Getting to Windsor for a Couple Hours (Detroit, Wyandotte: sales, how much)

[TheseGoTo11]

Going to be in Detroit this summer, and wanted to spend 2-3 hours in Windsor. Will have my passport, but how much time will I need to cross the border and is it better to take a scheduled bus or just drive myself?

[scorpio516]

Depends on the time of day and where your coming from.
From downtown at 7 pm, you should be able to park in Windsor in 15 minutes.

[usroute10]

Originally Posted by TheseGoTo11

Going to be in Detroit this summer, and wanted to spend 2-3 hours in Windsor. Will have my passport, but how much time will I need to cross the border and is it better to take a scheduled bus or just drive myself?

Crossing the Border
-Don't carry a firearm or any narcotics. Every once in a while, the CA or US agents will make you pull over and have your car searched.

-The only time the tunnel gets backed up is during a major concert or, an MLB baseball/NFL football game, and often during work commute hours (7-9 am and 4-6 pm).

-I would take the tunnel, not the Ambassador Bridge to get to Windsor

-Windsor is not a great tourist attraction city. Maybe the most unique attraction was tasting tours of the historic Canadian Club Whiskey manufacturing facility, but those were discontinued 2 years ago

Things to do
-Windsor has an awesome downtown/near downtown waterfront park and bike path

-Windsor has a strip of Middle Eastern restaurants, and bakeries and markets on West Wyandotte Street about 1/2 mile west of downtown.

-Windsor has a charming Little Italy district on Erie Street. More info here: VIA ITALIA

-Windsor has their own variant of pizza that is quite delicious. Popular pizza places include Cheez Whiz, Capri's, Armando's, Antonino's, and Arcata's. Cheez Whiz and Capri's are in/adjacent to downtown

-Windsor has a large vibrant neighborhood called Walkerville. It has 2 hip, walkable strips about 3/4 mile apart on West Wyandotte and Ottawa Streets. The residential neighborhood between the two strips is beautiful.

LASTLY
-If you want to visit some of the outlying areas I mentioned above, I would recommend just driving, especially if you have people with you. If it is just you and want to just walk around downtown, then the tunnel bus is fine and runs every 1/2 hour. If you want Canadian cuisine, Frenchy's Poutinery in downtown can fulfull your poutine desires.

[Coldjensens]

Radio stations often tell you how long the wait is at each crossing point. I think there is an APP to.

Coming back watch out for the short gut in US customs. He is mad at the world and out for revenge for being born. We have never been anything but nice to him, but he always gives us (and everyone I know) a hard time. I think maybe he is mad about being short. If you get stuck with him, try scrunching down in your car seat so you look like you are about 5'4" I am curious to see whether that will help, Please let me know if this works.

[Coldjensens]

Also Amhurstburgh is a cute little town with a neat pub or two, an old fort you can tour, a cool new ice cream store. . . it is about 30 minutes downriver from Windsor. definitely a park and walk kind of place, but you will see the whole place in an hour or so.

[snoopygirlmi]

Brush up on Canadian holidays b/c things you may want to see or do may be impacted by holiday events. It's really annoying when you try to go to a bank or go shopping and things are closed because you had no idea that the Canadians were having a holiday. (This happened to me on a short trip to Canada in 2000. Had no idea there was a holiday scheduled because the holiday isn't celebrated in America! Now, I make sure to know if there's a Canadian holiday on the calendar near the time I want to travel!) I'm not saying stay away if there's a holiday, but just know that can impact your plans if you don't think about it ahead of time.

Whenever we go, it's about a 20-30 minute wait to get to Canada and anywhere between 30 minutes and 2 hours to get back to the US. It's usually longer to get back to the US. A lot will depend on the time, whether there's a game downtown (or another large event), traffic in general, and whether it's a holiday weekend (either here or in Canada).

The qualifier for all of this is that we rarely take the tunnel, so the timing on the tunnel may be a bit different.

Hope you have a great trip!

[Monty870]

^ The wait times you mentioned are abnormally high. I cross frequently and have never had more than a 15 minute wait in either direction even during high traffic times.

The holidays in Canada from May to October are Victoria Day (2nd last Monday in May), Canada Day (July 1st), Civic Holiday (1st Monday in August), Labour Day (same as US), and Thanksgiving Day (2nd Monday in October).

usroute10 provided a good synopsis of Windsor in the above post...the only thing is that the Middle Eastern district is along Wyandotte St East (not West) and Walkerville is also along Wyandotte St East (not West).

[canudigit]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

Radio stations often tell you how long the wait is at each crossing point. I think there is an APP to.

Coming back watch out for the short gut in US customs. He is mad at the world and out for revenge for being born. We have never been anything but nice to him, but he always gives us (and everyone I know) a hard time. I think maybe he is mad about being short. If you get stuck with him, try scrunching down in your car seat so you look like you are about 5'4" I am curious to see whether that will help, Please let me know if this works.

Oh, my gosh, I think I know the guy you're talking about. He was our checkpoint guy coming back into the U.S. after spending a day at Point Pelee National Park a few years ago. I had nothing questionable in my car, it was me and my young adult daughter, very average looking, nothing remotely extreme, and I was driving one of the most common sedans driven by residents of Southeast Michigan, a Ford Fusion.

When it was our turn at the checkpoint, this guy glared at me, asked why we had been in Canada, and then acted like he didn't believe that we spent the day at the park. He then proceeded to stare suspiciously at my car. He asked me in a gruff tone if I owned it and if so, when and where I bought it. I was kind of taken aback, I wasn't driving a Duesenberg, mind you, just a four year old Ford Fusion. I gave him the information he wanted and then he wanted to know if I had the sales paperwork with me..??? Seriously, I have never seen anything like this at the border before or since. Weird. He passed me through but he was absolutely hateful the whole time. I seriously cannot tell you how ordinary and even conservative we look, I don't know what I did to tick him off but I'm thinking he's just angry at the world and therefore takes it out on benign people like middle-aged moms at the border.

[mgkeith]

Sorry to see that there is such a bully (or weirdo) at the border. He asked for the sales paperwork for the car?? Very odd.

[xz2y]

Originally Posted by mgkeith

Sorry to see that there is such a bully (or weirdo) at the border. He asked for the sales paperwork for the car?? Very odd.

The only thing I can think of is maybe there was a car with a similar description that was stolen? Ford Fusion is very common. I can't think of any other reason this guy was such a jerk other than he gets kicks out of bullying US citizens coming back to the US. Glad you weren't detained! Who the heck carries the sales paperwork in their car from years ago, or at any time? Crazy!