We left early Friday morning and arrived on the American side around 1:30. We visited Goat Island with intentions to do the Cave of the Winds tour and eat lunch. Apparently a lot of other people had the same idea. The line to take the elevator down to the walk along Bridal Veil falls in yellow ponchos and sandals to get pounded with water and mist was over 2 hours long! Now it was pretty hot out and the people in that line had their ponchos on ready to go as they got at the END of the line...
Here's a shot from the cliff above looking down at the walk. You can stand right next to the falling water to experience hurricane like conditions of pounding water...
This was our first encounter with the crazies at the Falls on the 4th! Needless to say, we ate lunch instead of getting pounded with Niagara water that afternoon. We ate on Goat Island at the Top of the Falls Restaurant. After crossing the border and checking into our hotel we had to take a short nap to prepare for the night ahead. We ventured down to Clifton Hill, AKA the Vegas of Niagara Falls. In the span of a few blocks, this street is packed with chain restaurants, fun houses, bars, Haunted houses, Wax museums, gift shops and "Believe it or Not" museums. There is also a huge Ferris wheel which we took a ride on!
The wheel overlooked the falls, it was so cool! After eating we made our way down towards the falls to see them at night and find a seat for the fireworks. People were not risking loosing their prime spots overlooking the falls so we ended up just finding seats for fireworks (which also wasn't very easy!). My night shots of the illuminated falls didn't turn out as I envisioned but I'll share them in the next post with the rest of the pictures. The fireworks went off exactly at 10PM as scheduled and it was a nice show!
Saturday was the main event. (Heres a link to a MAP of the area) We had purchased Adventure passes which provided admission to the Journey behind the falls, Maid of the Mist, Butterfly Conservatory and White water walk plus unlimited rides on the People mover bus and Incline railway. Sounds like a great deal, right? Yeah, everyone else had the same idea. So we started off early and ventured towards Journey behind the falls first. My pregnancy brain read the map wrong and took us WAY out of our way to get there and I was sweating and out of breath at 9 in the morning! After eating breakfast we headed to the Journey behind the falls. We saw this guy along the way and we both had a little bit of lens envy, especially when I went to take the picture and realized he had another one hanging from his shoulder!
At the Journey, they provide you a poncho and take you in an elevator down to the rocks near the bottom of Horseshoe falls. There are portals/tunnels that have openings that show you behind the falls and an observation deck. It was pretty cool once we got down there, not exactly what we expected but still fun. Here's a shot of the view behind the water (although not that exciting of a picture!) and a video of the fury of the water! (We had our point and shoot in it's waterproof case for these wet photos!)
We took the people mover bus to our next stop was Maid of the Mist. Everyone knows this boat - the one that drives right up into Horseshoe falls! The line was full of pushing people but thankfully wasn't too long of a wait - they run boats full of people in blue ponchos every 15 minutes! We weren't in the front but along the left side of the boat because I didn't think we'd get pounded too hard in that spot. Boy, was I wrong - it was like a hurricane but so fun! Check out this video!
We next headed to lunch at the Rainforest Cafe on Clifton Hill. Surprisingly we got seated right away in what appeared to be a nice table right next to the water fall. The fog machine was so powerful we were covered in dew within minutes. I could hardly see Duane across the table and we had been in enough mist already that day so after moving tables, we enjoyed a nice lunch while the mechanical gorillas and elephants performed their shows.
After lunch, we headed back to Niagara Parkway to get on the people mover bus again to head North. I should mention our first trip on the bus wasn't too unpleasant although there was not much air movement inside the bus. This trip was a little different. Just think sardines in an airtight container all trying to breathe. It was not fun or pretty! Everyone seemed to be heading towards the butterfly conservatory with Duane and I. We immediately got ice cream and water to try to cool off and let the rest of the bus go ahead into the conservatory when we eventually arrived. Once we finally got in after waiting in another line, it was really cool. They had the largest butterfly populations I'd ever seen in a conservatory! Literally everywhere you looked there was a butterfly! They had so many butterfly's hatching - here's a peek through the holes into the hatching thing.
We intended on stopping at the White water walk on the way back south but couldn't bear the thought of getting off and on that bus again so we skipped it and took our tired, sweaty bodies back to the hotel for a nap! After cleaning up we headed toward the Skylon tower. We walked up and saw that the trip to the observation deck was included if you ate in the buffet level or the revolving dining room level. Well without really reading the sign, the buffet was around $35 per person and the revolving dining room was about $40. Since they could get us in the revolving dining room immediately and I was a starving pregnant woman, we opted for that. While waiting in another long line for the elevator, I read the sign more closely and saw that the $40 price was for the 4:30 and 5 PM seatings only. Oops, this baby is really sucking my brain out of me. "How bad could it be though?" I said. Once we got up there, got seated right next to the window, Duane opened the menu and started laughing...
(Check out our seat but ignore the horrible pic of me!):
It was by far the most expensive steak house we'd ever eaten in! What the heck though, we were on vacation and the novelty of revolving around a tower (and the delicious dinner!) eventually overpowered the cost of the meal! It was really incredible, the sun was setting and formed a huge rainbow through the Horseshoe falls! When our bellies were full we took advantage of our complementary visit to the observation deck for the sunset then headed to the casino to try to win back our dinner spending. We didn't do so hot (read that as lost our allowance within about 30 minutes!) but it was fun anyway!
Sunday we woke up early to get on the road. As I went to get in the shower I looked at the bill and to my surprise, it was over $1000 for two nights at a Marriott Courtyard! I knew something was wrong because we were using my Marriott reward points for at least one night and were quoted $254 per night, not $259 for one night and $659 for the other! Duane headed right down to talk to the desk and came back with complementary breakfast buffet for the minor heart attack they caused us. We're still getting it all worked but am sure we will pay for only one night at the low rate!
Overall, it was a fun trip, we really did enjoy it and although some times were hot, crowded and annoying, there is plenty to look back at and laugh about! Once I get through all the other pictures and upload them I'll post again with more of the scenery pics!
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