Vaughan to Windsor: the casino, the riverfront and the city that looks across at Detroit

Windsor, at the end of the 401

Windsor is the city where the 401 ends and Canada faces the United States across a river — Detroit's skyline is the view from Windsor's riverfront, the tunnel and the Ambassador Bridge are the country's busiest crossing, and the new Gordie Howe bridge opens the third route. It has Caesars Windsor, the casino resort with the Colosseum's five-thousand-seat theatre that brings the touring acts to the border; a riverfront of parks, a sculpture garden and the Dieppe Gardens' walk; Walkerville, the distillery district that Hiram Walker built with the Canadian Club brand centre at its heart; the University of Windsor and St. Clair College; and, an hour south-east, Point Pelee and the ferry to Pelee Island. For Vaughan it is a four-hour drive, which is why the casino night is a weekend and the Sprinter is the vehicle.

Caesars Windsor

The casino weekend is the booking that fills this post: a group of eight from Woodbridge in an Executive Sprinter down the 401 on Saturday morning with the group at the tables, the hotel tower's porte-cochère at 1:30, the afternoon on the riverfront, the Colosseum's show at eight, the gaming floor after, the hotel; Sunday's brunch, the Walkerville distillery district, and the 401 home with the group asleep by London. Two days of daily hire, one number in the booking engine, split eight ways. A couple does the same in a Premium Sedan as a return pair; the casino's shows sell through its site and the Saturday nights go first.

The riverfront and the skyline

Windsor's riverfront runs five kilometres along the Detroit River from the Ambassador Bridge to Hiram Walker's, with the Windsor Sculpture Park's thirty-odd pieces on the lawns, Dieppe Gardens' memorial, the Riverfront Festival Plaza's summer stages, the Great Canadian Flag at the foot of Ouellette, and the whole of Detroit's downtown — the Renaissance Center's towers, the Ambassador Bridge's span — on the far bank, best at dusk when the skyline lights. It is the family's walk from a downtown hotel and the chauffeur's drop at Ouellette Avenue; the Tourism Windsor Essex site has the summer's festival calendar and the fireworks.

Walkerville and the distillery

Hiram Walker built Walkerville in the 1850s around his distillery, and the district east of downtown keeps his company town's streets — the Willistead Manor, the workers' houses, the churches — with the J.P. Wiser's distillery still running and the Canadian Club Brand Centre's tours in Walker's old headquarters, a brewery row on Walker Road and the restaurants on Wyandotte Street. A group's Sunday afternoon with the chauffeur as the driver; a couple's walk.

Detroit, across the tunnel

For a family with passports, Windsor's weekend includes a Detroit day: the Detroit–Windsor Tunnel from downtown to downtown in ten minutes, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Henry Ford Museum at Dearborn, a Tigers or Lions game, the riverwalk from the other side. The chauffeured Sprinter crosses with the family and the border guide covers the documents; the Detroit post covers the city. Without passports, the family sees the skyline from Windsor and the weekend is complete.

The University of Windsor move-in

The University of Windsor's residences on the city's west side and St. Clair College's on the south move in over the Labour Day weekend, and the Sprinter booking is the London one continued down the 401: the family, the student, the residence load, one vehicle, the unloading window, and the parents home the same evening — a nine-hour day — or after a night by the river. April's move-out is the reverse; the corporate account keeps the eight runs on one invoice.

The route

The 407 west to the 401, the 401 west past London and Chatham to its end at Windsor's Huron Church Road and the E.C. Row Expressway — just under four hours from Kleinburg with the 407 and one stop at London or Chatham, four and a quarter from Thornhill. The 401 west of London is a two-lane-each-way truck corridor with the Chatham stretch the flattest road in the province; the routing estimate's four and three-quarters is the no-toll version. The chauffeur leaves before the Friday afternoon or after it.

Which vehicle

A Sprinter for the casino group and the move-in; a Premium Sedan for a couple's casino weekend; a Luxury SUV for a family's riverfront-and-Detroit weekend with boosters at $25 each; a party bus is not the vehicle for four hours of the 401, and a group that asks is steered to the Sprinter.

What the chauffeur replaces

Eight hours of the 401 in a weekend; the casino's valet after a night on the floor; the tunnel's crossing with a family car's line; the move-in's second vehicle. For a Sprinter of eight the daily hire divides into a per-person figure that a coach tour does not beat for a private vehicle and a hotel of the group's choosing; for a couple it is the comfort of a four-hour drive done by someone else, and the site says so.

