On day three in Niagara Falls we decided to start with the classic boat ride into the falls. Everyone knows the Maid of the Mist but on the Canadian side, it’s run by a different company now, and called the Hornblower. (I know, not as cool of a name.) I had just done this a few days ago with my family, but it was worth doing again! Here we are all ready to go before getting on the boat.
Joel and I caught this cool selfie at the start of the ride - check out the birds behind us! I know I keep saying it but the camera on our new phones is so good. I’m so glad we upgraded just before this trip!
The day was cloudy and overcast so my pictures of the falls aren’t as good with a gray background. But it was still an amazing experience that I would do over and over again. We took this selfie when we were right in the closest point to the Horseshoe Falls - you truly do get soaked!
When we were leaving the boat we came across a staff person just chilling with a falcon on her arm. We had a chat and it turns out the falcon is used every morning to scare the pigeons away from the food areas. How cool!
Next we used our Adventure Passes to go on the Journey Behind the Falls. You get to walk in some tunnels and, well, go behind the falls! It doesn’t look like much in the photos, but it was a really cool experience. The noise is tremendous!
There’s also a point where you come out and are basically at the base of the falls. It was a really cool view to see them from below after so many views from above.
From there we went to Niagara’s Fury which was included in the passes - it was an interactive 4D movie that was clearly geared towards children. In hindsight, we wish we would have skipped this one. It’s closing in September and we can see why. After that, we took a different route back to the hotel that included riding the Falls Incline Railway. It wasn’t overly exciting and led to a longer walk home, but it was included with our passes and we were trying to do everything.
We got Tim Hortons for lunch then spent some time at the hotel pool and hot tub before getting ready for dinner. This night was Steve’s choice and he went for…Hooters! A classic American experience he had never had before. I enjoyed the tater tot nachos and the boys enjoyed other things, haha.
After dinner, we were finally ready to try some of the things on our carnival passes! We started with Zombie Attack which was basically a giant first-person shooter video game. Silly, but fun. We of course couldn’t resist a selfie with the zombie statue outside!
The sky looked like it was going to rain so we decided on the wax museum next, so we could be inside. Some of the wax statues were pretty amazing and some were truly awful, but the whole thing was a fun way to pass some time. Joel and Steve got to be on TV with Jimmy Fallon (with Justin Timberlake standing creepily behind them…)
And Joel channeled his inner Star Lord and tried to take the gauntlet away from Thanos.
After that, we made it back to the hotel in time to watch the fireworks at 10:00, and then we had a big debate about whether or not to go back out. The rain had stopped, so Steve and I convinced Joel to leave again to ride the Sky Wheel, which at this time of night did not have much of a line. I spent the whole time trying to get a good picture of the falls because they were lit up in rainbow colors, which turned out to be a waste as I was able to get much better pictures the next night. So here’s a photo of the area of town just below the Sky Wheel. (In the bottom left corner you can just see the Tim Hortons we ate at basically every day.)
Stay tuned to hear about our final day in Niagara Falls!
XOXO, Bethany