Over The Rainbow Bridge

After midnight it was officially September 6th, our first travel day for the journey home! I’d decided to get up at 2:00am to get ready and be out the door by 2:30-2:40am, but Jess had other plans. She was up well before 2:00am getting everything set up. I figured as she had everything all packed I could lay down a while longer, but she had other plans, getting me up at 2:15am so we could be out the door by 2:20am. She was worried about how long it would take to catch a Lyft this late at night to drive us to the train station, and I was paranoid about the border being closed even though I know Rainbow Bridge is listed as a 24 hour crossing, so I guess it made sense to get going as early as we were willing.

So, off we set towards the Rainbow Bride, directly across from our hotel. We followed the path we’d taken when we arrived, crossing the street to walk up the left sidewalk, planning to cross over to the pedestrian crossing part when we reached the opening in the barricades. As we walked up, however, some teens who were already on the other side of the barricade called over to tell us we had gone the wrong way, that we had to come over through the pedestrian way as the wouldn’t let us through if we went up the car way. We said that’s where we were heading, we were just gonna get to there through the opening where the pedestrian bridge started and all three kids realized that there was, indeed, an opening for us to get through that we had been headed for. We all had a laugh and we thanked them for at least trying to help us even if we hadn’t actually needed any help. 

The three of them jumped over the turnstiles charging $1.25 to cross the border, so we assume they do this a lot, but Jess and I weren’t planning on risking anything so we found some Canadian and American change adding up to $2.50 and were on our way. Another man was crossing behind us, so that was a total of 4 other people crossing at around 2:40am, which surprised us as we imagined it would just be us! At the US border customs building we did a back-and-forth merry-go-round of holding the door for the person behind us and having the door held for us before we were summoned to the desk to get our passports read. We answered all the questions, which we expected as we imagined two Americans crossing close to 3:00am might be suspicious, but our bags weren’t even checked or anything and the whole thing took less than 5 minutes!

With that, we were back in America! Jess was going to call a Lyft, but then there were taxis right outside so we decided, given that we didn’t even know if any Lyft drivers would be available, to just take the taxi. This was probably for the best, given how long we waited for a Lyft to take us from the train station to our hotel at 11:00pm when we first arrived, but it was also kind of a hilarious mess! There were two guys and the guy who drove us was clearly doing this for the first time. As soon as we got in he was like “Oh, we need to talk about price.” Jess asked what the rate was and he was like “Uh…$25.” It was probably more than we would have been charged by Lyft and also not how this works at all, but we said Sure! Why not! $10 dollars extra for 3:00am service, fair enough. He drove us the 8 minutes or so to the train station and then we asked if he had change for a $10, as we only had 2 $20’s and a $10 on us. He said no. We offered him $2 dollars as we did have $3 in one’s and he had just picked a number to charge us but he decided to shuffle around in his car compartments to see if he could scrounge up $5 and he said he had and we gave him the $20 and the $10 and he gave us $1 and some change which we thought at the time might be Canadian money and just decided to go with it because honestly, it didn’t really matter. Later when I counted it I discovered he’d given us 4 $1 coins which you really don’t see much anymore and which I’m not sure he was even supposed to give away, but he had, indeed, given us $5!

We got out and tried to enter the building but it was locked. We thought maybe this way we’d come out of before had been an exit and maybe there was an entrance on the other side so we walked around the building but there wasn’t anything so we walked back, starting to get nervous about our train time being listed wrong and us being stranded outside the train station, but then we realized we’d read the station room times wrong and they opened at 3am. It was 2:59am so we were just a little early, but as we headed to a table to sit down the door flashed green and we were able to head inside! We were joined by about 4 other people in the 40 minutes before the train arrived and that was it for our early risers!

Jess and I worked out which way the train would be going when we got on and got seats facing that way to get set up in to sleep our 9 hours in coach away in as comfortably as possible. We had our sleep masks, headphones and music, and earplugs for a dealer’s choice style of sleep as we traveled through the early morning. Jess went for earplugs while I put in my headphones and loaded up my Tropical Island Ambience sounds saved to my phone and we tapped out for at least 6 of the 9 hours. It was SO cold on the train for no good reason, but as the sun came out and more people boarded it warmed up somewhat, but it was still too cold for my comfort. By around 6am, up one seat and across from me was this particularly loud older couple who didn’t seem to care that everyone else on the car was trying to sleep, or perhaps didn’t notice, as the woman tittered with a massively annoying laugh and the man chewed with his mouth open, but I only heard them in bursts as I woke intermittently from my naps. Sucked for everyone who didn’t bring headphones or earplugs though I bet.

