I am aerospace engineer who lived in Canada for more than 10 years. When I decided to move to Peru, it was a tough decision; but making things happen, which means move from the idea to actual facts, that could be very overwhelming & stressful if the right decisions are not taken on time and not properly planned ahead.
First thing is of course finding the right moving company (especially for moving overseas). There are many options and prices, but the real deal is knowing what customers have experienced with those companies and putting yourself in that situation – will this happen to me? What do I do? How I can avoid that? This means doing some research, reading, digging a bit in internet to understand the background and of course, asking directly the moving company to see what explanations they have.
By doing that, I decided to select Go Transport Canada. The person I was contacting directly (Chris Groumas) was very efficient, and when I say efficient, I mean he was all the times ready to answer all my queries like shipline prices, dates, availability of personnel, policies for custom clearances at arrival, etc and finally recommending me the best rate, the best time to fit my availabilities for the moving from my house to their warehouse and any other question I may have.
Once I decided to sign the contract with them (full service from Canada up to the port in Callao, Peru), which included picking up all my things from my house plus the free storage at their warehouse for the days prior to shipping; The moving guys were very professional, patient, careful when wrapping my things, tagging them, making the inventory and funny helping me dealing with all the stress of a moving and making feel more relax knowing I was at good hands. Of course a piece of advice: those are your things, so you as the owner better be the one directing the show (be the “chef d’orchestre!”), that means they will do exactly what you want and how you want it: how you want it pack, where do you want to put that thing and in which box, the numbering of the boxes, etc and of course the list of packings (very important list detailing everything which is needed for customs at arrival).
Once all boxes were wrapped & packed, they stored in their warehouse with the option of the “pallets”. Seriously, this was the best option I took for 2 reasons: first, easy to store and transport in the container…and second, safe for the trip in the container overseas. Also, all your bulks become 1 and your BL will be very easy to document (1 pallet = 1 bulk, but your pallet can have like 25 or more bulks/boxes!). With that I just wait for the day to come that the container will be shipped. Chris continued to give updates, sent me photos of the loading, updating & correcting the documents with the steamline so those papers will be CORRECT 100% (which by the way, they were perfect), but again remember is your load, so you have to make the validations with the country of destination to know it meet the requirements.
On top of that the Go Transport Team, was always there to help me in case Chris was not around like Sophia making sure I will be getting the return calls the same day or in few hours, doing the follow-up of the container and Dimitri, giving me advice like make sure that the remove the nails from the floor before moving the car. Damn that this advice saved my tires. Nobody noticed that in Peru, but I had that in my mind and highlighted to the team upon arrival to remove them. Thanks Dimitri for that simple advice that could have cost a lot. Once I got the container in Peru, I took it from there, but the guys in GO TRANSPORT made all easy up to the port of Callao.
All in all thanks to the Go Transport Team, Chris, Dimitri, Sophia, the moving guys Ali & Dean for all the help and support in this big endeavour and very stressing/overwhelming times. They made things very smooth, easy and very professional in all their work. My final advice for whoever is planning to go through the same:
PREPARATION = SUCCESS = LESS STRESS = HAPPY ENDING
Alberto Hoyle Montreal, Canada
Mar-23-2016