Niagara Falls - Day 4 (Wednesday)

Finally, my turn to write! Even though Steve’s been a bit of a “blog-hog”, out of the two of us, he is most likely to remember the details and does a good job retelling them, so I won’t give him too much of a hard time :)

So today is our last full day at Niagara. Since we’re done our “Day of Adventure”, we don’t have to wear our Uncle Barry style badges anymore. They are practical (we have to admit) but they definitely got annoying. I thought about purchasing a fanny pack to complete my touristy outfit.



Steve and I have been sitting in this little courtyard blogging, surrounded by novelty shops and vendors trying to sell you pictures of your Maid of the Mist tour (don’t get them, they’re photo-shopped!). Our table is on the side of the falls. The view is breathtaking. It is important for me to not fall into the mentality that says, “OK, I’ve seen the falls, now what?” but to really stop and take some time to admire the way the water has cut through the stone, shaping the landscape, or notice the rainbows that form in the mist from the falls, or the watch people as they pose for their pictures…it’s humbling to realize you are one of many.

More than any of the touristy stuff, I’ve enjoyed learning about the creation of the falls and how brilliant men have learned how to harness its energy for electricity and still not damage it. I’ve enjoyed listening to the MANY different languages. I know I’ve heard French, German, Chinese, Russian, and many other unintelligible ones that I could only guess.

Between walking near the falls, going on the different attractions, or staying in the same hotel, we’ve managed to see quite a few people over and over. We talked to a really nice couple on the People Mover who were just married on Saturday. I can’t help but stare at people from different cultures. I’m fascinated by what they wear, how they talk, and how they interact with each other and others.



Today, I woke up at 6:00 to see the sun rise (Steve was supposed to wake up with me, but the walk to our window was too long for him). I ended up walking along the falls, taking in the early morning quiet and beauty. After I got back to the hotel, I got something to drink at Starbucks and people-watched until 7:45, then headed up to shower. Steve was still out of it, so I got ready and picked up our hotel room.

I had an appointment to get a pedicure at the hotel spa at 9. I feel like as I say that, I should be holding a teacup with my pinky in the air, while I wear a big hat, drinking lemonade. It was WONDERFUL! I walked in and the receptionist said, “Good Morning, Mrs. Creel. Can I offer you anything to drink?” They have this soft music playing and everything smells of floral lotion. I met Liz (the lady that did my pedicure) and she led me into a small room with a window along one wall overlooking the falls, a bed, chair, a basin on the floor, and table and sink with supplies. I was directed to soak my feet in the basin as I sat on the chair and picked out a nail color. Liz was extremely nice and considerate. After that, I laid down on the bed (think hospital bed, where you can sit up, except this is so much more comfortable and doesn’t have that nasty sanitizing sheet that crinkles and rips when you sit on it!) Propped up on pillows, I was completely at ease. This is the difference between a pedicure at a spa and one in the mall. Both are nice, but this was exceptionally nice. What a treat!!!

When I got back to the hotel, Steve was getting a shower, and we left soon after that. We decided to run to a couple of stores, grab some lunch and blog since we hadn’t done any for the entire trip. Sitting outside, with this beautiful scenery as we watch people and remember about this week, has been so relaxing. It’s been wonderful to spend time…just the two of us…exploring, laughing and talking. I know that sounds a little…funny, but we like spending time together and have had a ton of fun.

My conclusions about Niagara:

Things to do-
Maid of the Mist
White Water Walk
Ferris Wheel
Boston Pizza Bar and Grill
Take Pictures
Relax in the sun
People Mover
Hotel with view of the Falls
Fireworks over the Falls
Canada Exchange Gift Shop
Maid of the Mist Gift Shop
Charge Camera Battery!
Niagara on the Lake (we didn’t go, but heard from SEVERAL people that we should)

Things not to do-
Rainforest Café
Journey Behind the Falls
Pay to be photo-shopped into pictures (Maid of the Mist/Journey Behind the Falls)
Purchase t-shirts and things at the small gift shops



Here are some more pictures:

The view from our hotel room:


The high-tech method of grass-cutting - yes, that's a lawnmower with a rope tied to it...



Some pictures of us at the falls:




More of the falls:




Some other miscellaneous pictures:

NIagara Falls - Day 3, "Day of Adventure"

It’s true – it was an adventure. On Tuesday night, I sat down and went through all of the different attractions we might be interested in, then compared them and their prices to the different “package” deals that were available. Then we looked at the times, people-mover stops, etc, and laid out a [tentative] schedule for the day.