We were both up after 9am, but we both elected to listen to music and relax for the rest of the journey. I did a little writing but the motion of the train was making me a little sickly so I had to keep stopping and starting, but I knew I’d have time to finish at the Amtrak Lounge so I wasn’t worried. We arrived about a half-hour early to Penn station, as it worked out, so we had plenty of time to relax before our 2:30pm train all the way to DeLand. We were let out in the station across from the Amtrak station, just because of how early w’d arrived, so we had to step out into New York to get to the lounge and wow. The streets of New York City are insane. I can’t imagine living there, let alone /wanting/ to live there. Chaos, just raw chaos! Everywhere!

But, we made it across the street, somehow, and into the Amtrak building and up to the lovely lounge where we did our makeup, put on our jewelry, redid our hair, and had ourselves a lovely little meal! We got more of those turkey banquette things, another hot cho-coffee, some Black Cherry soda, a strawberry danish, and some turkey wrap things. All was delightful! As we relaxed I got an email that said our train would be delayed at least a half hour and we both thought that was fine, more time to chill, but then the Amtrak Lounge announcer said that our train was there at station 14 and on-time, so I went up to the desk to ask her about it.

As I walked up another woman was just arriving and was pulling a paper out of her bag with one hand while the other held her phone. I assumed she was going to just scan in real quick so I stepped back to let her go first. Instead, however, she tried to walk around me to get in an the security guard had to call her back to get scanned in. She walked back with her phone to her ear, cutting in front of me as I’d been stepping forward to ask my question. The woman didn’t say a word to the desk agent scanning her in, just chatting on her phone, which is, to me, the PEAK of rudeness. At least pretend you think the person working is a human being like you and stop making them “interrupt” your phone call to tell you what they might need to tell you. As the woman walked away the desk agent gave a huge sigh and eye roll then called me over with a big smile, calling me Sweetie and asking what she could do for me because I was very polite and nice and she wanted me to know that she didn’t think I was like that rude woman before and I appreciated that!

She confirmed for me that the train we were on, the 97, was indeed on time on her end but it was perhaps just going to be a delayed departure, but we could head down and start boarding now. We decided to do that, figuring we were heading to our roomette so even if the train didn’t leave for another half-hour it wasn’t like we were giving up the lounge to sit in coach. We arrived at the escalator towards our train just as the usher was removing the divider to let people in. The energy in that line was… not good. People were cranky, unhappy, confused. The first people who got off the escalator turned to talk to the usher who was waiting to direct people, but then the people behind them stopped to line up there, so the people on the escalator couldn’t…get off. But they had to right, cause the escalator doesn’t stop moving, and as Jess and I shuffled our way through to clear up space my suitcase strap got caught in Jess’s suitcase wheel and we got ourselves caught in a pile-up for a second and it was just a mess. We eventually got out of that and were directed to the end of the train where the roomettes would be an we were greeted by Tamika who directed us inside to room 6.

Tamika was no Rodney. She was nice enough, and I think they were at full capacity for this train, but we missed our friendly and wonderful Rodney a lot. Tamika didn’t call us by name, or offer us warm brownies with soda, or any of that. But, she did do her job! She came to our room after a bit to explain some stuff to us, focusing on reminding us that the windows are indeed two-way windows so don’t use the bathroom with it open cause we might arrive at a station and those people /can/ see you. She told us someone would be around to get our dinner reservation time and to let her know when ours was so she could change our seats to beds while we were eating. The woman taking reservations came by and offered us 5:30pm or 7:30pm for dinner. Jess and I wanted an early night so we decided on 5:30pm. We were nothing feeling pretty awake at that point so we played a few rounds of Dungeon Mayhem, one of the games we’d brought with us, but after about an hour we got drowzy and just snoozed in our seats for the 2 hours. At one point Tamika came by to ask for our dinner time, and we both had a laugh when the train started moving after a stop and someone on the speakers went “It’s two stops Mike! Two stops!” and the train slammed on its breaks, but we really just napped until dinner!

Only half the tables at the dining cart were open and set for some reason, so it was community dining for all of us, with Jess and I sharing a table with a mother and son who appeared to be Nordic or Scandinavian or something European like that so we didn’t take to each other. Jess and I ordered the same things we’d ordered last time, because of who were are, and boy were they chintzy this time around with the food! I got a few carrots and green beans with my pasta primavera, though nothing like the amount I’d gotten on the way up, while Jess got a smaller brown of Mac and Cheese with no vegetables, just a handful of chips! The food was as good as it had been before, but the portions did make us chuckle! For desert we got what we’d gotten last time as well, one cheesecake and one chocolate cake, but our server hadn’t actually remembered who ordered what, choosing to just bring trays with a random number of cheesecakes and chocolate cakes so she had to back and get more chocolate cake as more people had, as expected ordered the chocolate. Strange, but whatever. If that’s her process. We ate our cakes when they arrived and were nice and full as we headed back to the room!

