AnneMarieC

So thought I'd do a quick update and a shoutout to Ottawa CBSA.

We arrived yesterday in Ottawa from London - I'm sponsoring in my husband and we decided to move once we got the sponsor approval but before his PR.

First checkstop went smoothly once the chap figured out our exact scenario. He was very friendly and clear about what to do next.

Picked up the bags very quickly and then joined the queue for Immigration to get Nick's visa sorted. We were 4th in line and no-one in sight on the desks (grumble grumble) but within 5 minutes they were fully manned and we moved swiftly forward.

The gentleman who dealt with us was polite, funny, friendly, very good at explaining what to do next. He then also dealt with my customs side as a returning resident and processed the paperwork quickly (I'd already made up the forms for both accompanying and goods to follow and that seemed to help alot as there was no faffing around). He even interacted with my slightly grumpy overtired toddler - mega points there

And THEN to seal our already positive experience, he saw that we were going to struggle with the two trolleys of luggage and the stroller and actually came with us and pushed one trolley out into the terminal. What a superstar!! (I'd already sussed a methodology of pushing the trolley with the buggy in a very comedic manner but was very grateful not to have to demonstrate it hehe).

I have nothing but positive things to say about CBSA Ottawa from our experience - hopefully it will be as lovely when we do Nick's official landing once his copr comes through.

Hats off to ya

wolstie

Glad to hear it went well. When it comes to landing as a PR, if you do it at a land crossing near Ottawa, do Cornwall rather than Prescott. They're much more friendlier.

Siouxie

Welcome home

Sounds like you had really positive experience, so nice to read!

Congrats and hope Nick's PR comes through soon.

SchnookoLoly

Thanks for sharing your experience, welcome home!!

I'm going to be doing my returning resident landing next month, so you brought GTF lists and all that with you for that?? The whole landing process for returning residents confuses me...

Former Lancastrian

Its pretty simple if you read this
http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/publicati...f5087-eng.html

SchnookoLoly

I are tool.

Thanks.

AnneMarieC

Yep - filled out the B4 wotsits as much as putting my name, address (used the holiday let we're staying in for 6 weeks as have no other address) & listing items. I pretty much followed the example on the wiki page about it. Used my shipping list as a guide. Ticked off that I'd been gone over a year, and the dates. And that was it. Chappy took a look and bish bash bosh stamp stamp sign and told me to hold onto it as it's what I'd take to clear the goods.

Did the same for Goods Accompanying (there's a tick box about a third of the way down - one box you tick for the stuff with you, the other for the gtf). My page 2 of this one was even hand written as didn't have time to type it up and that didn't present a problem.

It was very very painless! Bit of a pain to draw up the list, but after that twas nothing.