The Niagara Falls Adventure
For those of you that received my email, this is EXACTLY, WORD FOR WORD, the same thing. If you didn't get my email it's probably because I don't have your email address (emilieu this means you!) so you can read it here instead!
We got in around 2ish on Wednesday. We were supposed to be there at 4, but we were able to catch an earlier bus at Toronto. We took a cab to the hotel. Everything was in order and we went right to our room. The room was really awesome. There were two sections to it. The one section had the bed, the whirlpool tub, the bathroom, and a couch. The other section had another couch, a chair, and the fireplace. Both sections had TVs in them so we spent some time watching TV on Wednesday night in the fireplace room. The first three pictures are of the room. The first one shows you the bedroom (with Benjie already enjoying the TV). The second one is the Fireplace room, and the third one is the view when you look from the fireplace room out into the bedroom. We were on the fifth floor and had a nice view of all the lights on Clifton Hill from our window. We hadn't eaten much on the bus ride so we decided to grab lunch/dinner at TGI Fridays next to the hotel. I had a burger and fries and Ben had a crispy chicken salad. Both were excellent.
We then decided to go back to the room and take a bath. After our bath we decided that we wanted to go swimming. We went down to the pool, which had a whirlpool and a sauna as well and we were the only ones there! We had the whole place to ourselves. It was so nice and relaxing. I'd been craving a good swim for months (must be all this cold and non-summer weather) :-) After swimming we went up to the room and decided to go for a walk around.
We walked over to Clifton Hill and then down Clifton Hill. On our way down the hill we ran into the GREAT CANADIAN MIDWAY. Basically it was a giant arcade and since we know that Ben LOVES video games we decided to go inside. There were tons of games and a lot of the games had tickets you could win. We spent $20 on tokens (it was a great deal because we got 70 tokens for $20). I won lots of tickets at my two favorite games, skee ball (the one where you roll the ball up the ramp and into little holes with points on them ranging from 10 to 100) and the game where you put tokens in to try to push the other tokens off the edge where they are all balanced. I'm really good at that game and could spend all day and all my $ playing it. I just don't know why I like it so much :-) Benjie played a dancing game (he let me play it too) its very fun because you are using your feet to hit arrows on the ground that match arrows on the screen and it all goes along to music. Benjie also played some pinball games. It was very fun and we won about 200 tickets! I got us both a Canadian Midway key chain, and we got a deck of Canadian Midway playing cards. I also got a little frog that jumps and to use our last two tickets Benjie got two little gold rings. He put them on his ears like earrings and he looked like a pirate. Oh, there was also an alien at the arcade. The fourth pic (though it's a little blurry) is of the alien "choking" Benjie. It's quite funny. The fifth pic is of the sign out in front of the midway.
After the arcade we continued down the hill to the falls. They were all lit up with pink lights. It was really quite beautiful (pic 6). You could also see all the buildings along the falls lit up (Pic 7) which is beautiful too. We wandered around for a bit just basically checking out what time things would be open at the next day. We made our way back towards the hotel, but I was really craving ice cream so we went to Denny's Diner and had ice cream. Benjie had an Oreo sundae and I had an Oreo milkshake type thing. It was just the right amount of food to satisfy our bellies. By this time it was about 10ish I believe so we decided to turn in for the night (after another soak in the whirlpool of course). We had discussed what we had wanted to do the next day and had decided on going to the Journey Behind the Falls, The Louis Tussuad's wax museum (since we had a coupon for $1 off), and visiting the little shops along the hill including the Hershey store and the coke store.