It turns out dinner had been divided into 5:30pm or 7:30pm because the power was going to be cut around 6:30pm-ish for a refuel. I remembered on the way up the power going out on the train around 7:00am-ish so Jess and I figured this was where we’d stopped to refuel on the way up too, given how the times matched up. As we waited for power Jess and I decided to do what we do best: Nap. We slept until about 9:00pm when I started getting ready for us to watch ‘Day Shift’ on my tablet. Of course, my tablet wanted to be a butt and refused to load more than a minute of the movie without buffering so eventually we transitioned to watching it on Jess’s phone and that worked fine enough! At long last, as we watched, we had ourselves the Pumpkin Bavarian Chocolate Truffles and the Watermelon energy drink we’d brought all this way with us from home. The movie ended around 11:30pm and we were getting ready for bed when we discovered some of the chocolate had gotten onto the white sheets and we were determined to find a way to clean some of it up as Tamika would likely not think it was chocolate at first glance and I wanted to spare her that. My sheets were a little wet as I finally climbed into bed, but they were mostly stain free, so I could live with it as we both got to bed around midnight.

September 7th, our final day! We were set to wake up at 8:00am but were woken a little earlier as something was happening across the hall from us where the attendants were trying to get into the room. I never figured out why, but they seemed insistent on getting in, though nothing seemed to happen once the person inside finally opened the door to speak with them. Weird. Anyway, we were definitely awake and getting started at 8:00am, getting dressed, brushing our teeth, and even doing our makeup to be ready for our final breakfast of the trip! We were at breakfast by 8:30am and, again, the attendant wasn’t super attendant, but she took our orders and brought us out tea, coffee (which I mixed with an extra cocoa packet I’d been given at the Amtrak Lounge), and two orders of French Toast. We know what we like, and we like what we know! Jess got whipped cream this time too though, so that was different for her at least! 

After breakfast Jess zoomed over to the Cafe Cart to get change for some of our cash as we wanted something to give to Tamika at the end of the trip and then we went back to our room. Tamika had seen us in the Dining Cart and had asked if we wanted our room readjusted while we were there and we’d said yes, but it seemed everyone had said the same thing and she hadn’t gotten to our room yet when we got back. We didn’t mine tho, just sitting for a minute and making sure we had all our stuff packed up nicely. She was by shortly to handle the change-over and Jess and I took advantage of the sitting-up setup to play another of our games, Cryptozoology for Beginners, until we arrived at the station. We also had our second energy drink, the kiwi-guava one, and we happily played until Tamika told us we had about two minutes before we would be arriving at the station! We finished our game, packed it up, did a final check of all our belongings, and headed for the exit!

We had to stand around for a bit at the back with Tamika and one of her coworkers and we all had a nice chat. DeLand is a two stop station (Two stops Mike! Two stops!) so we had to wait a little longer still for the rear of the train, us, to get unloaded, but eventually it happened! It was 11:50am and we were finally back in DeLand! Still not quite home though. We didn’t have a ride this time so we were gonna get a Lyft, but there was no service on Jess’s phone so after using the station bathroom we had to walk around a bit until she got some bars and could place the Lyft order. We waited under the gazebo our station has for… some reason until our ride arrived. The driver was a nice enough woman, but she was driving with one headphone in listening to an audiobook and I’m a big “no headphones while driving” person so that was iffy for me, but the drive was only around 8 minutes so I figured we were good as we set off! We were not, technically, setting off for Home though. We’re weird about strangers knowing our address so Jess just listed a building nearby to be our drop-off site so we still had about a half-mile walk to go before actually getting home. 

It was nice and hot as we walked, that sticky kind of heat where there’s no wind and everything sticks to you. We both commented how nice it was to be back in Florida where we could experience this. And we meant it! We live for the heat! People in New York, while we crossed the street, were complaining about how hot it was while Jess and I both had our cover-ups on, like who are you people that you think /that/ is hot? No no, we need that real good, genuine, disgusting heat of Florida. And we had it! We enjoyed it both outside on our walk to our house, and inside our house where it was a crisp 86 degrees inside on account of the A/C being off for 7 days. We hit the A/C on and then it was our usual mad dash to unpack our suitcases. We like it done IMMEDIATELY so it can just be done but also so can take stock of everything. We did indeed have everything we’d left with, and a dash extra! 

