Toronto to Kingston and the Thousand Islands by black car

Toronto to Kingston and the Thousand Islands, in one paragraph

Kingston is the 401's halfway house — the place the Ottawa and Montreal runs stop for lunch — and a destination in its own right for the families of the twenty-five thousand Queen's students, the RMC cadets' parents, the Fort Henry visitors and the Thousand Islands' boaters; the black car's case is the Queen's family's September (a first-year's room in a Sprinter with the boxes, the parents in the captain's chairs, the two and a half hours each way that the family's own car would make a ten-hour day of driving) and the couple's Thousand Islands weekend (the parkway, the boat, the castle, the Gananoque theatre, the limestone inn). This guide covers the drive, Kingston's case and its doors, the Thousand Islands, the parkway and the bridge, the castles by boat, the Rideau's locks, the County's ferry, the Kingston stop on the longer runs, the day against the weekend, the Queen's September, the winter, the vehicle, the rate, and a worked homecoming.

The drive

The DVP or the Gardiner to the 401 east, the Durham stretch (the Pickering, Ajax, Whitby and Oshawa pages' exits and the rush hour article's 4 p.m. crawl), Bowmanville and the 35/115 split (the 407's end), Port Hope and the ONroute, Cobourg, Grafton and Colborne, Brighton and Trenton (the CFB Trenton's Hercules overhead), Belleville (the Bay of Quinte on the right — the Prince Edward County article's 62 south), Napanee, and Kingston's exits — the 611 Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard for the west end and Queen's, the 615 Division Street for the downtown and the hospitals, the 617 Montreal Street for the east and Fort Henry, the 619 Highway 15 for the RMC and the Rideau; 260 kilometres, two and a half hours off-peak, three from downtown at 4 p.m. on a Friday; the long weekends article's Thanksgiving Friday (the homecoming weekend) is the worst.

Kingston's case

Queen's University — the September move-in (the first-year residences on the west campus and the main campus's Leonard and Victoria halls; the Sprinter with the boxes, the mini-fridge and the parents; the University Avenue drop-off circle and the residence's unloading zone), the October homecoming (the alumni's weekend — the hotels booked a year ahead, the Aberdeen Street party the police have tamed, the Richardson Stadium game, the Sprinter for a class of eight alumni from Toronto), the spring convocation (Grant Hall's ceremonies over two weeks in May and June — the graduation article's family day, the drop on University Avenue, the photographs at the Grant Hall steps and the limestone quad), the parents' weekend and the visits between. The Royal Military College — the graduation parade in May (the cadets' families, the Fort Frederick point's ceremony, the Highway 15 gate and the parade square's drop), the Sunset Ceremony. The downtown — the limestone City Hall and the Springer Market Square (the Saturday market, the winter rink), Princess Street's shops, the Grand Theatre, the restaurants (Chez Piggy in its courtyard, Le Chien Noir, Atomica, the Kingston Brewing Company, the Wooden Heads), the hotels (the Frontenac Club, the Rosemount Inn, the Delta by the water, the Holiday Inn Waterfront, the Four Points, the Residence Inn), the Confederation Basin marina. Fort Henry — the 1830s citadel above the harbour, the Fort Henry Guard's Sunset Ceremony on summer Wednesday evenings (the drums, the cannon, the fireworks — the event limo page's logic), the drop at the fort's lot. The Kingston Penitentiary — the 1835 prison's tours since its 2013 closure (the tickets sell out; the King Street West lot). The hospitals — Kingston General (KGH) and Hotel Dieu, the Kingston Health Sciences Centre — the hospital row article's standard for a patient from Toronto's east end referred east or a family visiting. The Leon's Centre — the Frontenacs' OHL games and the concerts. Bellevue House (Macdonald's home), the Murney Tower, the Marine Museum, the Agnes Etherington gallery, the Kingston WritersFest (September), the Buskers Rendezvous (July), the Limestone City Blues Festival (August).

