Vaughan to Kingston: limestone city, Queen's move-in and the waterfront weekend

Kingston, three hours east

Kingston is the first city on the 401 east of Toronto with a reason to stop, and for many Vaughan families it becomes a regular run: a daughter at Queen's, a son at the Royal Military College, a grandparent in the lakeside retirement community, a September weekend when the limestone downtown and the harbour look like a postcard. It is also a three-hour drive that families make with a car full of residence furniture, which is where the Sprinter comes in.

The Queen's move-in

The single most-booked Kingston trip from Vaughan is the September move-in: a family of four from Thornhill, a first-year student, a mattress topper, a mini fridge and enough bins to fill an SUV twice over. An Executive Sprinter carries the family and the load in one vehicle, the chauffeur drops at the residence's unloading zone on the university's schedule, and the parents are not the ones circling University Avenue looking for the one parking spot. The return is booked for the evening or the next morning after the parents' weekend. Move-out in April is the same booking in reverse, and the corporate account structure works for families who will make the run six times a year — one profile, one card, one confirmation each time.

Parents' weekends and Homecoming are lighter loads and a Luxury SUV; the vehicle drops at the hotel and returns Sunday, or stays for a day of the student's tour of the town.

The family waterfront weekend

Kingston's downtown is a grid of limestone buildings between Princess Street and the harbour, with City Hall facing the lake, Market Square behind it, and the Confederation Basin marina where the Thousand Islands cruise boats leave. Across the causeway is Fort Henry, the nineteenth-century fortress whose garrison performances and sunset ceremonies are the reason school-age children remember the trip. The Visit Kingston site keeps the event calendar; the summer Buskers Rendezvous and the fall Homecoming weekend fill the hotels.

A chauffeured family weekend from Vaughan is usually a return transfer: drop Friday evening at a downtown hotel, the family walks the town and takes the boat on Saturday, the vehicle returns Sunday afternoon. The vehicle staying is booked when the family wants to add the Thousand Islands Parkway and Gananoque — a forty-minute drive east that is its own post, Thousand Islands and Gananoque — or the Prince Edward County wineries an hour west.

The road and its rhythm

The 401 from Vaughan to Kingston is the most-driven highway in Canada as far as Oshawa and a steady two-lane-each-way truck corridor after it. The chauffeur uses the 407 to the 401 at Pickering (the toll is inside the fixed fare), then the 401 through Port Hope, Cobourg, Trenton and Belleville to Kingston's three exits: Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard for the west end and Queen's, Division Street for downtown, Highway 15 for Fort Henry and RMC. The drive is reliably three hours outside the Friday evening exodus, when it is three and a half.

Families stop once: the Port Hope service centre for young children, or a proper break in Cobourg if the day allows. Groups doing Kingston as the lunch stop on the Ottawa run build a ninety-minute break into the fare.

Where the vehicle waits

Downtown Kingston's hotels — on Ontario Street facing the harbour and on Princess Street — have street or lot drops; the chauffeur waits in the municipal lots by the marina. At Queen's the drop is wherever the residence has marked its move-in zone, and the chauffeur has the residence name and the time slot before the pickup. Fort Henry has a proper lot; the cruise boats leave from the Crawford Wharf at the foot of Brock Street, where the vehicle drops and moves off.

Which vehicle

• Couple or three, a weekend: Premium Sedan.
• Family of four to six: Luxury SUV, with boosters fitted on request.
• Move-in, or two families together: Executive Sprinter.
• A student group for Homecoming from Vaughan: Sprinter by the day — and not a party bus, which is a night vehicle for Vaughan, not a three-hour highway one.

The cost against driving

A family of four driving to Kingston pays fuel, the 407 if they take it and a weekend of downtown parking; the chauffeured fare is shown in the booking engine before you commit and, for four, is a choice for the drive rather than a saving. For the move-in — where the alternative is two cars, one of them a rented van — the Sprinter is the cheaper and easier version. For a group of eight it is not close.

Seasons

September and October are Kingston's months: Queen's is back, the trees along the waterfront turn, Fort Henry's sunset ceremonies run into the fall. Summer is the boat and the buskers; winter is quiet and the 401 east of Cobourg is a lake-effect corridor that makes a chauffeured vehicle on winter tires the sensible booking. Spring is move-out and the Thousand Islands opening.

