Prom and graduation limousine service across Canada

The night everyone remembers, arranged by the people who worry about it

Prom transport is booked by two groups with different priorities: the students, who want the stretch limousine and the photographs, and the parents, who want to know who is driving, where the car is going and when it will be home. We are set up to satisfy both. The vehicle is the stretch limousine or the Sprinter the students asked for; the rules, the route and the times are agreed with the parents in writing before the night; the chauffeur holds a provincial commercial licence and a criminal record check; and the fare is fixed when the booking is made, so there is no negotiation on the driveway at 6 pm.

The service runs in every city on this site through May and June, the prom and graduation season in every province, and again in the autumn for the university convocations.

How prom transport works

One booking covers the evening: the pickup at the first house, the stops at the others, the photographs at the park or the waterfront, the arrival at the venue, and the return - either straight home afterwards or via the after-party address the parents have agreed. The stretch limousine takes up to eight, the Sprinter up to fourteen, and a group larger than that books two vehicles that travel together. The evening is priced by the hour with a minimum that covers the usual span - roughly from the first pickup around 5 pm to the last drop after midnight - and the fare, the route and the times are confirmed to the booking parent's email.

The rules are the ones every school and every province expects: no alcohol in the vehicle for anyone under the provincial drinking age, which for a prom group means no alcohol at all; the chauffeur will not deviate from the agreed route to an unlisted address; and the booking parent is the person the chauffeur calls if anything changes. A group that breaks the first rule is driven home and the fare is not refunded. Parents tell us those rules are the reason they booked.

Graduation day

Convocation is a different shape: the graduate and the family, the ceremony at the university or the school, the photographs on the lawn, the lunch or the dinner afterwards. A Premium Sedan or a Luxury SUV for the family with the grandparents, timed to the ceremony's start, waiting through it and taking everyone to the restaurant is the usual booking; a stretch limousine for the graduate and friends afterwards is the other. Convocations at the University of Toronto, McGill, UBC, the University of Alberta, Dalhousie and the rest fill the surrounding streets for the afternoon, and a chauffeur who knows where the drop-off is allowed saves the family a walk in formal shoes.

Choosing the vehicle

The stretch limousine is the prom car: eight seats facing each other, the fibre-optic ceiling, the music, the photographs. Its trunk is small, which does not matter for a prom. The Executive Sprinter is the choice for a larger group or for parents who prefer forward-facing seats with belts on a high-roof van - it is also the vehicle the schools book for the sanctioned after-party shuttle. The Luxury SUV is the family car for graduation. The fleet page has the capacities; the engine enforces them.

What it costs and how it is paid

Prom evenings are priced by the hour with a minimum stated at booking - the stretch limousine's minimum is longer than a sedan's because the vehicle is held for the whole evening - and the fare is fixed once the plan is confirmed. Most groups split the fare between families; we take one payment from the booking parent and leave the arithmetic to the group. A deposit holds the date; Saturdays in late May and June go first in every city, and the stretch limousines go before the Sprinters. Gratuity is not added.

Cities and the prom calendar

Toronto and the GTA - Mississauga, Vaughan, Markham, Brampton - are the largest prom market in the country and the stretch limousines are booked out for the last three Saturdays of June by April. Vancouver and Surrey follow the same calendar. Calgary and Edmonton run grad season through June with the banquets at the big hotels. Winnipeg and Saskatoon hold the safe-grad tradition where the school itself books the shuttle. Ottawa, Hamilton, London and Kitchener-Waterloo each have a June with every Saturday spoken for. Halifax proms cluster in the last two weeks of June.

For schools and parent committees

A school booking a safe-grad shuttle or a parent committee organising transport for a whole graduating class books the Sprinters and coaches as a group plan: pickups at agreed points, the venue, the after-party, and home by an agreed hour, with a chaperone in each vehicle if the school requires it. The plan is priced as one fare and invoiced to the school or the committee. The contact page is the place to start; the desk has built these plans for schools across the country.