We decided that we didn't want to set our alarm because we were on vacation. We woke up at about 9:30 and got ready for breakfast. We headed down to breakfast. It was really great. It was served in the Keg restaurant which was attached right to the Hotel and the best part was that it ran from 6:30 until 12:00 so you didn't have to get up super early to get breakfast. We were close to the only people in the restaurant (I'm thinking the middle of the week in February isn't the most popular time to visit Niagara Falls) :-D They had a buffet of Pancakes, Waffles (about the size of a piece of Canadian Bacon), cereal, toast/bagels, sausage, bacon, breakfast potatoes, and they had an egg bar. At the egg bar you simply told the chef what kind of eggs you'd like and he cooked them right in front of you. Benjie got his eggs sunny side up and they were perfect. I ordered an egg and cheese omelet and I added salsa to it. It was SOOOOO yummy! I haven't had an omelet that good since I was living at home (my dad was the omelet king!) I also had some pancakes, a waffle, and some bacon, sausage, and potatoes. Benjie had eggs, toast, croissants, bacon, sausage, and a waffle. We both had juice (he had apple, and I had orange). Ben had coffee and I had tea. We also grabbed two little packages of cheerios which we took with us so we wouldn't have to buy lunch while we were out. It was well worth it, but I'm glad it was included with our room because it "cost" $38 for the two of us!
After breakfast we made a quick stop to the room to grab the camera, our coupons, some juices, and to go to the bathroom. Then we headed off to Louis Tussuad's wax museum. It was approximately a 5 minute walk from the hotel. We got there at 10:50, but it wasn't open yet. However, people were inside "getting ready" to open so we knew it wouldn't be long. We were right. It opened up at 11:00. It was $27 for the two of us (quite pricey if you ask me), but it was quite an adventure. There were all sorts of wax figures in the museum. I made sure to pose at the appropriate spots. For instance, I did such things as appear on oprah (pic 8) and talk with President Bush! (pic 9) There was also a part in the museum where you could go into the scary part or bypass it and go on to more non-scary things. We were stupid and went through the scary part. Needless to say I didn't get any pics in there because I was too scared to stop and look. I was pretty much pushing Benjie through the entire section. When you first walk in and turn the corner there is Jack Nicholson popping through the door like he did in Stephen King's The Shining when he says "Here's Johnny!" Benjie saw it first and jumped and frightened me. We went around the corners VERY slowly because we knew there'd be something scary around each one. The next corner had a Mummy and the following corner had an egg from the movie Alien. When you got close enough the egg blew air and hissed! We both screamed :-) To the right of the egg was Sigourney Weaver. Benjie just new that there was going to be an alien next. And sure enough, around the next corner it's pitch black and then all of the sudden a strobe light goes off and there is a giant Alien standing there! It was SOOOO scary. I told benjie just to Run! We were such chickens. It was funny though. After the scary part you end up in a Wizard of Oz section staring at the cowardly lion. I found this Ironic because if you had bypassed the scary section the first thing you would see was the cowardly lion. Maybe they are trying to subtly hint that those who bypassed the scary part are scaredy cats! It made me chuckle. There weren't too many more wax figures after that.
After the wax museum we decided to head down to the Journey Behind the falls. We stopped into a few shops along the way, but we didn't end up getting anything. The Journey Behind the Falls was a lot cheaper to do. It only cost us $8.95 each. You buy your ticket, walk in and have your picture taken together (which they later try to sell to you), and then you take the elevator down 45 meters. When you step off the elevator you are in a tunnel (pic 10) that leads to an observation deck where you can take pictures like Pic 11 , Pic 12 , and Pic 13 . The tunnel continues on to two portals where you can take pictures like Pic 14 . It was very loud in the tunnels. It was a constant roar of the falls. It was very impressive to be that close to them. I had never done the Journey Behind the Falls before, but I'm glad that I did it this time.
After the Journey behind the falls we went into the gift shop and bought a pair of bear paw mittens. They are rather neat and I'll have to show you them when you visit. After shopping we decided to stop and eat our cheerios and juice for lunch. It was just the right amount of food to satiate us until dinner. We spent a little bit of time looking for where to catch the shuttle bus back to the hotel and we finally decided that since it was nice enough we'd just walk back. We walked back a different way than we had walked in. We went into a place that blows glass, but the glass blowers weren't working. We did, however, get to take a look at some pretty interesting glass pieces. Apparently this place specialized in Cranberry Glass and it's one of the only places in North America that makes it! It was quite neat, but I felt nervous being around all the glass things. I felt like I would knock something over at any second.