The Thousand Islands

Thirty minutes east of Kingston the St. Lawrence widens into the archipelago — 1,864 islands between Kingston and Brockville, half Canadian and half American, the summer homes of a century — and the black car's day: Gananoque (the "Gateway" — the boat cruises from the town dock with City Cruises and the Gananoque Boat Line, one hour, three hours or five with a Boldt Castle stop; the Thousand Islands Playhouse's two theatres on the water — a summer matinee; the Gananoque Inn's waterfront), the Thousand Islands Parkway (the forty-kilometre two-lane road along the river from Gananoque to Brockville — the islands, the cottages, the marinas, the bike path beside it, the lookouts; the fall colours article's October), Ivy Lea and the Thousand Islands Bridge (the 1938 span to Wellesley Island and Alexandria Bay, New York — the 1000 Islands Tower's view from the Canadian side; the border crossing with passports for a passenger who wants Boldt Castle by the American boat or a night at the Bay's resorts — the Buffalo cross-border article's documents and the fleet's authorisation), Rockport (the Rockport Boat Line's cruises and the Boldt Castle shuttle — the castle is on Heart Island in American waters and the boat clears customs at the castle's dock; passports), Boldt Castle (George Boldt's unfinished 1900 castle, the Rhineland fantasy the Waldorf-Astoria's owner built for a wife who died — the two-hour visit), Singer Castle on Dark Island (the Rockport line's longer cruise), the Landon Bay lookout, Brockville (the parkway's east end — the railway tunnel, the Aquatarium, the waterfront) and the Ottawa article's 416 from there.

The Rideau's locks and the County's ferry

Kingston Mills — the Rideau Canal's southernmost lock station, ten minutes north of the city on Highway 15, the four locks lifting the boats from the lake's level into the canal, the blockhouse, the picnic ground — a summer hour watching the boats lock through; the Rideau's 202 kilometres to Ottawa are the Ottawa article's water route and a passenger with a week does it by boat. The Glenora ferry — the free five-minute crossing from Adolphustown (thirty minutes west of Kingston on the Loyalist Parkway, Highway 33) to Glenora in Prince Edward County — the scenic way into the County from Kingston (the Loyalist Parkway's limestone villages and the Bath and Amherstview shoreline), and the Kingston–County–Toronto loop for a weekend.

The Kingston stop on the longer runs

The Ottawa and Montreal runs pass Kingston at the two-and-a-half-hour mark and stop for lunch on the daytime departures — Chez Piggy's courtyard, the Kingston Brewing Company's patio, the market square's food in summer, the Sir John A. exit's fifteen minutes into the downtown and back — forty-five minutes that break the six-hour Montreal run into two comfortable halves, and the ONroute at Mallorytown thirty minutes east is the alternative for a passenger who wants the coffee and not the town.

The day against the weekend

The day trip: the 7:00 departure, the 9:30 Kingston arrival (the fort, the downtown, the lunch), the 1:00 Gananoque boat (the one-hour cruise), the parkway to Ivy Lea and the 1000 Islands Tower, the 5:00 return, the 7:30 door — ten to eleven hours on the hourly or the flat Kingston day rate. The weekend: the Friday drive, the Frontenac Club or the Gananoque Inn, the Saturday's boat and parkway and Playhouse matinee, the Sunday's Kingston Mills and the Loyalist Parkway home via the County's ferry — the multi-day hire article's chauffeur at a Kingston motel or the Friday drop and the Sunday pickup on two transfers; the anniversary and date night article's long version.

