Limo and chauffeur service across Ontario

The province that books most

Ontario is where most of Canada's chauffeured cars are booked, and the reasons are on the map: Toronto Pearson is the country's largest airport and Bay Street its financial centre; Ottawa is the capital; the 401 corridor from Windsor to the Quebec border is the busiest highway on the continent and carries the country's manufacturing, its universities and its head offices; Niagara is its most-visited attraction; and the cottage country north of the 400 is where the province goes in July. Seven Ontario cities have their own pages on this site - Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, Mississauga, Niagara Falls, Kitchener-Waterloo and London - and every other address in the province, from Windsor to Thunder Bay, prices on the same engine to the same standard. This page is the rest of the map: the airports, the corridors, the roads, the seasons, the sectors and the rules.

The airports

Toronto Pearson with its two terminals and its pre-arranged curbs is the province's gateway and the subject of its own guide; Billy Bishop on Toronto's waterfront is Porter's hub for the short hops; Ottawa has its own guide; Hamilton, Waterloo and London handle the low-cost and sun carriers and the regional flights; Windsor, Kingston, Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, North Bay and Timmins handle the province's north and south-west. Every one is on the airports page and on the engine, with the same sixty minutes of waiting on an international arrival and thirty on a domestic one.

The 401 and the corridors

The 401 is the province's spine and every long transfer in southern Ontario uses it: Toronto to Kitchener-Waterloo in an hour, London in two, Windsor in four; Toronto to Kingston in three and Montreal in five and a half; the 400 north to Barrie in an hour and Muskoka in two and a half; the 416 to Ottawa in four and a half; the QEW to Hamilton in an hour and Niagara in ninety minutes; the 403 to Hamilton and Brantford; the 11 and the 17 to the north. The city-to-city service prices each as a fixed fare with the return built in.

Figures are approximate; the engine prices the exact address.

The 407 and the tolls

The 407 ETR across the top of the Greater Toronto Area is the province's only toll highway of consequence and the chauffeur's escape from the 401 at rush hour on the Markham, Vaughan, Oakville and Kitchener runs; its toll is charged by distance and time of day, added at cost and shown at booking, and the chauffeur uses it only where it saves real time. The Confederation Bridge is the other toll a chauffeur from Ontario meets, on the far side of a very long drive.

The seasons and the roads

Southern Ontario's winter is real but short: the first snowfall in late November is the day the 401 forgets how to move, the lake-effect bands off Lake Huron close the 401 at Cambridge and Woodstock for an afternoon a few times a season, the February ice storms close the Gardiner's ramps, and every vehicle in the fleet runs winter tyres from November. Summer brings the cottage-country crawl on the 400 on Friday afternoons and the Gardiner's lane closures; autumn brings the colour drive on the 400 and the Niagara harvest. Ontario 511 is what dispatch reads before every long pickup, and a highway closed by a pile-up is a phone call before the pickup, not after.

The sectors that book the corporate account

Bay Street's banks and law firms, the hospital corridor on University Avenue, the head offices along the 401 in Mississauga, Markham and Kitchener, the automotive plants in Oakville, Oshawa, Windsor and Ingersoll, the mining companies that fill Toronto's hotels for PDAC in March, the government in Ottawa and Queen's Park, the universities from Windsor to Kingston: the corporate account is used more in Ontario than anywhere, and the account's one monthly invoice covers Toronto on Monday, Ottawa on Wednesday and London on Friday.

The occasions

The GTA's banquet-hall weddings in Vaughan, Mississauga and Brampton, the vineyard weddings in Niagara and Prince Edward County, the Muskoka lodge weddings, the escarpment weddings in Hamilton and the countryside weddings around Kitchener are the wedding page's Ontario entries; the June prom season across the province's boards is the prom page's; the Leafs, the Raptors, the Jays, the Senators, the Ti-Cats and the Grey Cup years are the sporting events page's; TIFF, the CNE, Bluesfest, Stratford and Shaw are the nights out page's.

Cottage country, wine country and the north

Muskoka's lodges and cottages two and a half hours north of Toronto, the Kawarthas and Haliburton, Georgian Bay's Collingwood and Blue Mountain, Algonquin Park, the Thousand Islands, Prince Edward County's wineries and the Niagara bench: the city-to-city service takes a family from Pearson to any of them at a fixed fare with the return built in, and the Luxury SUV is the vehicle for a cottage road in May and a ski hill in January. The north - Sudbury, North Bay, Timmins, Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay - is served through the airports and the partner operators in each city to the same standard.

