Pearson Airport to Ridley College

How does a boarder get from Pearson to Ridley College?

The alternatives for an unaccompanied minor are the airline's unaccompanied-minor service, which hands the child to a named adult at the arrivals door and no further, and the school's arranged transport on the busiest days, which the school coordinates and which this service is often part of; the GO bus and the train reach St. Catharines in three hours with changes, and no parent books them for a thirteen-year-old with a trunk. The chauffeur is the named adult, the car that ends at the house, and the two texts that tell the parents in Mexico City or Lagos that it worked. The pickup page explains the meeting points and the family and accessible page the unaccompanied-minor procedure; the Pearson-to-Niagara route has the QEW timing hour by hour.

The campus and the houses

Ridley College occupies a campus on the west side of St. Catharines between Ridley Road and the old Welland Canal, with the chapel, the main school and the Lower School around the quadrangle and the boarding houses — Arthur Bishop, Dean's, Gooderham, Leonard, Merritt, Burgoyne and the girls' houses — around its edges, each with a door and a house director in residence. The chauffeur enters at the Ridley Road gate, follows the campus drive to the boarder's house, brings the bags to the door and waits until the house staff have taken the boarder in; the parents' text goes at that moment. On term-start days the houses have their own arrival windows and the drive is marshalled; on others the reception at the main school directs the chauffeur. Day students living in St. Catharines, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Thorold who fly in with their families are an ordinary Niagara address at the same fare.

The unaccompanied minor: how the handover works

An airline's unaccompanied-minor service escorts a child through the arrival, immigration and the baggage hall and hands them at the arrivals door to the adult named on the form, who must show identification. The chauffeur is that adult: the parents put the chauffeur's name on the airline form (we send it the day before), the chauffeur is inside the hall with a name board and identification when the escort brings the child through, and the handover is signed. From that moment the child is with a named, licensed, vetted chauffeur the school and the parents know, in a car with the door-to-door confirmation for the ninety-minute drive, with a stop at the Grimsby service centre if the child wants one, and the chauffeur does not leave until the house has taken them in.

The IB calendar and the trips it makes

Ridley is an International Baccalaureate school and its calendar has the IB's rhythm: the September arrival, Thanksgiving, the closed weekends when the houses empty, the December departure in the week before Christmas and the January return, the March break, and — for the senior students — the May IB examinations followed by the June departure with a year's belongings. Each is a fixed fare with the flight tracked, booked by the parents from the confirmation of the last; the December and June departures carry the trunk and the vehicle is sized for it. Ridley's boarders come from sixty countries and the profile holds each family's pattern: the family in Bermuda that flies home for every long weekend, the family in Shanghai that flies twice a year with a guardian in between. The departures page explains the earlier check-in cut-offs for an unaccompanied minor.

Buffalo airport: the alternative for the American families

Ridley draws more boarders from the United States than any other school on this hub, and for them the Buffalo airport is fifty minutes from the campus across the Peace Bridge or the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge — closer than Pearson and served by the domestic US carriers at domestic US fares. The cross-border service collects at Buffalo, crosses with passports for everyone in the car and the border wait read before leaving, and delivers to the house; for an unaccompanied minor, the chauffeur is the named adult at Buffalo exactly as at Pearson, and the border crossing is made with the minor's documents and the parents' letter of consent, which the school can advise on. The fare is fixed for the campus address from either airport, and the profile holds both.

Parents' weekends, graduation and the Niagara visit

Parents fly in for the October parents' weekend, the December events, the spring musical and the June graduation, and a Ridley visit is a Niagara visit: the hotels are White Oaks at the Glendale exit ten minutes from the school, the Vintage Hotels in Niagara-on-the-Lake twenty minutes, the Fallsview towers twenty-five, and the St. Catharines hotels five minutes. The Friday arrival from Pearson and the Sunday departure are two fixed fares on one confirmation; the weekend is a chauffeured block with the boarder collected at the house: the school's events, the Falls and the Parkway, the wineries on the Bench, the Shaw Festival, or a dinner in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Graduation in June is the largest version — grandparents, the trunk, the flight home the same evening — and the family car waits on the campus drive.

Sport, tournaments and the school's traffic

Ridley's teams travel — hockey, rowing on the old canal and at the Henley course, rugby, soccer, basketball, cricket — and the school hosts tournaments that bring visiting teams from across the province and the United States. A visiting team of twenty arrives on the same flight, is met at the group meeting point inside the terminal and driven in the Sprinter and the coach on one manifest to the school, invoiced to the school on a corporate account; the school's own teams book the reverse to Pearson or to Buffalo. The exchange programmes with schools in Britain, Australia, South Africa and Latin America bring visiting pupils as a group on the same pattern, and the admissions families touring from overseas — Ridley's admissions calendar runs all year — and the alumni events bring the adult traffic.

What the fare includes

The fare from Pearson to Ridley College is fixed by vehicle class for the St. Catharines address and includes the chauffeur, the vehicle, fuel, tolls, taxes, curbside pickup at the pre-arranged area for a boarder travelling with a parent, a stop on the way and the included waiting with the flight tracked. Meet and greet inside the arrivals hall with a name board is the one paid add-on, and for an unaccompanied minor it is the service; gratuity is never added; a cancellation before dispatch is free; the parents receive the confirmation, the chauffeur's name and vehicle the day before, and the two texts on the day.

Custodians, guardians and the house director's sign-out

A Ridley boarder from one of the school's sixty countries holds a study permit that names a custodian in Canada, and most families also have a guardian — a relative in the Niagara region or the city, a Ridley family in St. Catharines, a guardian service — who takes the boarder for closed weekends when the houses empty. The family's profile carries the boarding house, the guardian's home and the airport (Pearson or Buffalo), and any leg between them is a fixed fare from the same confirmation; a guardian in the city is ninety minutes up the QEW on a Friday afternoon and back on Sunday evening, often booked as a standing order. The house director signs a boarder out for a chauffeured departure against the parents' written authorisation, which the school holds, and we send the chauffeur's name, photograph and vehicle to the house the day before. The school's CAIS accreditation sets the standard the sign-out follows.

The January return over the Skyway

The QEW in January is exposed to squalls off the lake for its whole length, the Skyway over Hamilton harbour closes to high-sided vehicles in a crosswind, and the escarpment above St. Catharines takes the snow first. A boarder who left Mexico City or Lagos the previous evening lands at Pearson in the first week of January into that, and the chauffeur has read Ontario 511 before leaving, has a warm car at the pre-arranged area, and drives the ninety minutes on winter tyres with the Eastport Drive route around the harbour ready if the Skyway is closed. A flight diverted by weather is rebooked by the airline for the next day; the chauffeur is re-timed at no charge, and the house and the parents are both told. The same name board meets the new flight.

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