We continued on walking and eventually we ended up back at the hotel. We had basically walked a full circle around our hotel throughout the course of the day. When we got back I suprised Benjie with a video game and gift card for his birthday. The card I got him was quite funny. There was a monkey on the front and it had a riddle. It said, "How is your birthday present a lot like your nose?" and on the inside it said "You get to pick it yourself!" Since the card was designed to hold a gift card it was a very humourous play on words.
It was about 3ish by the time that we got back to the hotel. We were both kind of tired so we hopped in the tub (yet again) tossed in some bubbles and a glowstick (pic 15) and took a nice relaxing bath. After the bath we sat on the bed and watched TV for a few hours. It was nice because we don't have cable at home so we got to see some shows that we aren't able to watch normally. At around 5ish or so our tummy's started to growl so we decided to use our dinner voucher and get something to eat. We went to the Keg downstairs and were seated right away. We took a look at the menu, and we were both kind of hemming and hawing over what we wanted to get. The Keg is a steakhouse so you'd think to get steak right? Well, a steak dinner for one person is around $35! Since our voucher was only for $45 and neither one of us felt like steak, we folded up our menus, walked over to the waitress and handed them back, thanking her, but saying that we were going to go somewhere else for dinner. We decided then, to go back to TGI Fridays since it was the other restaurant that our voucher was valid for. This was a much better idea. Benjie got a Fajita tower. It was three levels. The top level had sourcream, cheese, lettuce, and salsa. The middle level had the chicken, beef, onions, and green peppers to go inside, and the third level had the tortilla shells. He loves fajitas so it was a nice treat for him. I ordered broccoli and cheese soup and a ceasar salad. It was very good! Benjie doesn't like broccoli cheese soup so we never have it at home so it was a great treat for me! I decided to take a bathroom break while waiting for our food to come and proceeded to tell the waitress that it was my husband's birthday. There wasn't enough staff on duty to sing Happy Birthday to him, but he did get a free hot fudge sundae! I tried a bite of course and it was yummy!
After dinner we went back to the hotel for a little while. We decided to watch some more TV and take ANOTHER bath (we need one of these tubs for at our house!) :-) At around 8:30 we decided to go for another walk. We went down to the Hard Rock cafe and had some more ice cream (it's another one of those things we don't have too often at home). I had a chocolate sundae and Benjie had a coke float. We then proceeded to look around at the Hard Rock Cafe gift shop where I eventually got a T-Shirt and 3 "free" refridgerator magnets (we had a coupon for if we spent more than $15 at the store we would get a "free" souvenier). We then went to the Rainforest Cafe (pic 16) to look around in their gift shop and to see their shark. It was pretty neat. I had fun hanging out with the giant frog out front (pic 17) . We wandered around town for another hour and then headed back to the hotel again.
When we got back we took ANOTHER (and our final) bath and then called it a night. It was about 10ish when we went to bed again. We set our alarm for 9:00 the next morning, but I woke up at around 8. I hopped into the shower and proceeded to get ready to leave and to pack things up. We took all of the soaps, shampoos, teas, and coffees that were in the room since we had "paid" for them with the room. "Free" Souveniers right? At around 9ish we went down to breakfast. I wasn't feeling too well (I tend to get nervous before travelling) so I didn't eat all that much. I had cheerios and water. At least I was able to eat something though. Benjie had his normal breakfast of eggs, toast, juice, coffee (decaf this time) and croissants. Again we took cheerios and two bananas with us for the trip home. We watched two movies on the trip from Toronto to Ottawa...we watched The Medallion and Runaway Jury. We had also watched those same movies on the way down. However, I didn't watch the Medallion the first time because the Gravol had knocked me out! I was able to watch it on the way back though so that was nice. We stopped at a little place about 1/2 way back to Ottawa where we could grab some food and use REAL bathrooms. We got some sandwiches and pringles for dinner. We got into Ottawa around 7:30 pm. We caught the bus home from the station, but we decided to get off a little early and have some Booster Juice to top the night off. We then caught the #7 bus from the Booster Juice, which is great because it goes right to our front door!
All in all it was quite the adventure to say the least. We couldn't have asked for anymore PERFECT weather on Thursday which was pretty much the one day that we did EVERYTHING.
