Well, I had been to Niagara Falls 3 or 4 times before but it was Sylvia's first time visiting the falls and she was as excited as a kid in a candy store and couldn't wait to see the famous wonder of the world! I kept telling her that I was going to throw her in when I got the chance.

She even had her nails done for the occasion--YES! Blood RED!!! As you can tell from the middle picture, we had an early morning flight out of San Antonio on Monday, Labor Day, September 2nd! We landed in Buffalo, New York at 1 p.m. and had a shuttle van waiting for us at the airport. Judy, a driver for WHEELZ-NIAGARA, was holding up a sign with my name on it. (I always wanted someone to do that!) She took us to the Hilton Fallsview Hotel in Ontario, Canada in about 45 minutes. A majestic, high-rise hotel overlooking the falls, we had a room on the 43rd floor and could see both the Canadian Horseshoe Falls and the American Falls from our window!

Sylvia took these photos, below, during our 3 day stay. It shows the beautiful decor of the inside lobby, as well as pictures of the scenery outside our window from our suite.



The large Tower, about a block from our hotel, is the revolving Skylon dining tower. We ate there the second day (more about that later). Note the "little yellow bugs" on the side. They are the elevators that carry people up to the diner and the observation deck at the top.

After unpacking, we proceeded to Table Rock Center where they have the Welcome Center and two main attractions that we wanted to see. The first of these was called NIAGARA'S FURY: THE CREATION OF THE FALLS!

It was a short film that started with the Ice Age and talked about how the Falls formed during the heating of the Earth. Then we went into a simulated area that rumbled and spewed mist and water on us to simulate the heating of the earth and melting of the icy earth. Compared to the soaking we got at the Journey Behind the Falls and the Maid of the Mist, this was very mild in comparison.

Housed in the same building was the Journey Behind the Falls! This was a real treat, seeing the Falls up close through tunnels built behind and along the Canadian Falls. Here the plastic ponchos came in handy as the spray of water from the falls was even more drenching. Still, it paled in comparison to the soaking we would get from the Maid of the Mist boat tour!

Later that night, I was able to book two tickets for a Fireworks boat tour that went out on the Niagara River for 40 minutes to witness the Fireworks! Niagara Falls fireworks occur every night for about 10 minutes and can be seen basically everywhere along the river -- even from our hotel room! We had an up-close and personal view of the fireworks from our boat tour on the river that first night!


We packed a lot into that first day in Niagara Falls. By the time we reached our hotel room, we went out fast. Unfortunately, we had scheduled a Whirlpool Aero Boat Tour for 10 a.m. the next morning! So we were rushing a little bit. After a quick shower, we headed to the bus station and to the attraction for the next tour. It was a lot of fun. Here's a picture of Sylvia, waiting for the tram. We were able to capture pictures of us on the tram as we crossed from the Canadian side to the USA side of the Niagara River and then back again several hundred feet above the river. Beautiful views.

But then it was on to the next attraction, and the one we were looking forward to the most--the Maid of the Mist boat tour.

The Maid of the Mist boat tour has a long history. In this case, it broke up several years ago into two companies: The Maid of the Mist on the US side and the Hornblower's Tour on the Canadian side! More recently, the Hornblower's tour simply became known as the City Boat Tour. In any case, it's all the same thing. A boat that takes you as close as possible to the roaring, rumbling waters and mist of the falls. As you get close to the falls, it doesn't matter if you're wearing a poncho or not, everything gets soaked completely as you feel like you're in the worst rain storm you've ever been in! It feels like complete and utter chaos for several minutes before the boat suddenly turns away from the falls to safer waters. A real exhilarating experience!

After the experience, we walked around and looked at some of the other sites including the American falls, and the Zipline attraction. Lunch was also on our agenda!

The next few pictures are from the area right outside Table Rock Center. This is about as close as you can get to the falls without actually falling in! You are literally about 20-30 yards away from the edge of the rushing water. It is mesmerizing to watch. I tried to throw Sylvia in at this point, but she was having none of it. We took this middle photo at a booth of us in a barrel going over the falls. I guess that's as close as we'll ever get to going in the drink!

On our way back to the hotel, we saw this air balloon over the falls. The views were breath-taking!

That night, we had reservations for dinner at the revolving Skylon Tower. We made reservations ahead of time. It reminded me a lot of the Hemisphere Tower in San Antonio except, of course of the beautiful views of Niagara Falls. We had a delicious dinner, Sylvia had the New York Strip and I had the baked chicken, followed by views outside on the observation deck!

When we started dinner at 7 p.m., the sun was setting, and by the time we finished dinner and moved to the observation deck, the sun had set and the night sky prevailed. The Falls were lit up with nighttime colors making them even more striking.

The last day, we decided to see the IMAX theater and Clifton Hill for some kitschy fun and entertainment. Clifton Hill is a somewhat cheesy tourist attraction but it has it's own appeal and shouldn't be missed in Niagara Falls. The old IMAX theater unfortuntely did not survive the COVID pandemic and eventually had to be torn down but now was relocated to a smaller building off the main tourist route. Still, it showed an old but enjoyable film of how the Falls were recently discovered and the recent history of the Falls. From there, we went to see a couple of souvenir shops and had lunch at Kelsey's Restaurant in Clifton Hill! Here's a picture of Sylvia waiting for her chicken fried chicken!




There are a number of odd shows and establishments to visit in the area. Two things that we wanted to do were ride the Skywheel, a giant ferris wheel in the heart of Clifton Hill, and play Dinosaur mini-golf! Sylvia had a fixation on playing mini-golf at this dinosaur themed park!

I have to admit, that being the golfer in the group, I thought I was going to beat the pants of her, but she kinda whipped my butt at this stupid mini-golf park and won about half the holes. (I think the whole thing is rigged! I'm just sayin'...)


The views from the SkyWheel were a lot of fun. The Skywheel was even more picturesque at nighttime.

These are views of the fireworks from our hotel room on our last night in Canada!


As the day settled into night on our last day, we had passed a restaurant close to our hotel called MY COUSIN VINNY'S! It happened to be one of Sylvia's favorite movies so of course, we had to eat there! As it turned out, the restaurant had nothing to do with the movie and the waitress told us that the restaurant was built way before the movie even came out! But the meal was fantastic. I had the eggplant parmesan and Sylvia had spaghetti and meatballs. Unfortunately, the portions were really big and neither of us could finish our meals. With our plane leaving early the next morning, there was no sense in taking to-go boxes. With $35 in Canadian money left over, we tipped the waitress really well (she was really great though).

The last picture to the left, is Sylvia pulling up her downloaded movies on her tablet on the airplane ride back as I tried to sleep on the ride home after a really great but tiring trip!

Below is a brief video made by Sylvia taken "behind the falls".

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