So, we’d made it home! Two days on a train, two days in Canada, two days on a train again, and that was it! Honestly, perfect vacation! We did everything we wanted to do, filled our time exactly how we wanted to fill it, the traveling portions were a pleasure rather than a teeth-gritting nuisance, and we got to wear so many of our nice outfits! It was a win all around! As always, though, I’m so glad to be home. Home to my house and my bed and my toys and my things and, especially, home to shower pressure that can actually get water to my scalp. That's the real Floridan treat worth traveling for!

How To Spend (Almost) $1000 In Two Days At Niagara Falls

I had my alarms set for 7:30am, 8:00am, and 8:30am. I was gonna let myself sleep until my 9:00am alarm but Jess’s alarm went off at 8:30am as well and she was, again, dead to the world so she slept right through it meaning it made sense for me to just get up if I was gonna turn it off anyways. I got myself dressed just enough to go downstairs and get breakfast, because I love me a free breakfast! I still needed to shower and get myself prepped for the day so I just loaded a tray with our food to bring up. I kept it light, with a plain bagel with butter and jelly, an everything bagel with butter, and six lemon scones. I tried to put myself

out of the way to butter the bagels as there were no tables available and I really didn’t need one as I was just buttering stuff and heading upstairs, but as soon as I put myself at this out of the way counter that was just full of extra stuff people might need EVERYONE needed to be over there. Like, folks! This is just the table where they put extra condiments and utensils, these things are more easily available elsewhere! Why must you crowd me! I’m literally trying to be out of your way, just give me 3 minutes to butter these things and I’ll be gone!

Eventually I was released from my prison of personal space invasion and headed upstairs, taking a cho-coffee for me and a Lemon Lift tea for Jessica as I went up. Jess was up and getting ready so I showered quickly so I would be fresh and ready for our fun-filled day! The water pressure up north, or rather the lack of it, always shocks me. Like, am I being spit on? Took 5 minutes alone to get the water to reach my scalp. But I endured!

And ate breakfast while getting dressed and ready to head out around 10:50am. I was wearing a sleek black top with a blue 50’s skirt and blue scarf while Jess was wearing a nice peach top with a black pencil skirt. We would only be wearing these temporarily, however, as an outfit change had been planned for the day!

The walk across the border was… kinda rough. It had been raining all morning but when we started the 15 minute walk to the border crossing it had let up to a light drizzle but about 5 minutes into the walk the rain got pretty bad and, as we’re by the falls, the wind was pretty bad too. We stopped under a tree for a bit to try and wait out some of the worst of it but it stayed pretty bad for a good while so we decided to just go for it. We eventually made it to the Rainbow Bridge pedestrian walkway where we got our first glimpse of Niagara Falls! And we were a little miserable. We were cold and wet and the wind was awful but I insisted on pictures that Jess didn’t want to take. I was determined however and she was glad to have them later, so it worked out. We cheered up at the Border Inspection where the guy checking our passports told us our hotel, The Brock, was right across the street. Warmth was in our sight!

It was only 11-ish in the morning so we weren’t sure our room was going to be available, but we could at least hang out in the hotel lobby areas and get warm and dry as best as possible. The front desk agent, however, was delighted to tell us that our room was ready, as he’d upgraded us to a top floor room! What a treat! But in addition to looking like drowned, harassed rats we were also very nice and friendly which seemed to be unusual in this place, at least as far as we saw from the two guests in front of us. The first was a man who didn’t seem

to understand something the agent (who would be out agent) was trying to tell him, though I couldn’t hear what that conversation was. Meanwhile, the other agent was dealing with a woman who couldn’t understand why her bill was the amount it was and forced the agent to get a manager to show her in real time the math of adding Tax and Resort Fees to her bill, all of which seemed to be foreign to her. Incredible.

Our agent was very nice and very funny, talking to us about what hotel Jess worked at and he even looked up the old Stetson mascot to see how scary Hatty the Hatter was. He was quite scary. After a pleasant chat to warm our spirits we were up in our 8th floor room to blow dry our hair, tights, and throw-overs as we got warmed up, dried, and redressed in our fanciest dresses for our reservation at the Skylon Tower! We were ready well in advance of our 1:30pm reservation, but, as always, somehow, we ended up walking out the door at 1:10pm with only 20 minutes for the 18 minute walk to the restaurant. Typical us. 

We brought our umbrella and really were planning to just run it, but it was still raining, and Google Maps didn’t seem to know where we were, and then we saw it. A taxi waiting right outside the hotel. So, we did the thing we should have planned to do to begin with and traded running in the rain in our nicest dresses with our hair and makeup done for just paying the $10 to take the drive over. It’s literally not that complicated but boy do we just hate spending money, even on vacation.

