I’ve been to Niagara Falls a couple times as a kid (see pic on the left hehehe) but this was the first time I took my own daughter and husband to experience what I think is one of the amazing natural wonders that one should see before dying 😉
Yes I know there are several others out there, but this is one of my favorites! There are no pics that do enough justice to the beauty of the falls, the beautiful rainbows, the mist, the sound of the power of the water falls, riding on the Maid of the mist… all something that you need to experience yourself! With the pics we took, I will try to capture our moments.
The roadtrip began in Syracuse, Papi was driving, I was the co-pilot along with Siri guiding the way and in the back was my Aunt Kathy and Carolina having loads of fun taking pics, making videos, snacking and just overall laughing and lots of giggling. Was a fun about 3 hour drive in the car.
1st things 1st we went over the international steel arch bridge across the Niagara River gorge. Rainbow bridge (beautifully named) is the bridge that connects the cities of Niagara Falls, NY, United States, and Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.
As we wait in line to go through immigration to pass over to the Canadian side, we spotted a gigantic Hershey Kiss on top of a building! See it in the pic?
We finally cross over the border and I realize that the Canadian side of the Falls is a way more commercialized than the US side which is more of a State park. We arrive at our wonderful hotel that Mimi treated us to. The Marriott Falls View and Spa. Beautiful hotel, everyone was very friendly, they parked our car ($30 USD) and took our luggage while we went to eat some lunch while our room was ready, since we arrived so early. We ate at the nearby Macaroni Grill, which had incredibly slow service but food was as usual nice.
Now that we had a little more energy we start walking around, 1st thing we see is the Casino, beautiful from the outside. Then we proceed to walk around Queen Victoria Park making our way towards the Falls. Queen Victoria Park is nicely paved, with fountains and beautiful landscaping, so many pretty flowers. The Trees have are now overgrown making it harder to view the falls but there are a few little spots where you can catch glimpses of the falls between the trees.
We make our way down the really steep hill and see the Skylon Tower, we decided we didn’t feel the need to go up it, because we can see great views of the falls right from our hotel room, so we decided to continue walking down the street so we can be face-to-face as close as we can be to see the set of 2 US Falls, the American Falls and the Bridal Veil. We took several pics here, it’s beautiful really. We continued to walk down the boardwalk, stopping every so often for picture taking until we reached my favorite part! The Horseshoe Falls. The mist permeates us which feels nice considering it’s sunny and a little hot now that we’ve been walking so long.
My favorite part of the viewing of the Horseshoe falls from this lookout is that you can always see beautiful rainbows. I got to snap a couple nice pics of the rainbow. The noise of the water rushing down 173 ft is quite amazing. We are talking about 200k cubic feet per second, just amazing. The color from one side is similar to peridot, where is on the other side it’s more of a teal color. Both beautiful! It’s fun to see the admiration of this natural beauty in everyone’s face, surrounded by so many picture taking, from professional cameras to the variety of smart phones, everyone has smiles on their faces.
After taking in all that beauty and 500+ pics later we go into the building to find some souvenirs. So many things to choose from, but I always go with a nice magnet for my fridge collection!
We walk back to the Marriott hotel since it’s now 3pm.
That hill just about killed us all I think, Oh my!
As we turned the corner almost to the hotel I spotted a rainbow, beautiful.
We made it to the hotel and got everything to our rooms on the 15th floor. Best thing was to open the curtains and encounter this!
To relax a little before dinner, we decided to head down to the Pool and Spa. Carolina loved swimming even though the water was quite cold, we enjoyed the spa and the sauna. Was just perfect before we head back to the room for a shower and to get ready for a delicious brazilian steakhouse dinner at Copacabana.
During the summer months they have fireworks on the weekend nights, we were a bit disappointed since we would have had great views, but the falls still look amazing at night from the room on a Tuesday night 😉
The next day we woke up, packed and left Canada to enjoy the falls from the US side. As I mentioned before the US side is a huge park and far less commercial. It’s America’s oldest State Park aside from being the home of the Falls.
We go over the bridge, say our goodbyes to Canada and go through immigration, a lot quicker since I suppose you are heading back home and they don’t ask us much… Following the signs we arrive at the biggest parking lot (Lot 2) of the State Park on Goat Island. Goat Island is a 70 acre natural woodland surrounded by fierce rapids.
First thing you see as you arrive is a huge statue memorial of Nikola Tesla. Then you arrive at the Cave of the wind ticket counter and entry. We only had time to do one activity since we had to head back to Syracuse for a family dinner, so we all agreed that the Maid of the Mist was the way to go! We walked around the trail and arrived at the looking point of the American and Bridal Veil falls. Carolina loved the view, it’s really beautiful and noisy of course! This viewpoint is on Luna Island, which is the piece of land that separates the American Falls from the Bridal Veil. It was named Luna Island in the 1800s because of the sometimes visible rainbows at moonlight.
The closest you can get to the Bridal veil falls is by entering the Cave of the winds attraction!
Before going on the Maid of the Mist, we walk around the trails going towards the Horseshoe falls. They aren’t as spectacular from the US side, especially one you’ve seen them from the Canada side, but they are still nice. We had a little fun with these Panaromic pics…
Then it was time for the exciting voyage aboard of the Maid of the Mist! Carolina has been “patiently” waiting for this moment all morning! We walk over, crossing a couple bridges over the rapids, you can really feel the water rumbling as you cross over the bridge. 
When you arrive at the other side there is so much to do! The visitor center, the Aquarium, the Nature center… Below is a picture really close to the rapids!
We continued walking down the path until we got to the ticket counter for the Observation Tower (282 ft above the Gorge, has amazing panaromic views of the falls!) and Maid of the Mist.
We go down in the elevator, they give us our blue ponchos and we wait in line for about 20 mins until the next boat comes around. Of course we take several pics in the mean time…
Aboard the boat, Carolina is extremely excited, we go up to the top deck and get at the top of the boat, we went on the right side as the left side which gets the views of the falls the closest on the way there is heavily occupied.
We had a blast, got a little wet, but not too much, Carolina of course just wants to go on again and again! I call that success!
When we get off the boat we walk towards Crow’s nest. It’s the closest you can get to the American Falls. But we didn’t want to go up all the stairs and it was getting late, so we opted for getting a snack (kettle corn YUM!) and heading back to the car for roadtrip back to Syracuse!
If you visit Niagara Falls I would highly recommend you start on the US side, and then Wow yourself even more by going over to the Canada side. Here is an interactive map that shows you around the State Park which is very handy: map.
We had a great 2 days at the falls followed by a great culmination of the trip with a big family dinner at Eva’s Polish Restaurant. So much fun! and so delicious.
And of course a special shoutout to our other favorite lab: Ziggy! the Amazing Diabetic Alert Dog
ccarretero 