Limo service in Montreal

The city that runs on its calendar

Montreal's chauffeur bookings follow its festivals the way other cities' follow their airports. The Grand Prix weekend in June, the Jazz Festival that follows it, Just for Laughs in July, Osheaga in August and the winter's Igloofest turn the downtown grid into a series of closures and the hotels into a single sold-out block, and a chauffeur who knows which streets are open on which night is the difference between arriving and circling. Outside the festivals it is a corporate city - aerospace, pharma, the AI labs, the banks on René-Lévesque - with the busiest airport in the country after Pearson and Vancouver, and every transfer benefits from a chauffeur who works in both languages, which ours do as standard. We run the full service across the island and the South Shore: the Trudeau transfers, the corporate accounts, the hourly chauffeurs for the tourist day and the evening, and the city-to-city drives to Quebec City, Ottawa and Tremblant.

Trudeau, and how the pickup works

Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International is in Dorval, twenty kilometres west of downtown and twenty-five minutes off-peak on the 20 and the Ville-Marie, forty-five in the evening rush or when the Turcot interchange's endless reconstruction closes a ramp. It is a single terminal with the domestic gates in the centre, the international at one end and the US pre-clearance at the other, and the pre-arranged limousine curb is on the arrivals level, signed separately from the taxi rank and the ride-app zone. The chauffeur texts the curb and the plate before landing - in French or English, as you prefer - and meet and greet inside the hall is the add-on. The airport authority's site at admtl.com publishes the layout; the Trudeau page has the full guide.

Downtown, the Plateau and the island

Downtown holds the banks and the law firms along René-Lévesque and the Golden Square Mile's hotels - the Ritz-Carlton, the Four Seasons, the Queen Elizabeth over Central Station; Old Montreal and the Old Port for the boutique hotels and the restaurants on cobbles a Sprinter cannot turn on; the Plateau and Mile End for the restaurants and the bagels; Griffintown for the new towers; Westmount and Outremont for the residential pickups; the McGill and Concordia campuses; the Olympic Park in the east end. Laval across the river to the north and Longueuil and Brossard on the South Shore across the Champlain and Jacques Cartier bridges price on the same engine, and the Quebec page covers the rest of the province.

The Grand Prix and the festival summer

The Canadian Grand Prix on the Île Notre-Dame circuit in June is the largest single event on the Canadian chauffeur calendar: three days of team, sponsor and guest movements between the downtown hotels, the paddock and the parties, with the island reachable only by the Concorde Bridge and the metro and the chauffeurs holding the circuit's vehicle passes. The Jazz Festival closes the Quartier des Spectacles for ten days at the end of June; Just for Laughs and the Francofolies follow; Osheaga fills Parc Jean-Drapeau in early August; the Formula E and the Rogers Cup tennis land in the same weeks. Igloofest on the Old Port in January and February and the Montréal en Lumière festival are the winter's. Each has a pre-arranged car arrangement and the chauffeurs know it; the nights out page explains the shape.

Venues

The Bell Centre for the Canadiens and the arena shows; Stade Saputo for CF Montréal; the Olympic Stadium for the big concerts; Place des Arts for the symphony, the opera and the ballet; the Palais des congrès and Place Bonaventure for the conferences; the Casino de Montréal on Île Notre-Dame; the Jean-Talon and Atwater markets for the Saturday. The sporting events and trade shows pages cover the pickup arrangements.

Traffic, construction and the winter

Montreal's roads are famous for two things: the orange cones of a construction season that never quite ends, and a winter that requires winter tyres by law from the first of December to the fifteenth of March. The Turcot and the Décarie are the chronic bottlenecks; the Champlain Bridge is new and fast; the Jacques Cartier closes for the fireworks in summer; the Ville-Marie tunnel closes for maintenance on weekends. Québec 511 is what dispatch reads, and the chauffeurs have the alternative routes by heart. The honest figure: Trudeau to downtown in twenty-five minutes at 6 am and fifty at 5 pm, and the engine's suggested pickup for a departure knows the difference.

The corporate city

Aerospace in Saint-Laurent and Mirabel, pharma in the west island, the AI labs around the Mile End, the banks and the law firms downtown, the universities: Montreal's corporate accounts book the Trudeau transfer, the Premium Sedan for the visiting executive who expects to be addressed in French, and the hourly chauffeur for the day across the island. One monthly invoice, in either language.

What a limo costs in Montreal

Fixed by the addresses and the vehicle class, shown before you book. Trudeau to downtown in an Executive Sedan is the most common booking; the South Shore and Laval price by distance; Quebec City, Ottawa and Tremblant are single fixed fares each way. No surge on the Grand Prix weekend, no meter, no gratuity added. Hourly bookings for the stretch and the Sprinter carry a minimum shown when you choose the hourly option.

