The guy who checked us out has been very cordial and helpful. He gave us blow-by-blow directions on how to get to the scenic route to Niagara Falls. He even handed us 2 books on Ontario's finest inns and another one on the accredited inns in North America. Wow! When do these freebies stop?!?! B was very tempted to bring with us some more of the cookies - but he got shy! hahaha
Oh, we love Niagara on the Lake. It's a paradise! :) So, off we went to Niagara Falls. It was cloudy and we're expecting rains. Nice, we have the Fort George Adventure Pass (4-attraction pass that is all outdoors!) and we expect 60% rain in the forecast!
The trip was very smooth and lovely still... autumn has definitely arrived in Niagara and the
immaculate homes of these people are so pretty - we wished we could stop and take every single one of these pictures! We knew we are near our destination when we saw the Niagara Flower Clock. We stopped and took some pictures and this side of the Peninsula has purple (almost brown) maple leaves! lolFinally, we found our next temporary home. Hampton Inn by Niagara River. It was almost in the highway so you can't miss it! lol What's good about the location - we can redeem our pass across it and we did that right away while waiting for our check in at the hotel. (Great timing, eh?)
Our Fort George Adventure pass provides us with access to People Mover transpo (it's like the Hop on, hop off in To) and they pick up people every 10 minutes and 4 spots to be (Whitewater walk, Maid of the Mist, Journey Behind the Mist and Butterfly conservatory). We are not gang-ho with Niagara Falls because there's really not much to see except the big American restaurants and of course, all these tourist shops. It's funny how a half an hour drive can show a stark contrast in sceneries. What calm, peaceful, charming place is NOTL as opposed to a busy, fast paced, commercialized NF...
So we went to the Whitewater walk first... this was about 200+ft underground on a 30 second elevator ride... the walk was about 5 minutes one-way where the fierce and strong waters of the Niagara empties to this water-basin... it's a 'good-to-know' thing but nothing mega-special about it.
As it's just about 11am, we thought, we should wait for the People Mover (bus) and head out to the Maid of the Mist. It was a short ride but traffic was very apparent as there is a multitude of people that cross, drive, walk the paths. We reached Niagara Falls in about 10 minutes and we were whisked to this long line of people where each and everyone gets a blue raincoat.
We made the bee-line and you bet, you see all tourists from all shapes and sizes, colour and make and B&I were shaking our heads to this group of 8 or 9? who obviously are not Canadians because they think they can get their way on things! :( They look like Latinos and their Caucasian friends were not humoured by the fact that they were trying to 'smuggle' in someone for free! OMG!!! We were on their faces - giving them that look as in to tell them - c'mon, you surely can pay $12 for that!!! I guess the 'dad' of the group realized that their Caucasian company and we (B&I) can totally hear them and I made it a point to announce the counting of their 'group' so as to really embarrass them! Kapal!!!!!!!
Anyhow, once we got our tickets, we left in a huff so as to make sure we don't see them again as it is frustrating to be trapped in line with them - worse, to be in the same boat as them!
We found our way to the Maid of the Mist line. I was worried at one point, wondering out loud if the whole number of people getting in is more than enough to fill the Maid. (My brain was saying, TITANIC!!!) But, B assured me that someone was doing the count and there were people monitoring everything so we can't be over in capacity.
So, there we were - tourists to the max, enjoying the power of the Niagara. We first stopped at the American falls - and sorry, but the US falls is so diminutive compared to the horseshoe
shaped Canadian falls! When we stopped at the US-side of the falls - we went, 'that's it?!?!' Opo, sobrang liit. :( But, the Canadian side is soooooooo neat. You can feel all the swooshing and the sound is thunderous! We were mist-ed for sure - because our captain made sure everyone has a good 'look'... it's marvelous! How God is so wonderful making that powerful creation. Both B&I were giddy from it - it was cool to be 'wet'. :)It was a wonderful 20 minute ride... then we went to the Journey Behind the Mist - which I think is only available for the Canadian Falls. The small tunnels were good but not so exciting. Going thru the Journey, we were handed yellow raincoats. lol So yes, we have 2 raincoats as souvenirs! hahaha We liked the panoramic view the Journey had - where we are situated by the falls - because you can actually see it in your own eyes. In the Journey Behind the Mist, we are side by side by the falls. Awesome!
So, we are so drenched by all the falls activity and we have done 3 out of 4. lol (That was fast, isn't it?!??!) Finally, I told B that we should go to the Butterfly Conservatory to cap the last activity of our Fort George Adventure.
And so we went... tons of butterfly species for sure! Blue, orange, red, brownish-red, green, turquoise, yellow - omg, they are sooooooo beautiful! ;) We must have only spent a good 25 minutes on it - mostly, trying to catch the type of coloured butterfly for pictures! hahaha We had lunch in the Conservatory Cafe... Afterwhich, it was 2pm, so we finally checked in at the Hampton Inn.
We just changed clothes and we were on our way again to find the Niagara Outlet Store. hahaha We drove the town of Niagara Falls and we were not that impressed... :( It was a far cry from the NOTL area where everything is just picture perfect. NF, aside from the ones we checked out, don't have much to offer... It was a bit industrialized and too commercial for us...
So we managed to find the Outlet stores and splurged on some shopping: 9West, Tristan & America, Esprit, among others. We had great finds for the stuff we got - so you bet, we had an early Christmas shopping too! ;)
On our way back, we decided to have a quick bite and ate at Denny's. We got to the hotel at about 8:30pm - made final packing of our suitcases. Mind you, we went to To with 2 suitcases and we're going home with 4!!! :)
To view our Day7 activities, click this:
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/555524994Yosgdb
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