The provincial rules, plainly

The drinking age is eighteen in Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec and nineteen everywhere else, which for a high-school prom group means nobody in the vehicle may have alcohol, and the chauffeur enforces it. The provinces also run graduated licensing that restricts new drivers' night-time driving and passengers - Ontario's G1 and G2, British Columbia's L and N, Alberta's GDL - and the school's prom guidance in most boards asks parents not to let a novice driver take a car full of friends after a prom. A chauffeured vehicle is the alternative the boards suggest, and MADD Canada's prom campaign says the same thing every May. Parents who want the rules in writing get them on the confirmation.

What the evening looks like

Five o'clock: the stretch arrives at the first house and the parents take photographs on the driveway while the chauffeur straightens the ribbons. Five-thirty to six-fifteen: the other houses, each with its own driveway photograph. Six-thirty: the park, the waterfront or the lookout for the group photographs, with the car in them. Seven-fifteen: the venue - the hotel ballroom, the banquet hall, the boat if the school has booked one - and the chauffeur drops at the door the venue has set aside. Eleven-thirty: the pickup from the venue. Midnight to one: the after-party address the parents listed, and later the homes in reverse order, the last drop confirmed to the booking parent by text. The plan is on the confirmation and the chauffeur works to it.

Booking for a group of friends

One person's parent books and pays; the group agrees the split. The booking parent gives us the houses in the order the students want them, the venue, the after-party address if there is one, and the home order. We confirm the plan with the times and the fare. Changes - a new house, a different after-party - go through the booking parent by email up to the day before; the chauffeur will not take a change from a student on the night. The stretch limousine takes eight and the Sprinter fourteen, and a group that outgrows the vehicle books a second one for the same route.

The university convocation

University graduations are spring and autumn, and the campuses are hard to reach by car on the day. The University of Toronto's Convocation Hall sits inside a closed King's College Circle; UBC's ceremonies at the Chan Centre fill the Point Grey campus; McGill's are on the lower field with Sherbrooke Street closed; the University of Alberta's are at the Jubilee; Dalhousie's at the Rebecca Cohn. Each has a drop-off the chauffeur knows. The family booking is a Premium Sedan or a Luxury SUV for the graduate and up to five relatives, timed to the ceremony, held through it, and on to the restaurant afterwards - a fixed plan at a fixed fare. Grandparents flying in for it book the airport transfer on the same account, and the travel desk books the hotel.

Schools, boards and the safe-grad shuttle

Some boards and many parent councils organise the whole graduating class's transport: a fleet of Sprinters and coaches from agreed pickup points to the venue, on to the sanctioned after-grad event, and home at an agreed hour, with a chaperone per vehicle. The desk builds the plan with the school's coordinator, prices it as a single fare, and invoices the school or the council. Winnipeg and Saskatoon have run safe-grad this way for decades; the Ontario and BC boards are increasingly doing the same. The school's own insurance and the chaperone rules are respected, and the chauffeurs hold the vulnerable-sector check the boards ask for.

The dress, the corsage and the small things

A stretch limousine has no trunk to speak of and a Sprinter has a large one; a group with garment bags for a change of clothes books the Sprinter. Corsages travel best in the car's cooler. The chauffeur carries an umbrella, a lint roller and a phone charger, because someone always needs one. Photographs with the chauffeur are encouraged.

What the schools say

School boards across the country publish prom-season guidance for parents and it reads the same everywhere: plan the transport in advance, know who is driving, agree the return time, and avoid a novice driver with a car full of friends. Ontario's boards point parents to the Ministry of Transportation's graduated-licensing rules; British Columbia's to ICBC's; Alberta's to the GDL programme. The chauffeured option answers every line of that guidance, and the confirmation email is the document a parent can hold up at the kitchen table.

Two vehicles, one route

Larger friend groups often book a stretch and a Sprinter together, the stretch for the photographs and the Sprinter for the overflow and the garment bags, travelling as a convoy on the same route with two chauffeurs who talk to each other. The plan lists both, the fare covers both, and the booking parent has one number to call. It is also the arrangement that gets a group of twenty to the venue at the same minute, which is what the group wanted in the first place.

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