The move-in, step by step

The Queen's move-in is a scheduled operation and the booking should be too. The university assigns each residence an arrival window; the family books the Sprinter for a pickup that puts them at the residence fifteen minutes before it, with the stop at Port Hope built in. The chauffeur has the residence name and the window on the confirmation, drives to the unloading zone the university has marked, and the family unloads while he holds the vehicle; the bins go up, the vehicle moves to a lot, and the family walks the campus. Later the chauffeur returns to the hotel or, for the day-trip version, collects the parents at the residence at the agreed hour for the drive home while the student stays.

A family that has done the move-in with two cars knows the difference: the second car's driver spent the day finding parking on a campus of ten thousand arriving students. In April the same Sprinter does the move-out — the bins come down, the fridge goes in the bay, the student comes home for the summer.

Kingston's waterfront, for a family that walks

Kingston rewards the family that leaves the vehicle at the hotel. From a downtown hotel on Ontario Street the walk is: City Hall and Springer Market Square (the farmers' market on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings), the Confederation Basin and the cruise dock, Battery Park and the Martello tower at the foot of the harbour, and — over the causeway or by the vehicle if it has stayed — Fort Henry on its hill and the Royal Military College beneath it. Princess Street is the shopping and the restaurants; the Kingston Penitentiary, closed in 2013 and now open for tours, is a fifteen-minute drive west along the lake that a stayed vehicle makes easy. The Visit Kingston site keeps the tour and festival calendar.

Homecoming and the football weekend

Queen's Homecoming in October fills every hotel in the city and the Vaughan bookings for it are made in August. The shape is a Luxury SUV or Sprinter down on Friday with the parents and the younger siblings, the hotel for two nights, the football game on Saturday afternoon, dinner with the student, and Sunday home. The party-bus crowd from Woodbridge sometimes asks for a bus for Homecoming; the answer is that a party bus is a Vaughan night vehicle and a three-hour highway trip is a Sprinter's job — the group arrives fresh and the bus is not parked on a Kingston side street.

Prince Edward County from Kingston

An hour west of Kingston across the Glenora ferry — a free, short crossing that is itself a reason children enjoy the drive — is Prince Edward County, the wine and beach region whose own post is here. A stayed vehicle makes a County afternoon part of a Kingston weekend: the Sandbanks dunes in the morning, two wineries after lunch, back to Kingston for dinner. It is the reason a group of adults books daily hire for this trip rather than a return pair.

Pickup notes for Vaughan

The Kingston run starts on the 407 from every Vaughan community: Weston Road or Pine Valley for Woodbridge and Kleinburg, Jane and Highway 400 for Maple and the VMC, Dufferin or Bathurst for Thornhill and Concord. For the move-in, tell us the number of bins and whether a fridge or a bicycle is coming; the Sprinter's bay is large but a bicycle needs to be said. For the weekend, tell us the hotel and whether the vehicle stays.

Two more reasons Vaughan drives to Kingston

The Royal Military College sits on the point across the causeway from the fort, and its graduation and parade weekends bring Vaughan families with a cadet in the college to the city in May; the booking is the Queen's shape — an SUV or Sprinter, a downtown hotel, the vehicle staying for the ceremony day. And Kingston is the city with the retirement communities along the lakeshore where a Vaughan grandparent has moved to be near the water: the monthly visit from Thornhill or Concord is a Premium Sedan or an SUV on a return, with the chauffeur waiting through lunch, and it is the kind of regular booking a corporate-style account makes effortless — one profile, the same chauffeur, the same three hours each way without the parent at the wheel.

The cost, worked through for the move-in

Two cars to Kingston and back is two tanks of fuel, the 407 twice if taken, a day's parking on a campus that has none, and two drivers who spend the evening exhausted; a rented cargo van adds its own bill and the hour of collecting and returning it. One Sprinter is one fixed fare shown in the booking engine before the booking is made, with the tolls in, the residence's unloading window respected and the parents driven home. Families who price it both ways book the Sprinter; the ones who price it after doing it with two cars book it the following year.

Booking it

One-way or return from your Vaughan address to the Kingston hotel or residence; hourly or daily hire if the vehicle should stay. Note the move-in time slot, the boat sailing and any child seats; the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before, and the travel desk can book the downtown hotel for Homecoming weekends, which sell out.

Book the Kingston run