Chasing Waterfalls

Our annual family girls trip was a bit smaller than usual this year. However, we were looking forward to it nonetheless. We would start out in Niagara Falls and explore the falls and the surrounding area for a few days and then head to the city of Toronto for the last leg of the trip before heading home.

I’ve heard both Americans and Canadians say they typically stay on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls when visiting. However, since we were flying into Buffalo, and wanted to see both the American and Canadian side of the falls, we decided to stay on the American side. We landed in Buffalo (which is a pretty small airport), called our Lyft, and headed to check into our hotel. Fairfield Inn & Suites was our hotel for this portion of the trip. It is directly across from the Seneca Resort & Casino and about a 20 to 25 minute walk to the falls. I enjoyed the walk. However, if you’d like to stay closer to the falls, there were definitely closer hotel options. I can’t recommend any of them since I didn’t stay there, but I saw a Cambria and a Hyatt Place that looked nice.

Since we had the whole day ahead of us and our room wasn’t ready for check-in, we headed over to the Seneca casino to grab lunch. It was nothing fancy, but was a decent meal. We went back to the hotel afterwards to check-in and then decided to walk over Rainbow Bridge to see the Canadian side of the falls on our first day. This was on a Friday afternoon and when we left Niagara Falls on Sunday, we were very happy that we decided to do this on Friday instead of Saturday or Sunday. More on that later. So yeah, we walked over the bridge while enjoying the view of the falls from this vantage point, went through customs, and entered into Canada. We walked most of the length of the walkway that is parallel to the falls and then decided to walk up the hill to get an even better view from the Skylon Tower. I don’t remember the exact price of the tickets, but I think it was around 28 CAD or so. This is the best view of the falls. Just know, there is a gate around the entire loop of the observation tower, so your selfies will not give you an unobstructed view of the falls. It’s still worth it though. And you can just do what we did and stick your phone outside of the gate holes to get the best photos. We even caught a rainbow.

By this time it was starting to get somewhat dark and we wanted to get dinner so that we could catch the fireworks that night. I think they were scheduled for 9:30 or 10pm. At this point we were damn near delirious we were so tired. Rainforest Cafe was one of the closest restaurants in Clifton Hill to the falls, so we decided to eat there. The food is average, but the atmosphere is cool, especially if you’re traveling with kids. By the time we finished dinner and mentally prepared ourselves to walk back over the bridge to get to our hotel on the American side, we could care less about seeing fireworks. One tip that I would like to mention is that you pay the $1 toll to cross the bridge on your way back to America. The toll turnstile only takes coins. There are change machines before you get to the turnstile, but I would suggest at least having $1 bills if you don’t have coins. And there will be no change given, so you’ll need to have exact change or not care about not getting change back. We had another day in the area, so it wouldn’t be our last chance to see the fireworks, but we were lucky enough to catch a limited view of them on the walk back. Our view was from Rainbow Blvd, but I’d bet the best view is either on the Rainbow Bridge or on the walkway of the Canadian side. We hopped in the shower and couldn’t have our heads hit the pillows quick enough. We were exhausted. But I just have to take minute to give props to my mom and aunts that are all 59 and older. I’m 43 and was beyond tired, so the fact that they were hanging in there with me and my cousin that’s in her mid-30s, was impressive. I’m glad I have those genes in my bloodline!

Today was supposed to be our day to see the American side of the falls, but it was a rainy day. So we decided to figure out what we could do indoors. We went back to the casino to get breakfast and by the time we were done and started to walk out, we felt the raindrops. Since none of us had umbrellas, we figured we’d go waste some time in the casino. Two minutes after getting back inside, it was a downpour outside. I’m glad we didn’t try to make a run for it. So we spent an hour or so in the casino and wasted a few dollars. There was a lady that won $10k on a slot machine while we were there though. Since the rain stopped momentarily, we decided we could walk back out but didn’t know if we should risk a full day outside on the American side of the falls. And maybe right now you’re thinking, well you’re going to the falls and you’re going to get wet anyway. Well we weren’t planning on doing any activities where we would get soaked, so that was never a part of the plan.

So what do we do? TBH, there isn’t a ton of stuff to do in the city of Niagara Falls,NY if you’re not going near the falls. And my mom and aunts weren’t feeling making the trek back over the bridge knowing that we’d have to also do it on Sunday to get to Toronto. Well we decided to waste some time in the aquarium. It’s a very small aquarium, but their seal exhibit and shows they do with the seals is pretty impressive. One of my aunts suggested bowling, so why not. We went to Rapids Bowling Center. The center itself was nothing fancy, but we made a wager for the winner and had a great time. At some point, we were the only people in the bowling alley and this was on a Saturday around 5pm. We bowled 2 games and brainstormed on dinner. Our hotel concierge, Rick, had recommended an Italian restaurant called Mr. Ventry’s. But he said we’d need a car or we’d need to take a Lyft to get there. Well what are the odds that Mr. Ventry’s was a 10 minute walk from the bowling alley. We made our way over. We hadn’t eaten since brunch, so there were a lot of things that we wanted on the menu. So we ordered about 10 items and just shared it all. Our response to everything we put in our mouths was, “OMG!” Every single thing we got was amazing! I can’t rave about this place enough! If you’re in the area and have a car, definitely go here for dinner while you’re in the area. Even if you don’t have a car, take a Lyft. It’s worth it! Come back and tell me what you ordered and how amazing it was, because I’m sure it will be.