Trish and Ben (pic 18 and pic 19)
We got in around 2ish on Wednesday. We were supposed to be there at 4, but we were able to catch an earlier bus at Toronto. We took a cab to the hotel. Everything was in order and we went right to our room. The room was really awesome. There were two sections to it. The one section had the bed, the whirlpool tub, the bathroom, and a couch. The other section had another couch, a chair, and the fireplace. Both sections had TVs in them so we spent some time watching TV on Wednesday night in the fireplace room. The first three pictures are of the room. The first one shows you the bedroom (with Benjie already enjoying the TV). The second one is the Fireplace room, and the third one is the view when you look from the fireplace room out into the bedroom. We were on the fifth floor and had a nice view of all the lights on Clifton Hill from our window. We hadn't eaten much on the bus ride so we decided to grab lunch/dinner at TGI Fridays next to the hotel. I had a burger and fries and Ben had a crispy chicken salad. Both were excellent.
We then decided to go back to the room and take a bath. After our bath we decided that we wanted to go swimming. We went down to the pool, which had a whirlpool and a sauna as well and we were the only ones there! We had the whole place to ourselves. It was so nice and relaxing. I'd been craving a good swim for months (must be all this cold and non-summer weather) :-) After swimming we went up to the room and decided to go for a walk around.
We walked over to Clifton Hill and then down Clifton Hill. On our way down the hill we ran into the GREAT CANADIAN MIDWAY. Basically it was a giant arcade and since we know that Ben LOVES video games we decided to go inside. There were tons of games and a lot of the games had tickets you could win. We spent $20 on tokens (it was a great deal because we got 70 tokens for $20). I won lots of tickets at my two favorite games, skee ball (the one where you roll the ball up the ramp and into little holes with points on them ranging from 10 to 100) and the game where you put tokens in to try to push the other tokens off the edge where they are all balanced. I'm really good at that game and could spend all day and all my $ playing it. I just don't know why I like it so much :-) Benjie played a dancing game (he let me play it too) its very fun because you are using your feet to hit arrows on the ground that match arrows on the screen and it all goes along to music. Benjie also played some pinball games. It was very fun and we won about 200 tickets! I got us both a Canadian Midway key chain, and we got a deck of Canadian Midway playing cards. I also got a little frog that jumps and to use our last two tickets Benjie got two little gold rings. He put them on his ears like earrings and he looked like a pirate. Oh, there was also an alien at the arcade. The fourth pic (though it's a little blurry) is of the alien "choking" Benjie. It's quite funny. The fifth pic is of the sign out in front of the midway.
After the arcade we continued down the hill to the falls. They were all lit up with pink lights. It was really quite beautiful (pic 6). You could also see all the buildings along the falls lit up (Pic 7) which is beautiful too. We wandered around for a bit just basically checking out what time things would be open at the next day. We made our way back towards the hotel, but I was really craving ice cream so we went to Denny's Diner and had ice cream. Benjie had an Oreo sundae and I had an Oreo milkshake type thing. It was just the right amount of food to satisfy our bellies. By this time it was about 10ish I believe so we decided to turn in for the night (after another soak in the whirlpool of course). We had discussed what we had wanted to do the next day and had decided on going to the Journey Behind the Falls, The Louis Tussuad's wax museum (since we had a coupon for $1 off), and visiting the little shops along the hill including the Hershey store and the coke store.
We decided that we didn't want to set our alarm because we were on vacation. We woke up at about 9:30 and got ready for breakfast. We headed down to breakfast. It was really great. It was served in the Keg restaurant which was attached right to the Hotel and the best part was that it ran from 6:30 until 12:00 so you didn't have to get up super early to get breakfast. We were close to the only people in the restaurant (I'm thinking the middle of the week in February isn't the most popular time to visit Niagara Falls) :-D They had a buffet of Pancakes, Waffles (about the size of a piece of Canadian Bacon), cereal, toast/bagels, sausage, bacon, breakfast potatoes, and they had an egg bar. At the egg bar you simply told the chef what kind of eggs you'd like and he cooked them right in front of you. Benjie got his eggs sunny side up and they were perfect. I ordered an egg and cheese omelet and I added salsa to it. It was SOOOOO yummy! I haven't had an omelet that good since I was living at home (my dad was the omelet king!) I also had some pancakes, a waffle, and some bacon, sausage, and potatoes. Benjie had eggs, toast, croissants, bacon, sausage, and a waffle. We both had juice (he had apple, and I had orange). Ben had coffee and I had tea. We also grabbed two little packages of cheerios which we took with us so we wouldn't have to buy lunch while we were out. It was well worth it, but I'm glad it was included with our room because it "cost" $38 for the two of us!