Day trips and the corridor

Quebec City in two and a half hours on the 20 or the 40; Ottawa in two on the 417; Mont-Tremblant in ninety minutes on the 15 for the ski weekend; the Eastern Townships' wineries and Magog in ninety minutes on the 10; Toronto in five and a half hours on the 401 corridor with a bilingual chauffeur - all on the city-to-city service at a fixed fare with the return built in. Burlington, Vermont, in two hours and Boston in five and a half on the cross-border service via Lacolle.

Weddings and the occasions

The churches of Old Montreal and the Plateau, the hotel ballrooms downtown, the vineyards and the sugar shacks of the Townships, the Old Port for the photographs: the wedding page covers the plans. Prom - the bal des finissants - is June, and the prom page sets out the rules, which in Quebec include a drinking age of eighteen that still means none for the high-school group.

Trudeau arrival, worked through

A Thursday 4 pm landing from Paris on Air France, two executives, two suitcases. The Premium Sedan was booked on the corporate account with the flight number; the aircraft is fifteen minutes early and the chauffeur is at the pre-arranged curb before it lands. CBSA's international hall at 4 pm on a Thursday is thirty minutes; the bags fifteen. At 4:50 the passengers are in the S-Class on the 20 east, the Turcot is moving, and the Ritz-Carlton on Sherbrooke is reached at 5:35 - on a bad Thursday it would have been 6, and the fare would have been the same. The chauffeur greeted them in French and switched to English when one of them did. The invoice line will carry both names and the cost centre.

Old Montreal and the streets a Sprinter cannot turn on

The Old City's streets - Saint-Paul, Saint-Jacques, the Place d'Armes - are narrow, cobbled and, in summer, partly pedestrianised, and the chauffeurs know where a sedan may stop and a Sprinter may not; a wedding at the Notre-Dame Basilica or a dinner in the Old Port is planned with the drop-off on the boulevard and a short walk, which the couple's stretch limousine can make and a coach cannot. The Plateau's one-way grid and the Mile End's bagel-shop queues are the same kind of local knowledge, and the hourly chauffeur is the way to see both.

Hotels and the drop-off

The Ritz-Carlton and the Four Seasons in the Golden Square Mile, the Queen Elizabeth over Central Station, the Marriott Château Champlain, the Sofitel, the Hôtel William Gray, the Nelligan and the St-Paul in Old Montreal, the Bonaventure over Place Bonaventure, the Marriott inside Trudeau's terminal for the 6 am flight: each forecourt is known and the travel desk books the room. The Palais des congrès' shuttle curb is on Viger; the trade shows page covers the programme.

Universities, hospitals and the institutions

McGill on the mountain's slope and Concordia downtown, the Université de Montréal on the north side, UQAM in the Quartier Latin: the September move-in and the spring convocations. The McGill University Health Centre's Glen site in the west and the CHUM downtown: the medical day for a patient who should not be driving. The prom and graduation page covers the convocations; the corporate account covers the hospital foundations' galas.

Montreal in winter

The winter is the city's second personality: snow that stays from December to March, streets that narrow by a lane on each side, the winter-tyre law from December 1, and the Igloofest crowd on the Old Port at minus twenty. The chauffeurs have driven it for years, the vehicles run winter tyres by law, and Québec 511 tells dispatch which bridge is closed for de-icing. A warm car at the door of a restaurant in the Plateau at midnight in February is the product, and the nights out page is the one to read.

Three questions Montreal visitors ask the desk

Do we need to speak French to book? No; the desk and the chauffeurs work in both languages, and the confirmation arrives in the one you booked in. Can we do a food day - Jean-Talon, the bagels, the smoked meat - with the car? Yes; that is an hourly booking and the chauffeur will suggest the order, which starts at the market before the crowds. Is the Old Port reachable by car during the festivals? Partly; the Jazz Festival and Just for Laughs close the Quartier des Spectacles and the Old Port's waterfront closes for the fireworks and the Formula E, and the chauffeur knows which boulevard is the nearest legal drop on which night. Tourisme Montréal's calendar has the dates.

The Laurentians and the Townships

Mont-Tremblant is ninety minutes north on the 15 for the ski weekend or the summer's golf and the village; Saint-Sauveur and Sainte-Adèle are the closer Laurentian towns an hour out. The Eastern Townships - Magog, Sutton, Bromont, the wineries along the Route des Vins and the Abbey at Saint-Benoît-du-Lac - are ninety minutes south-east on the 10 and the region's best day trip. Both are city-to-city fixed fares with the return built in, in an SUV that takes the skis or the cases of wine, and the Quebec page carries the winter road notes.

Book a Montreal chauffeur