Seasons

The casino is year-round and its concert calendar is heaviest in summer and around the holidays; June for the riverfront's Bluesfest and the fireworks over the river; September and April for the campuses; May for the Point Pelee birds and the Pelee Island ferry's opening; the Detroit day depends on the Tigers' and the Lions' seasons. Winter is the casino and the riverfront's cold walk.

Pairing it

Windsor pairs with Point Pelee and Leamington for the birds and the ferry, with Detroit and Ann Arbor across the river, and with London as the stop on the way. A south-west Ontario loop — London, Windsor, Pelee, the Erie shore home — is a three-night daily hire the travel desk books.

The casino weekend, in order

Eight friends from Woodbridge in an Executive Sprinter: Saturday at 8 a.m. from two addresses, the 407 and 401 with the group at the tables and coffee, London at 10:15 for a Covent Garden Market coffee, Chatham's flat plain, Windsor's Huron Church exit at 12:45, Caesars' porte-cochère at one; check-in, lunch at the casino's market restaurant, the riverfront's walk to the sculpture park and the Detroit skyline at three, the hotel's pool, dinner at the steakhouse at six, the Colosseum's show at eight, the gaming floor until one. Sunday: brunch, Walkerville's Canadian Club Brand Centre tour at noon and the Wyandotte Street lunch, the Sprinter at two, London at four, Woodbridge by 6:30 with the group asleep from Chatham. Two days of daily hire, one number in the booking engine, split eight ways.

The riverfront, in detail

Windsor's riverfront path runs from the Ambassador Bridge's shadow in the west — Assumption Park under the span — past the Art Gallery of Windsor's building and the Riverfront Festival Plaza, the Windsor Sculpture Park's pieces on the lawns between Bruce and Church streets, Dieppe Gardens with its memorials at the foot of Ouellette, the Great Canadian Flag, and east to Hiram Walker's distillery and the Coventry Gardens' Peace Fountain in the river; the Detroit skyline is across the whole of it, with the Renaissance Center's towers opposite the sculpture park and the Detroit Princess riverboat passing. It is a two-hour walk end to end and a family does a section from a drop at Ouellette; the Tourism Windsor Essex site has the sculpture park's map.

The Detroit day, worked through

A family of four from Thornhill with passports and a Windsor base: the Luxury SUV at nine to the tunnel's Windsor plaza, the crossing and the American booth in fifteen minutes on a Sunday morning, the Detroit Institute of Arts at ten for the Rivera murals and the family galleries, lunch in Midtown, the Henry Ford Museum at Dearborn at two for the presidential cars and the Rosa Parks bus, the tunnel back at six with the Canadian booth's questions — the border guide covers what the chauffeur says and the family carries — and the riverfront's dinner in Windsor with the skyline they walked through that morning across the water. The Detroit post covers the city's other days.

Pelee and the island, from Windsor

An hour south-east, Point Pelee is the third day of a Windsor weekend: the park's tip and marsh in the morning, Leamington's lunch, and the Pelee Island ferry for a family that has reserved it — the vehicle aboard, the island's winery and lighthouse, the evening sailing back. The south-west Ontario loop the travel desk books as three nights is Windsor, Pelee and the Erie shore home through Kingsville, Port Stanley and the 401 at London.

Pickup notes

The 407 and 401 from every Vaughan community; a Woodbridge or Kleinburg pickup joins the 407 at Weston Road and a Thornhill one at Bathurst, and the fare, quoted from the exact address, reflects the difference. Give us the hotel and the show, the residence window and the loads for a move-in, the passports for a Detroit day, the seats and the addresses in order, and the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before.

What the weekend costs, in shape

Eight friends in a Sprinter for the casino weekend divide the two days of daily hire into a per-person figure that the casino's own coach from Toronto — a scheduled bus, not a door-to-door one — does not undercut by enough to matter, and the Sprinter leaves from a Woodbridge driveway with the group's own hotel and show; a couple's return pair in a sedan is the comfort of four hours each way done by someone else, and the site says so. The move-in in a Sprinter is one number against a car and a rented van for eight hours of the 401.

Booking it

Book a daily hire from your Vaughan address for the casino weekend with the show and the hotel, a Sprinter for the move-in with the residence window, or a family weekend with the Detroit day; tell us the seats, the loads and the passports, and the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before.

Book the Windsor weekend