After breakfast we made a quick stop to the room to grab the camera, our coupons, some juices, and to go to the bathroom. Then we headed off to Louis Tussuad's wax museum. It was approximately a 5 minute walk from the hotel. We got there at 10:50, but it wasn't open yet. However, people were inside "getting ready" to open so we knew it wouldn't be long. We were right. It opened up at 11:00. It was $27 for the two of us (quite pricey if you ask me), but it was quite an adventure. There were all sorts of wax figures in the museum. I made sure to pose at the appropriate spots. For instance, I did such things as appear on oprah (pic 8) and talk with President Bush! (pic 9) There was also a part in the museum where you could go into the scary part or bypass it and go on to more non-scary things. We were stupid and went through the scary part. Needless to say I didn't get any pics in there because I was too scared to stop and look. I was pretty much pushing Benjie through the entire section. When you first walk in and turn the corner there is Jack Nicholson popping through the door like he did in Stephen King's The Shining when he says "Here's Johnny!" Benjie saw it first and jumped and frightened me. We went around the corners VERY slowly because we knew there'd be something scary around each one. The next corner had a Mummy and the following corner had an egg from the movie Alien. When you got close enough the egg blew air and hissed! We both screamed :-) To the right of the egg was Sigourney Weaver. Benjie just new that there was going to be an alien next. And sure enough, around the next corner it's pitch black and then all of the sudden a strobe light goes off and there is a giant Alien standing there! It was SOOOO scary. I told benjie just to Run! We were such chickens. It was funny though. After the scary part you end up in a Wizard of Oz section staring at the cowardly lion. I found this Ironic because if you had bypassed the scary section the first thing you would see was the cowardly lion. Maybe they are trying to subtly hint that those who bypassed the scary part are scaredy cats! It made me chuckle. There weren't too many more wax figures after that.
After the wax museum we decided to head down to the Journey Behind the falls. We stopped into a few shops along the way, but we didn't end up getting anything. The Journey Behind the Falls was a lot cheaper to do. It only cost us $8.95 each. You buy your ticket, walk in and have your picture taken together (which they later try to sell to you), and then you take the elevator down 45 meters. When you step off the elevator you are in a tunnel (pic 10) that leads to an observation deck where you can take pictures like Pic 11 , Pic 12 , and Pic 13 . The tunnel continues on to two portals where you can take pictures like Pic 14 . It was very loud in the tunnels. It was a constant roar of the falls. It was very impressive to be that close to them. I had never done the Journey Behind the Falls before, but I'm glad that I did it this time.
After the Journey behind the falls we went into the gift shop and bought a pair of bear paw mittens. They are rather neat and I'll have to show you them when you visit. After shopping we decided to stop and eat our cheerios and juice for lunch. It was just the right amount of food to satiate us until dinner. We spent a little bit of time looking for where to catch the shuttle bus back to the hotel and we finally decided that since it was nice enough we'd just walk back. We walked back a different way than we had walked in. We went into a place that blows glass, but the glass blowers weren't working. We did, however, get to take a look at some pretty interesting glass pieces. Apparently this place specialized in Cranberry Glass and it's one of the only places in North America that makes it! It was quite neat, but I felt nervous being around all the glass things. I felt like I would knock something over at any second.
