Toronto Airport to Collingwood & Blue Mountain

How do I get from Pearson Airport to Blue Mountain?

The alternatives are the resort's own weekend shuttle from Toronto — scheduled, seasonal, from downtown rather than the airport — and the GO bus to Barrie with a taxi from there, four hours with the changes. The chauffeur is the version that runs from the arrivals curb to the Village's door in one movement at a fixed fare with the gear loaded; the Barrie route page covers the 400's timing for the first hour and the long-distance page how a two-hour fare is set.

The Village, the hill and the doors

The Village at Blue is the pedestrian base at the bottom of the hill — the shops, the restaurants, the skating pond, the Westin Trillium on the pond's edge and the condo hotels around the plaza — and the chauffeur drops at the hotel's own drive off Jozo Weider Boulevard or at the Village's bag-drop by the Grand Georgian, where the bell staff take the skis and the luggage to the room. The hill's forty-odd runs and its lifts open in mid-December and close in early April; the South Base and the Orchard are the beginner's and the family's side, the North Chair the expert's. The chalets and the condos in the resort's neighbourhoods — Snowbridge, the Village Suites, the Mountain Springs, the private chalets along the escarpment — are an address with a driveway, and the Blue Mountain Resort site publishes the lift status and the Village's events.

The ski weekend from the airport

The ski weekend from Pearson is the booking this page sees most: a family from Florida, Texas or the Gulf with no snow at home, a group of friends from Montréal or Vancouver, a couple from London for the March break. The gear is the logistics — the skis and the boards in the Sprinter's rear or on the SUV's rack, the boots in the boot, the rentals at the Village's shops for the family that flies without them — and the pattern is the Friday arrival two hours north to the Village with a stop at Barrie's Costco for the week's groceries, the days on the hill with the chauffeur's role paused, and the Sunday or the following Friday's departure timed to the flight; the family page explains the seats for the youngest and the Dixon Road hotels the night before an early flight home.

March break, Christmas and the Village's calendar

The Village's calendar is the province's: the Christmas week and the New Year, when the hill and the hotels sell out a year ahead and the Village's tree and the fireworks fill the plaza; the March break, when Ontario's schools empty and the hill is a queue by nine; the Family Day weekend in February; the summer's Village concerts, the Apple Pie Trail and the Scandinave's summer season; and the fall's colours on the escarpment. A family flying in for the March break books the Friday arrival, the week in a Village condo and the Sunday departure, and the chauffeur's advice on the hill is the early lift; the resort's events calendar is on the Town of The Blue Mountains site.

The Scandinave Spa and the Collingwood day

The Scandinave Spa on Grey Road 21 in the woods below the escarpment — the outdoor hot and cold baths, the saunas, the silence rule — is the afternoon a couple adds to a ski weekend or the reason a couple comes without skis, and the chauffeur drops at the spa's door with the bathrobes and the reservation and returns at the booked hour; the spa takes no children and its weekend afternoons sell out. Collingwood, ten minutes east, is the town on the bay — the harbour and the grain terminals, Hurontario Street's shops and restaurants, the Collingwood Museum in the old station — and the chauffeured day from the Village covers the spa, the town and the Thornbury apple country twenty minutes west with its cider houses and the Beaver Valley's fall colours; the Town of Collingwood site publishes the town's events.

Summer on the bay: the beach, the caves and the trails

Blue Mountain's summer is a different resort: the Ridge Runner mountain coaster, the Scenic Caves' suspension bridge on the escarpment above the Village, the Georgian Bay beaches at Wasaga twenty minutes east and at Collingwood's Sunset Point, the Georgian Trail's bike path along the bay from Collingwood to Meaford, the golf at the Monterra course, and the Village's open-air concerts. A family flying in for a summer week books the same Village condo as the winter one and the same transfer with the bicycles in the Sprinter instead of the skis, and the Wasaga Beach page covers the bay's beach.

Winter on Highway 26: the snowbelt road

Highway 26 from Barrie to Collingwood is the snowbelt: the squalls off Georgian Bay close it a few times each winter between Stayner and Collingwood, the escarpment's road up to the resort drifts, and the drive that is two hours in July is two and a half in January. The chauffeur reads Ontario 511 before leaving, the vehicles run winter tyres, and a drive that cannot be made safely is rescheduled rather than attempted; a trip under way waits out a closure at the Barrie service centre with the passengers warm inside, and the resort's own snow report is the morning's read.

Groups, chalets and the Sprinter

The resort's group traffic is the chalet weekend — eight friends from Toronto or Montréal in a rented chalet, the gear in the Sprinter's rear, the Friday drive up and the Sunday drive down with the bar stocked and the drive home asleep — and the corporate retreat at the Westin or the Blue Mountain Conference Centre, with delegates collected from the airport on one manifest through the corporate account and the standing cars for the executives. A wedding at the Village's chapel or on the Westin's lawn is on the wedding pattern, and a family reunion of three generations is the Sprinter with seats for the youngest.

What the fare includes

The fare from Pearson to Blue Mountain or Collingwood is fixed by vehicle class for the address and includes the chauffeur, the vehicle, fuel, the 407 toll, taxes, curbside pickup at the pre-arranged area, a stop on the way, the ski and board racks and the included waiting with the flight tracked; meet and greet is the paid add-on; gratuity is never added; a cancellation before dispatch is free; the lift tickets, the spa and the hotels are the visitor's bookings.

The apple country: Thornbury, the Beaver Valley and the cider houses

West of Collingwood the bay's shore is apple country — the orchards of Thornbury and Clarksburg, the cider houses that have made the Apple Pie Trail a season of its own, the Beaver Valley's road up to Kimberley through the escarpment's fold, the Eugenia Falls at the valley's head — and the fall drive through it is the chauffeured afternoon a Village visitor adds in September and October: the cider houses' tastings with the chauffeur as the driver, the pie from the Thornbury bakery, the valley's colours from the escarpment's lookouts, and the Georgian Trail's bike path along the bay for the visitor who wants to ride part of it with the bicycles in the Sprinter. Meaford's harbour and the Scandinave's fall season are the same afternoon's ends.

The mountain's summer events: the Ridge Runner, the races and the Village concerts

Blue Mountain's summer calendar runs the Village's free concerts on the weekends, the Ridge Runner coaster and the Open-Air Gondola up the hill, the Cascade Putting Course and the Plunge aquatic centre for the children, the trail-running and mountain-bike races on the hill and the triathlons on the bay, and the Salomon and the Spartan events that bring competitors from across the continent to the Village's hotels. A competitor flying into Pearson for a race weekend books the transfer with the bicycle in the Sprinter and the departure timed to the flight; the race organisers move their staff on a corporate account, and the Wasaga Beach page covers the bay's beach twenty minutes east.

Book Pearson to Blue Mountain