Inside the Skylon we found the check-in counter and were directed to the elevators. We took the commemorative photo but we never ended up even looking at it, and hopped onto elevator 3! The elevator is an open-window ride to the top of the tower that goes so fast your ears pop and it was great! Once off the elevator we were guided by the maitre de who would also be our waiter for the evening as he was covering his co-worker Craig’s table, as he told us. We found out later, as we were

seated by the maitre de stand, that Craig was helping to serve a special private party table. Our favourite conversation we overheard was: “There’s only 8 people at the table.” “Ok, but they ordered 27 dishes.” “...I’m gonna check on that.” 27 dishes! For 8 people! Rich people live on a different planet than us.

Jess and I overheard this conversation and others as we sat at our window-seat table in the rotating restaurant. It’s the off-season in Niagara apparently, with the last big push of the season being Labor Day Weekend which we just missed, so the Skylon was basically empty except for us! The views were awesome and we (well, I) took so many pictures because it was so cool! Without any clocks in the place you can tell how long you’ve been sitting by what view you’re seeing as it’s one hour for a full rotation. 

I knew right away I was gonna get the Tortellini Alfredo, a safe dish to try, while Jess debated a couple items before deciding to just go for it and spring for a Filet Mignon. We’re on vacation! Let’s spend a little! Be bold! Not bold enough to order it any way besides Well Done though because our body can’t process red meat well. We know it affects the taste, we do, but the alternative is we never try it at all OR we end up in the bathroom indefinitely and neither of those sound fun, so Well Done it was! And we really enjoyed both our dishes! It’s hard to go wrong with a cheesy pasta dish and the filet mignon with potatoes and broccoli was so good! The cheese sauce was superb, but then we love cheese so that was gonna be a given I think.

We also got a drink each, Jess going for a signature Skylon mixed cocktail while I got a Prosecco Rose and we toasted to making it to the one thing we really wanted to do in Niagara! After this, it was all just wandering for fun! Of course, we did also get a dessert, one Amaretto Torte which was incredible and which was finished less than 5 minutes after it was deposited in front of us despite both of us being comfortably full from our meals. 

We psyched ourselves out a little about the tip we left, as we thought we had calculated the amount wrong and had under tipped. Jess even thought about going back to give more money but decided that might look even more tacky and ridiculous than under tipping, but we figured out after chatting about it that the amount we tipped was actually correct we’d just thought the final amount was higher than it actually was and were panicking about nothing. We have to overthink something every few hours otherwise we’ll keel over and die, I guess.

Despite the later nonsense we were going to psych ourselves out about later, our waiter was very nice to us after we’d paid and his co-worker, the one who was supposed to have waited on us, came over to say hello. I wonder if he’d expected we were going to be, ya know, American’s On Vacation and we were instead just nice, if silly, young women just here to have a nice time. He asked about our trip and if we were having a nice time and we chatted with him and the maitre de for a bit before they directed us to the Observation Deck where we were allowed to visit for free as part of our meal. 

The deck was fun, a nice view for sure, but cold after the rain even with the sun coming out, so we did a turn about then headed in to check out the gift shop and see if anything looked good. We didn’t end up purchasing anything at the top floor gift shop, but once downstairs I found a crazy, chunky ring I wanted for $8 at a Handmade Goods store while Jess committed to a Maple Tea Variety Pack at the downstairs gift shop. There was a Starbucks inside the Skylon so we hit that for a Caramel Macchiato to keep us warm on the walk back to our hotel. 

It didn’t surprise us that there was a Starbucks inside the Skylon as there is, according to our walk back, a Starbucks every 500 feet in Niagara Falls, Canada! We passed 4, that we spotted, on our 15-ish minute walk back to the Brock. In the words of Ichabod Crane “Isn’t there some kind of law?”

Back at the hotel we got changed into the Out and About outfits we’d selected for the day. Mine was basically what I’d been wearing on the walk over, just with the scarf added and my hair done, while Jess donned her beige top and flare skirt, the outfit she’d mistakenly worn that morning on the train, as her other clothes were still quite wet. With the rain finished and our one planned activity done, we were ready for some fun times roaming Niagara Falls, starting with a visit to the three stores connected to the hotel (in addition to a Starbucks, of course). The first is a little Niagara Falls touristy gift shop, the second is a Coca Cola themed shop, and finally there’s the World of Hershey store, where there is apparently an insanely good milkshake. At least that’s what one is led to believe by the endless advertisements in front of the Brock telling you how many feet you are away from said milkshake.