We headed out from the hotel (not at 9am as the schedule had called for – yes, I opted to sleep in – actually Beth silenced her alarm and I never heard it) by 10am. We went down to the welcome center just outside of the hotel and bought our “Adventure Pass” (named by the Niagara Parks Commission, probably not in connection with our “Day of Adventure”). The pass includes the “Maid of the Mist”, “Journey Behind the Falls”, “White Water Walk”, “Butterfly Conservatory”, and an all-day pass for the People Mover.





We had thought about the Maid of the Mist first, but being the flagship attraction, it was crowded with long lines. We took the people-mover bus up to Table Rock where we went inside and got in line for the Journey Behind the Falls. The idea is that you get to walk through tunnels that are bored behind the falls. They have two “portals” where you can see out to the falling water, as well as an observation deck at the foot of the Horseshoe/Canadian falls.

Journey Behind the Falls sounds a lot better than it was. The two portals were just holes with white misty water – the water ran directly over the portals so you didn’t get the view of the space between the rock face and the falling water. The observation deck was the only redeeming quality – and it wasn’t all that great.





Leaving the sadness and disappointment behind us, we left Table Rock (again on the People-Mover) for our next stop. We had considered the Maid of the Mist, but again, the crowds discouraged us. Instead, we decided to go to the Sir Adam Beck hydroelectric plant (our “Adventure Pass” got us half-priced admission). We rode the people-mover all the way to the end at the Butterfly Conservatory. There, we got off and boarded a smaller people-mover bus that went to the power plant. We got off and the guide came rushing out from inside to tell us that the tours only run on the hour (online, it said they ran every half hour) and that one had just left 10 minutes ago.

We got back on the bus and went back to the Butterfly Conservatory. We had about a half hour to kill (just enough time not to be able to do anything) and tried to get in line to go into the butterfly thing (which I was EXTREMELY uninterested in). They said there were like 400 butterflys that fly around you (I picture the scene from Batman where Bruce Wayne is in the tunnel and the bats are flying past him). We got in line but our tour time was at exactly the time we needed to board the bus to get back to the power plant. At the point right after they rip your ticket, we jumped out of line and went back to get on the bus.

Riding the bus to the power plant got us a free second look at the Floral Clock (you had to hear the bus driver/guide pronounce it – kinda like “flurral clawk”) which is apparently some kind of big deal to some people.




The hydroelectric plant was neat (and Beth was such a trooper to go along – she even asked a question during one of the Q&A times). The tour was a bit of a bummer – you got to peek down into the plant floor, but other than that, it was two short videos. The tour guide was great though, both Beth and I felt like we knew him from somewhere (though we obviously didn’t – he must have reminded us both of the same person). On the way out, we saw that Ontario Power Generation operates 36 hydroelectric plants producing somewhere around 6,500MW of power. Their 3 nuclear plants produce over 7,000MW.









From the hydroelectric plant, we rode the people-mover back to the butterfly conservatory (only to change busses) and then on back into town. Before we got back, we decided to hop off at the “White Water Walk”. It looked like it wasn’t going to be too great (and with our Journey Behind the Falls experience still fresh in our minds, we couldn’t even force ourselves to be optimistic). We waited in line, rode down the elevator, and headed down a walkway to see the rapids.

The rapids were actually impressive! It’s amazing to see the way the water bounces all over the place. They had a rickety looking “boardwalk” (by this point, my calves hurt from walking all over Niagara) but the sights were worth the trip.




After the White Water Walk, we boarded the People Mover for what would be our final ride, and headed the rest of the way into town. We went and got our tickets for the Maid of the Mist (then got our stylish blue ponchos to wear on the boat.

Waiting until later in the afternoon/evening definitely paid off – there were so few people on the boat! We took our ride, just like millions have done before us, up the river to the foot of the Horseshoe Falls. When we finally got up into the mist, the prerecorded narrator exclaims “Ladies and Gentlemen, THIS IS NIAGARA FALLS!”

We had decided ahead of time not to try to take too many pictures on the Maid of the Mist (as the camera got sufficiently wet at Journey Behind the Falls and we didn’t want to press our luck with our new camera).







After Maid of the Mist, with both of us aching from sore legs/feet, we went back to the hotel room to get dry clothes and get ready for dinner. Bethany wanted to check out the Rainforest Café, so we went there for dinner. It was an experience – the place is all decorated up inside and includes huge animatronic animals (Elephants, apes, snakes, frogs, etc). Every 22 minutes, they have a thunderstorm with very loud thunder and all of the lights flash. We were both disappointed with our food – it wasn’t horrible, but not even close to worth the cost.