The rules a passenger might want to know

Ontario licenses limousines municipally - Toronto's vehicle-for-hire bylaw is the model - and a licensed limousine may only be pre-arranged, never hailed, which is why the pre-arranged curbs exist at the airports; chauffeurs hold the provincial Class G with the municipal licence or the Class F for the larger vehicles, and the Ministry of Transportation publishes the classes. Winter tyres are not required by law in Ontario but every vehicle in the fleet runs them. Child restraints are required by the Highway Traffic Act by weight and height and a booster is needed until the child reaches the threshold; the chauffeur fits the seat at no charge when it is noted at booking. The drinking age is nineteen and alcohol in a vehicle is permitted only in a licensed limousine with a partition, for passengers of age; the AGCO sets the rule and the chauffeur enforces it.

What a limo costs in Ontario

Fixed by the addresses and the vehicle class, shown before you book. Pearson to downtown Toronto in an Executive Sedan is the province's most-booked transfer; the corridors are fixed fares with the return built in; the wedding, the prom and the wine day are priced by the hour with a minimum. The 407 toll is added where the route uses it. No surge on the first snowfall, no meter, no gratuity added. The fleet page has the capacities.

Cross-border from Ontario

Ontario has more US crossings than any province - the Peace Bridge and the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara, the Lewiston-Queenston, the Ambassador and the Gordie Howe at Windsor, the Blue Water at Sarnia, the Thousand Islands and Ogdensburg bridges east of Kingston - and the cross-border service runs to Buffalo, Rochester, Detroit, Chicago and New York on our own cars with chauffeurs who read the CBP wait times before choosing the bridge.

Two questions Ontario travellers ask the desk

Is the 407 worth it? At rush hour on the northern and western runs, usually; the chauffeur judges it and the toll is shown at booking. Can we get from Pearson to a Muskoka cottage with no street address? Yes; the desk builds it by hand from the lodge's or the cottage association's directions, and the chauffeur has driven the road before. A third, asked every March: PDAC week fills every car in Toronto and the corporate accounts reserve it in January.

The Ontario year, month by month

Booking notes by vehicle class in Ontario

The Executive Sedan is the Pearson-to-downtown workhorse and the corridor car for one or two passengers with roller bags; the Premium Sedan is the Bay Street and Queen's Park choice; the Luxury SUV is the cottage, ski and family vehicle and the one to book for a Muskoka road in May or a Collingwood hill in January; the Executive Sprinter carries the wedding party, the prom group, the trade-show team and the cottage weekend's whole household with its luggage; the Stretch Limousine is the prom and wedding car in the GTA and the only vehicle in which the province's alcohol rule permits a glass; the Minicoach is the corporate shuttle and the wine-tour vehicle for a group of twenty. The fleet page has the capacities and the booking page prices each class against the address.

Three Ontario itineraries the desk builds most often

The Pearson-to-Niagara wine day. Pickup at Terminal 1 or 3 with the flight tracked, the QEW to the bench in ninety minutes, four wineries by the hour with the chauffeur waiting, dinner in Niagara-on-the-Lake, and the return to a downtown hotel - one fixed fare for the transfers and the hourly rate for the afternoon, the Niagara Falls page has the wineries.

The Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal corporate week. Pearson pickup Monday, the 401 and the 416 to Ottawa Tuesday morning with the chauffeur working from the car, the 417 and the 40 to Montreal Wednesday with a bilingual chauffeur at the far end, Trudeau drop Friday - one itinerary, one invoice, three cities, and the corporate account carries it.

The Muskoka wedding weekend. A Sprinter from the GTA Friday afternoon with the wedding party and its bags, the SUV for the couple, the shuttle between the lodge and the ceremony site Saturday, and the Sunday return - built by hand from the lodge's directions, priced as one plan with one deposit, and the wedding page has the timeline.

The Ontario numbers a traveller might want

Ontario is home to roughly fifteen million people, more than a third of the country; Pearson handled over forty million passengers in its last full year and Billy Bishop close to three million; the 401 through Toronto carries more than four hundred thousand vehicles a day on its busiest stretch, which is why the chauffeur's route choice and the 407 matter more here than anywhere; and the province's roughly one hundred and seventy thousand kilometres of road include the eleven-hundred-kilometre Trans-Canada crossing from the Manitoba border to Ottawa. Statistics Canada and the Greater Toronto Airports Authority publish the figures.

Book a chauffeur in Ontario