of our documentation - and stand in a line for a visual inspection (it was worth a few laughs).
Three of us were about 50 years old, and were asleep when we reached Windsor - bedhead hair and all.

We returned at about 7 AM on Sunday morning. The US customs person just boarded our vehicle, looked at our documentation and walked around and said... Have a good day.

There was no problems at all and no traffic, but we did the crossing at really odd times.

Enjoy!
Colleen

 

[Sthack]

Take the Tunnel!!

Definitely take the Tunnel verses going over the Bridge as another poster recommended.

If i'm not mistaken, there are people who travel daily back and forth because they either live or work in Detroit and live or work in Canada. So I don't think it would be a big problem for a few days, especially since you have passports.

 

[caribbean]

Thanks for the input. We have just about decided to stay in downtown Detroit and use the People Mover to get around. Probably just more convenient. The we can go over to Canada for the one thing we want to do over there.