After dinner, we went out for a walk along Clifton Hill (again). We have a coupon for 15% off at Dairy Queen, but we kept being to full from dinner to think about ice cream. We used our coupons for the Niagara Skywheel – a giant ferris wheel. Each gondola was individually air conditioned, had soft jazz music playing, and included switchable LED lighting inside. It was a fantastic ride! They said the thing was built in 2005 or 2006 (I forget which) – it definitely looked new and clean. The gondola doors closed tightly and did a great job of sealing out most of the sounds to make it a quiet and relaxing ride.







After the Wheel, we went to the gift shop to do some tourist shopping. Beth got a very nice red fleece and a Moose t-shirt (it says “In Canada, they call me ‘Moose’… Mr. Moose to you”). I looked and looked but couldn’t find any t-shirts that I liked. After shopping, we went back to the hotel and called it a night. We were planning on getting up before sunrise the next morning.

Niagara Falls - Day 2 (Monday)

On Monday, we slept in. You’ll remember we did lots of this on our vacation to Virginia this time last summer. People have commented that pretty much every day started with “we slept in” – isn’t that what vacation [and some weekdays, most weekends] is for?

In our defense (really read this, it’s legitimate!), we were up late on Friday night at Bethany’s parents new house helping them paint before they moved in. I slept like a rock but Beth tossed all night and never really got to sleep. Saturday morning we worked for a while up there (then I blew the control fuse on the air conditioner thermostat and we stayed for a couple more hours while I got that taken care of). Saturday evening, we got home and had errands to run, dinner to eat, and some packing to do. It was just shy of 1am before we went to bed – we only got to sleep for 2 hours before getting up for the Rapid Rover. We couldn’t nap too well at the train station or on the regional train from Philly to NY, then the chaos of NY’s Penn Station had us pretty well awake for the day (at 7am). We both occasionally dozed off on the train, but no quality sleep.

So…. on Sunday night, sleeping on the Sheraton Hotel’s “Sweet Sleeper” mattress, we slept great! We woke up a little after noon (like 1:30pm), then got showered and headed out for the day. We had explored the “Fallsview” area on Sunday evening so we wandered the “Clifton Hill” area on Monday afternoon. We ended up a bit too far out of the mainstream places when we realized we were really hungry. Forgive our boring choice for lunch – we stopped at TGIFriday’s. From there, we went down to the river/falls area to checked things out. We brought the camera along and spent a while taking different pictures, pretending we were artistic. We made it up to the Table Rock area and I was able to look over the edge railing down into the rushing water right as it went over the falls – that’s crazy.







The sky was really dark off in one direction and we heard loud thunder and saw the lightning as it got closer to us. There was no rain but it was fun to hear the thunder and see the clouds move over us. I think the weather helped thin the crowds out!











This is how they light up the falls at night - these are giant spotlights:




We went back to the hotel to change (I was wearing shorts and needed to get jeans on as it had gotten much cooler) and then headed out for dinner. We walked around Clifton Hill and enjoyed seeing it alive with people. We checked out a gift shop (thankfully most of the gift shops we’ve seen haven’t been the cheesy kind) and then went to Boston Pizza (which they mention on the back of the menu was started in Canada???) for dinner. It was a pizza/sports bar place with roll-up windows so we got to enjoy the sounds and breeze from outside!

Dinner was great – I’d love to go back there. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel to prepare for our “Day of Adventure” the next day.

Niagara Falls - Day 1 (Arrival)

Once we grabbed our suitcases and exited the train, we stood in line outside of the station waiting for a cab. Most of the cab cars were PT Cruisers.

I was surprised to hear a Carrie Underwood song on the radio station when we got into the cab. Maybe I thought it would be in French or something. We drove along a pleasant road filled with B&Bs and arrived to our hotel within 10 minutes. After checking in, we made our way up to our room on the 18th floor. We had such a beautiful view! Part of the window opened up onto a little balcony. We could see both falls and a large chunk of the Clifton Hills area. Gorgeous…especially at night.

After having so little sleep for the last couple nights, we were both exhausted, but decided to explore around the hotel. We intentionally didn’t bring the cameras or anything to avoid carrying a bunch of stuff, but wished we had once we started walking around. We walked and walked in town admiring the buildings and trying to remember the different places we wanted to stop at later.

We were starving since we’d only had breakfast at 9 am on the train and decided to stop at an Outback we saw. Not very adventurous, but it is one of our favorites. We each had an excellent sirloin dinner. After walking around a bit more near the falls, we went up to our hotel room and watched the fireworks over the falls. It was gorgeous.






After that we went to bed.