With nothing there catching our eye we decided to keep the good times rolling with Clifton Street! It’s like a weird little gimmicky Vegas-style avenue right up the street from the Brock so we had to check it out! I particularly wanted to see what was being advertised by a sign that just said CASTLE DRACULA. It was, in fact, a haunted house themed after Dracula and Jess and I decided to do it! Prep for Halloween Horror Nights, we decided! And also, we just really like Dracula, and what else are we gonna spend all this Canadian money we brought on? We chose the Medium level for scares, which just meant, it turned out, there were only a handful of jumpscares from the live actors within the haunted house, which worked for us as I was more interested in the animatronic

elements, which were great! It started us in a hall of mirrors, then we went through a pathway with Dracula’s victims being killed in various ways, then we were on the Last Voyage of the Demeter, which was a really cool passage, finally we were in a maze with one of the Brides of Dracula, who looked amazing with her huge wings, taunting us as we passed our last animatronic of Dracula and headed down, down, down into our own grave. Or, rather, down into the exit. We had a lot of fun!

After that we did found a Frankenstein themed rooftop toller coast, the Franken-Coaster, so we had to do that too! The coaster was janky, weird, crazy, and we LOVED it! A great view and a really cool way to see it! And, it had a genuine Nosferatu as part of the decor, that is, they had Nosferatu as a gargoyle rather than a vampire, which is correct! That’s what Nosferatu is! So that was a win in our books. While going down the interior steps after getting of the ride, however, we discovered one last scare waiting for us: The final step.

As I put my foot on it a BLAST of air shot at me and a noise filled the air, maybe clicking or cackling, I can’t really remember because I spent the time it was playing trying to to eat pavement as I’d lost my balance as soon as the blast hit me. Then Jess and I had to catch our breath from laughing so hard at the absurdity of it! It’s dark staircase man, that was crazy!

Outside we took a walk all the way up the street, saw all we wanted to see, then headed back down, determined to grab a Beaver Tail as it felt like the right treat for a day in Canada. We got the mEHple Beaver Tail, obviously. Munching and crunching on that we repassed the slew of oddball stores and spaces as we headed towards the falls. We weren’t sure what we were going to do with the rest of our day, so we figured a nice walk along the falls felt as good an idea as any! We discovered, on this walk, a park called the Oakes Garden Theatre which was a lovely garden area that reminded us a great deal of our time at Killruddery, which we so missed. We went around that for a bit just to see it before we continued on to the street by the falls. We determined, on our walk, that the next day we were going to go on one of the boat rides and try the zip line. Both were closed already, as it was 6:30pm, but we

felt those were good ideas to save for our final day as we needed something to fill that time! So, onwards we walked, through the Falls View Marketplace which has some lovely seating directly overlooking the falls that must be packed in the on season, until we came upon a Queen Victoria shop and decided to poke in to see what fun items they had for sale. Nothing we love more than looking around a gift shop, it must be said.

The store was fun enough to look around but nothing caught our eye. We did overhear a man lamenting that he and his wife hadn’t realized the boat tours ended so early in September so they’d had missed them and it was their final day. The woman at the desk was super helpful though and pulled out a list of everything still open and recommended the Behind the Falls tour which takes people down an elevator for a walk through the passages behind the falls. He and his wife seemed very delighted to hear about this and I hope they had fun doing it! As for us, with nothing to purchase we headed back out, continuing our leisurely and unpurposeful stroll along the falls. It really was gorgeous, a real treat for the eyes on the Canadian side. 

We ended up walking past a memorial to Nikolai Tesla which was quite nice to see, and finally ended up at the Tower Rock by Horseshoe Falls. We weren’t sure what it was, as it looked like a restaurant, but we found out it’s a sort of attraction center for the falls, where the Behind the Falls tours are booked as well as the aero-thing and, of interest, the Flight Over Niagara ride. Jess had mentioned this before, that Niagara Falls had made basically its own version of Disney’s Soarin’ and

we’d wondered if we’d run into it to try. And we had! So, of course, we had to do it! Our ticket time for the ride was 8:00pm and it was only 7:10pm-ish so we decided to explore the place a little to see what we could see. We wanted to get a hot coffee, as we so like to have one while wandering, but there was, shocker, no Starbucks to be found, and the cafe the place had was closed. Gasp!

We decided to try the cafe we’d seen connected to the Queen Victoria shop, so we walked back that way only to discover that too was closed. These people don’t want the tourists to be caffeinated past 7:00pm it seems. And, yeah, aight, valid. SO we bought a refrigerated coffee drink from the shop, some Caramel Oat Milk thing, and had a fun chat with the two cashiers, sharing stories about places and things in Florida, as they’d asked where we were visiting from and they both had Florida stories to share! Once outside and headed back to the ride we cracked open the cold coffee and both agreed it was one of the most foul coffee drinks we’d ever had in our life. But it was caffeine, apparently the only to be found in Niagara Falls after dark, and we would endure it.