The Queen's September

The first week of September: the residence move-in day (the University's schedule assigns a time slot by residence), the Sprinter with the first-year's boxes (the bedding, the mini-fridge, the desk lamp, the winter coat — the luggage capacity article's fourteen large in the cage or an ESV's eight with the third row down), the parents and the sibling in the seats, the two-and-a-half-hour drive with the student's playlist, the University Avenue drop-off circle at the assigned time (the Queen's move-in crew unloads to the room), the parents' lunch downtown while the student unpacks, the goodbye at 3, and the 5:30 Toronto door — one day, one vehicle, and parents who did not drive five hours and carry a fridge; the graduation article's convocation four years later is the same family in an SUV.

The winter

The 401 at Kingston is the corridor's exposed stretch — the open country from Napanee to Gananoque takes the lake's wind and the lake-effect off Lake Ontario's east end, the whiteouts close the highway a few times a winter between Kingston and Brockville (the Ottawa article's hazard), the Kingston exits' ramps ice, and the winter driving article's protocols apply with Ontario 511's Kingston cameras checked and the Escalade for a storm day; the Thousand Islands Parkway is quiet in winter (the boats stop in October; Boldt Castle closes) and the fort's Sunset Ceremony is summer only, but the Kingston downtown's winter (the market square rink, the Frontenac Club's fire) and the Queen's winter term are the season's runs.

The vehicle

A couple: the S-Class for the five hours of highway. A family of four: the Escalade. The Queen's move-in: the Sprinter or the ESV with the boxes. The homecoming class of eight: the Sprinter. The RMC family with the grandparents: the ESV with the accessible service article's vehicle if needed. The sedan vs SUV article's rule and the hybrid and electric article's EV doing Kingston and back on one charge with the Kingston Supercharger's top-up.

The rate

The fleet's flat Kingston rate (the engine shows it — the one-way with the return leg built in), the flat Kingston day rate or the hourly for the day trip with the Thousand Islands, the multi-day hire article's daily rate for the weekend, the 407 at cost if used to exit the city, the gratuity guide, and the how much does a black car cost article's comparison with the family's own five hours of driving, the gas and the parking; the homecoming weekend and the move-in week book a month ahead.

A worked homecoming weekend

Eight Queen's alumni from Toronto (the class of 2006, four couples), the Thanksgiving weekend's homecoming, a Sprinter (executive layout), the multi-day hire. Friday 1:00 p.m.: the three pickups (Leaside, the Beaches, Yorkville) in sequence; 1:45 the DVP to the 401 ahead of the exodus (the long weekends article's Thanksgiving Friday — the 407 to the 35/115 taken, the toll on the bill); 3:15 the Port Hope ONroute; 5:00 the Sir John A. exit and the Frontenac Club (booked in January); the chauffeur to a west-end motel. Saturday 10:00: the Sprinter to the campus — the alumni breakfast at Grant Hall, the Richardson Stadium game at 1 (the drop at the stadium's lot, the chauffeur waiting), the Aberdeen Street walk-through at 5 (the Sprinter parked on University — the party is tamer than their year), the Chez Piggy dinner at 7:30 (the chauffeur at the Brock Street lot), the Frontenac Club at 11. Sunday 10:00: the Sprinter to Gananoque — the eleven o'clock one-hour cruise (the eight aboard, the chauffeur at the town dock's lot), the Thousand Islands Parkway to Ivy Lea and the 1000 Islands Tower's view at 1, the Gananoque Inn's lunch at 2; 3:30 the 401 west (the Sunday afternoon of Thanksgiving is the Monday's problem — they had chosen Sunday); 6:00 the Port Hope ONroute; 7:45 the Yorkville door, 8:05 the Beaches, 8:20 Leaside. Three days, 620 kilometres, eight alumni who had last done the drive in a 1998 Civic, and a chauffeur who was asked for the 2031 reunion.

Kingston and the Thousand Islands quick reference

Booking the run

The engine shows the Kingston rate and the day rate; the hourly chauffeur page books the Thousand Islands day; the multi-day hire article the weekend; the Ottawa and Montreal articles the longer runs that stop there. Tell dispatch the residence and the time slot for the move-in.

Book Toronto to Kingston