Tours from Halifax to the States still mostly fullPublished Apr 19, 2025 • Last updated 20 hours ago • 3 minute readSusan Lawrence, owner of Sue-Ann Tours, goes through paperwork in her Halifax office on Thursday. Photo by Tim Krochak /The Chronicle HeraldThough she now has 30 years of experience as the owner of a tour business in Halifax, Susan Lawrence got started because of the poor service she experienced on a bingo trip to the U.S., a trip won by her mother during a bingo at the Halifax Forum. “Just seeing the way people were being treated didn’t sit right with me, so when I got home I went to that bingo and told them about it, and then I called the bingo down in the States and they told me to start my business, and I did,” said Lawrence, now the owner of Sue-Anne Tours but then a full-time employee of the phone company. 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I thought I’d just start off with one bus, take it easy from there, but within a matter of months I was up to two or three buses, taking them to bingo. I retired from the phone company in 2011, said I’d add one or two trips, but it blew up. I started going to Nashville, to New York City, to Foxwoods in Connecticut, all kinds of tours. “I do 10 or 11 tours a year, spread out throughout the year. I’ve just introduced into my business no-fly cruises, which is I put people on the motorcoach and take them to either Boston or New York City, and they board the cruise ship there. It’s been surprising to me how many people out there do not want to fly.” One of the life bloods of Lawrence’s business is outlet shopping tours to Maine and New Hampshire in the fall, which, different from tours to Nashville and no-fly cruises that are mostly populated by couples, are mostly for women “anywhere from the age of 19 or 20, and I actually have one client in her early 90s.” Article contentSo far, the chaos in the U.S. has had no impact on that part of her business. “Even with what’s gone on in the last couple of months, nobody’s called to cancel or anything like that, as of right now, but that’s a little further out,” said Lawrence, who will take a group to Nashville on April 26, a tour for which there have been a couple of cancellations.“There were only four people that did cancel their tour, unfortunately, so we’ll be leaving with 52 people. That’s a 17-day tour and, with everything included, all their meals, all their shows, everything, it’s $4,500 Canadian per person. They cancelled because of what’s going on in the U.S.” Two of the cancellations were due to nervousness about entering the States, and the other two were by people who “just didn’t feel comfortable giving the U.S. any money.” There were also others whose concerns Lawrence was able to allay. “I tried to convince them because I’ve been to the U.S. On March 18 I took a bus tour down to the Blake Shelton concert, not an issue, no issues whatsoever going in at the American border or coming out at the Canadian border. Timing-wise, we were 15 minutes at the border going in and 16 minutes coming out. I timed it,” said Lawrence, who is finding apologies more common than hassles. Article content“I flew to Orlando last week on a personal vacation with a couple of friends. Clearing customs in Halifax, the customs officer had two questions: ‘Where are you going?’ Orlando. ‘How long are you going to be there?’ A week. ‘Enjoy your vacation.’ Coming back, same thing. Now, while we were in Florida, shopping for groceries at Walmart, I was talking to my friend about how much cheaper watermelon was, and two ladies behind us said, ‘Excuse us, but where are you from?’ I said, ‘We’re from Canada’ and they said, ‘Thank you so much for coming, we apologize for our president and if things here keep going the way they are, we’re coming to Canada.’” Article content
Tours from Halifax to the States still mostly full