The next day, Sunday, it was time to head to Toronto. There are a few options to get to Toronto from Niagara Falls if you don’t have a car. There’s the Amtrak train, the Canada GO train, or a few different bus options. We decided against the Amtrak train because it left later in the day and wouldn’t get us to Toronto until after 7pm. I think it’s great that Amtrak has a train option that does a border crossing. However, I really wish they had one that left earlier in the day. My train experiences have typically been much better than my bus experiences, so we planned to take the GO train to Toronto. However, it was a holiday weekend. And even though you couldn’t even tell it was a holiday that Friday before, the crowds had definitely made it in now. We ordered a Lyft to take us to the Rainbow Bridge so we wouldn’t have to walk for 20 minutes on Rainbow Blvd with our luggage. This was probably not the best choice because traffic was literally at a standstill from the roundabout at the visitor center all the way the American side of the falls. We finally made it, but it took forever and there was no chance that we were going to make the 12:04pm GO train. And since there wasn’t another one until 4 hours later, we decided we’d take the bus instead. We opted for the FLIX bus. But again, traffic was chaotic and Lyfts weren’t plentiful. So we walked from the bridge all the way to the Table Rock area to catch the bus. The crowds were horrible! Remember when I said I’m glad we went to see the falls on Friday? So here’s the next tip. If you’re traveling on a holiday weekend, try to do the falls on a weekday instead of a Saturday or Sunday. It will be much more enjoyable. It was Memorial Day and our Lyft driver said it is much worse on the 4th of July holiday weekend. Ok, back to the bus. If you decide to take the FLIX bus, make sure you also reserve your seat when you book your ticket so that you won’t be left to pick over whatever is left. Also, you can’t buy your tickets on the bus. So purchase your tickets online beforehand. The bus was freezing, but a pleasant ride. We arrived to Toronto Union Station around 2 hours later.

We were staying at the Delta Toronto Hotel, and it was right across the street from Union Station. So we just walked over to our hotel. There were 5 of us, so we booked the Family Suite which had a bedroom with a king-sized bed, a closet area with a queen-sized Murphy bed, and a living area with a queen-sized sleeper sofa. This worked well for us. The Delta Toronto hotel is in the heart of the downtown. So it’s a perfect location to make your stay walkable without having to take public transportation too often or order ride shares. We were getting hungry, so we decided to walk to Dundas Square and figure out where to eat in the area. We ended up at the World Food Market off Yonge St. We all had a variety of things, but I wanted to try the Korean hot dog stand and the dulce de leche churros at the churro stall. Both were delicious. We walked back to the hotel and decided we’d do the Hop On Hop Off tour the next day.

Ugh, Tuesday started off as another rainy day. We got breakfast across the street from the hotel at the Aroma Espresso Bar. When we finished, it was still raining. However, we didn’t want to waste our day on waiting out the rain. So we headed out in the rain to walk to our stop to catch the Hop On Hop Off bus. We bought our tickets around 10pm the night before and they were 24 hour tickets. So we thought we’d be able to ride the bus the whole day. Stay tuned because we were definitely wrong. We rode through quite a few stops before we saw anything we were all interested in enough to get off. We got off at the Casa Loma stop and walked up to the castle. Next tip, the audio tour for this castle is done by scanning a QR code and doing the audio tour from your phone. So make sure everyone comes with their own headphones if they want to do the audio tour. It was a great tour and we spent 3 hours here seeing all of the grounds. We really enjoyed it!

Once we were done with the castle tour, the sun was shining again. So we thought now would be a good time to hop on and off at some of the other stops on the bus tour. Well, we soon found out that the last bus from each stop was between 5 and 6pm that day. I don’t know if this only applies to the day that we were on the bus, or if this is everyday. But the 24 hour advertisement is misleading. Needless to say, we couldn’t get off on anymore stops without getting stranded or having to find another way back to our hotel. So we headed back to the stop near our hotel and got off. From here, a few of us in the group decided we wanted to go to the top of the CN Tower. The views were very nice and expansive! We even stayed up there until it got dark so we could get the pictures of the skyline at night too. This is not a repeat activity, but it’s worth it to do at least once.

Well, another successful family girls trip on the books. Be sure to subscribe to the blog for the next one. -