We made it to the start of the Horseshoe Falls, getting some nice pictures and enjoying how unreal the whole place felt before heading inside to look at the Maple Bar store and gift shop. Finally, it was 7:52pm and time for our Flight Over Niagara! There was a little pre-show visual thing projected on trees which were also screens where a First Nations Canadian tells the story of the myth of the falls, then another pre-show where James Cameron tells some of the history of the falls, then yet another pre-show thing where they pretend you’re

in an elevator going deep underground where they have the special technology to take us soaring over the falls. Here, they give the safety runaround, listing 3 rules: Keep It Together (keep up with your party), Stow Your Items (self explanatory), and Secure Yourself (put on your seatbelt). Several people in our group had a chuckled about how the seatbelts are the same as they are on Disney’s Soarin'.

At the ride we were told we could sit anywhere we wanted, basically, as it wasn’t a full group, so Jess and I went to the second row of seats and were going to sit on the far right when Jess went “Wait, do these rotate?” as she’d noticed the screen was behind the seats, not in front of them like when you load onto Soarin’. An attendant told us Yes, so if we want to be in the middle we should go to the other end. Two other people followed us there, grateful for the tip, and the attendant told Jess she was the only person who’d ever thought to ask that.

The ride was very fun! It’s Soarin’. Over Niagara. There’s sound and scents and sprinkles of water and it was really fun! Worth it to see all the stuff going on around the falls! Jess and I, in addition to the couple who had trusted our judgement prior, found ourselves somewhat lost looking for the exit to the ride, but we all worked it out and had a laugh at the weirdly placed signs. Jess and I had nothing else on the agenda and it was 8:30pm-ish so we decided it was time to had back to the hotel to settle in. 

On the walk back, however, a couple stopped us to ask if we knew what the large tower thing was in the distance. We happily told them it’s the Skylon Restaurant. They said they were trying to get there but the didn’t know the name so they hadn’t been able to look it up. We helped them look up how late the restaurant was open to confirm they had time to eat there, then helped them call and make a reservation for 9:00pm as they were only an 8 minute walk according to what Google Maps told them now they were finally able to put in the name. They mentioned throughout this interaction that they were so glad Canadians are really as friendly as their reputation suggests, so when they asked where we were from I played along and said Toronto. If they don’t wanna think I’m American, who am I to correct them! With well wishes and hugs we sent the pair off to their dinner, all of us in high spirits! I love a successful encounter with people in public! We did check all our things to make sure this wasn’t an elaborate pickpocketing ruse, cause we’re no fools, but they were indeed just a confused couple trying to have a nice evening at the falls and we were happy to have helped them!

Back at The Brock at last we checked out the steakhouse restaurant on the 10th floor of the hotel but it didn’t seem like what we wanted for the evening, so after getting some information about the breakfast for the following day we decided to just get some pizza and crash. We picked the Pizza Hut in the casino next door because it was closest and headed over. The Pizza Hut is technically also a Nashville Chicken, Niagara Gardens, and Subway, with all four places sharing one long counter inside a room at the opening of the casino, which is designed like an old timey manor. There was one (1) person working there, taking orders and doing all the cooking. And she was doing it well! She was clear-spoken, efficient, fast, and good at what she did! So when she included a card with her name and a place to give a review we were more than happy to agree to give her a shout-out cause good lord? Making food for four fast food joints? By herself? Cooking everything from memory? For FOUR DIFFERENT RESTAURANTS? Insane!

We ordered a Panalicious Hawaiian pizza because we’re monsters who love the blend of sweet and savory on pizza and returned to our room to finally sit back and relax! Kinda. Our coffee machine wasn’t working earlier so we called about having it check out and the guy came to look at it and inevitably determined it was just broken and had to get a new one. All the while Jess and I were still in our day wear seated on her bed, eating pizza and drinking apple cider and watching Lego Scooby-Doo: Haunted Hollywood. We must’ve looked something of a sight to him aha! But once he’d made his last visit with the coffee machine we got changed into our pajamas and got ourselves ready for bed. At 10:30pm the fireworks over the falls started and we could see them from our window so that was fun! As for our plan, we had two things on the agenda for the next day, so we at least had some kind of plan of things to do with our second, and last, day in Canada!

Jess was up at 8:50am the next day, September 5th, and heading out the door before I was even up. She told me she’d be back in a minute and I didn’t ask any questions and laid down for a few more minutes before getting up myself to get dressed. She returned maybe 15 minutes later to tell me that the Indoor Water Park we’d wanted to go to but we were told was closed, was actually opening for the day from 4pm-8pm! She’d gone downstairs to see about buying tickets but despite advertisements around the hotel claiming they sell tickets at a discount at the front desk, the front desk agent and Jessica were surprised to learn that they apparently don’t do that anymore. With that information Jess returned to the room to ask if we wanted to just buy tickets online right then just to be /sure/ they didn’t sell out before 4pm when the desk to purchase tickets actually opens. I said we should so we did! So now we had THREE things on our list of activities for the day!