We continued on walking and eventually we ended up back at the hotel. We had basically walked a full circle around our hotel throughout the course of the day. When we got back I suprised Benjie with a video game and gift card for his birthday. The card I got him was quite funny. There was a monkey on the front and it had a riddle. It said, "How is your birthday present a lot like your nose?" and on the inside it said "You get to pick it yourself!" Since the card was designed to hold a gift card it was a very humourous play on words.
It was about 3ish by the time that we got back to the hotel. We were both kind of tired so we hopped in the tub (yet again) tossed in some bubbles and a glowstick (pic 15) and took a nice relaxing bath. After the bath we sat on the bed and watched TV for a few hours. It was nice because we don't have cable at home so we got to see some shows that we aren't able to watch normally. At around 5ish or so our tummy's started to growl so we decided to use our dinner voucher and get something to eat. We went to the Keg downstairs and were seated right away. We took a look at the menu, and we were both kind of hemming and hawing over what we wanted to get. The Keg is a steakhouse so you'd think to get steak right? Well, a steak dinner for one person is around $35! Since our voucher was only for $45 and neither one of us felt like steak, we folded up our menus, walked over to the waitress and handed them back, thanking her, but saying that we were going to go somewhere else for dinner. We decided then, to go back to TGI Fridays since it was the other restaurant that our voucher was valid for. This was a much better idea. Benjie got a Fajita tower. It was three levels. The top level had sourcream, cheese, lettuce, and salsa. The middle level had the chicken, beef, onions, and green peppers to go inside, and the third level had the tortilla shells. He loves fajitas so it was a nice treat for him. I ordered broccoli and cheese soup and a ceasar salad. It was very good! Benjie doesn't like broccoli cheese soup so we never have it at home so it was a great treat for me! I decided to take a bathroom break while waiting for our food to come and proceeded to tell the waitress that it was my husband's birthday. There wasn't enough staff on duty to sing Happy Birthday to him, but he did get a free hot fudge sundae! I tried a bite of course and it was yummy!
After dinner we went back to the hotel for a little while. We decided to watch some more TV and take ANOTHER bath (we need one of these tubs for at our house!) :-) At around 8:30 we decided to go for another walk. We went down to the Hard Rock cafe and had some more ice cream (it's another one of those things we don't have too often at home). I had a chocolate sundae and Benjie had a coke float. We then proceeded to look around at the Hard Rock Cafe gift shop where I eventually got a T-Shirt and 3 "free" refridgerator magnets (we had a coupon for if we spent more than $15 at the store we would get a "free" souvenier). We then went to the Rainforest Cafe (pic 16) to look around in their gift shop and to see their shark. It was pretty neat. I had fun hanging out with the giant frog out front (pic 17) . We wandered around town for another hour and then headed back to the hotel again.
When we got back we took ANOTHER (and our final) bath and then called it a night. It was about 10ish when we went to bed again. We set our alarm for 9:00 the next morning, but I woke up at around 8. I hopped into the shower and proceeded to get ready to leave and to pack things up. We took all of the soaps, shampoos, teas, and coffees that were in the room since we had "paid" for them with the room. "Free" Souveniers right? At around 9ish we went down to breakfast. I wasn't feeling too well (I tend to get nervous before travelling) so I didn't eat all that much. I had cheerios and water. At least I was able to eat something though. Benjie had his normal breakfast of eggs, toast, juice, coffee (decaf this time) and croissants. Again we took cheerios and two bananas with us for the trip home. We watched two movies on the trip from Toronto to Ottawa...we watched The Medallion and Runaway Jury. We had also watched those same movies on the way down. However, I didn't watch the Medallion the first time because the Gravol had knocked me out! I was able to watch it on the way back though so that was nice. We stopped at a little place about 1/2 way back to Ottawa where we could grab some food and use REAL bathrooms. We got some sandwiches and pringles for dinner. We got into Ottawa around 7:30 pm. We caught the bus home from the station, but we decided to get off a little early and have some Booster Juice to top the night off. We then caught the #7 bus from the Booster Juice, which is great because it goes right to our front door!
All in all it was quite the adventure to say the least. We couldn't have asked for anymore PERFECT weather on Thursday which was pretty much the one day that we did EVERYTHING.
Trish and Ben (pic 18 and pic 19)