Actually we had 4-ish, as we’d decided we needed to try coffee from the Tower Rock coffee shop AND the Queen Victoria Cafe as we’d been denied coffee from both the day before. With these plans in mind we got dressed and ready for breakfast in the Rainbow Room. I was in a purple skirt-suit with a matching scarf that our mother gave to us years ago from her adolescent years and Jess had changed from the peach top and pencil skirt she’d been wearing for her brief stint downstairs into her

bright red dress. We both looked great as we went up for our free breakfast. There’s an option to upgrade from a continental breakfast to a hot breakfast for $20, but we were happy with continental and honestly given the selection I’m not sure why anyone wouldn’t be? There were bagels, muffins, pastries, and fresh fruit of all kinds, it was a perfect breakfast to start the day! I guess I like a lighter breakfast so maybe it really is worth the extra $20 for some people to get an omlette to go with all of that but I can’t see it.

We had the lovely Zlatko as our server who got us cranberry juice and coffee to go with our meal and he offered to take some photos of us at our falls-view table when he saw us taking some pictures and we had a wonderful time! Full and happy, Jess showed me the hallway with photos of Marilyn Monroe from when she stayed at the hotel while filming Niagara! We came all this way because, in part, of the movie Niagara, and we ended up, on accident, at the hotel Marilyn Monroe stayed at! We didn’t even know! How fun! After that we went back to the room to finish up our makeup and hair and then headed out towards the Zipline Over The Falls! We went to the person at the booth instead of the self-service kiosk so we could pay

cash and were told it would be an hour and a half wait, possibly a little longer, which was fine with us as it was only 11:00am-ish and we had until 4pm to do essentially 2 and a half things so we could wait for however long we had to! We paid, signed our waivers, and started up the stairs to the first check-in section where they checked your weight, made sure you signed the waiver, and gave you your helmet before sending you up the last flight of stairs. A couple somewhat in front of us hadn’t signed the waiver yet. Naughty naughty.

We were down on that level for about 20 minutes as they waited for space to clear on the last floor, but eventually we headed up and joined the queue. We had a grand time people watching from up there, checking out everyone’s outfits and watching the person opening the ice cream shop make some weird choices about the line dividers. He kept moving them and altering them in ways that didn’t seem to change anything but must’ve meant something to him. Either that or he was just trying to look busy until they officially opened, which I can understand.

Close to an hour into our wait we got told that there had been a gust of wind over 35km. When that happens they have to wait for 10 minutes to see if there’s another one, at which point they would continue to wait and check every 10 minutes until it seemed consistent that there wouldn’t be a gust that strong or stronger. We could either wait and see or get a refund or a ticket for a different day. Some people left the line immediately, which felt insane. Some people left around 5 minutes later, which felt somehow more insane. The 10 minutes passed, there wasn’t another gust, and they started up again. And that was it. Jess and I got to the front of the line in only an hour because people in front of us left so I guess it worked out for us but geez, they couldn’t wait 10 minutes?

We progressed from the winding queue to the corrals where they get people fitted into their individual zip line harnesses and tighten everyone’s helmet. At last we were waiting at the front of the line for our turn to get hooked up and fly over the falls! The people behind us, seemingly a man and his daughter, were chatting about the Zipline. The little girl estimated that it was about a minute for the Zipline ride so she and her dad counted when the people in front of Jess and I went and she was right, it was about 50 seconds until the people were out of sight at the landing dock. The little girl then asked if she would go slower, because she was lighter than her father, but the father countered that she was also smaller so the wing resistance for her would be less and it was possible they would end up going the same speed as a result. This fascinated Jess and I as we hadn’t considered that. At what point /does/ it balance out, if it does at all?

We didn’t have too long to consider though as we were up next! Jess wanted to take the Zipline closest to the falls so I took the one beside her. The attendants were so nice and friendly hooking us in and I wasn’t nervous at all as the door slid back and we were sent on our way! Jess was told to sit with her hands on her knees while I was told to keep my hands on the ropes on either side of me. I assume that’s a safety thing, but it might be a speed thing? Unclear but we did as we were told and off we went! Jess went SO fast! She zoomed past me for most of the flight, though I caught up to her close to the end, and we both loved it! So thrilling, so exciting, such a great view of the falls! Very fun thing to do if one is simply looking for something weird and wonderful to do at Niagara Falls!

At the bottom we got unbuckled and de-geared, our purse pulled from the funny storage bag on the back of Jessica’s harness, and we walked down through the gift shop selling photos to an amped-up golf cart that was set to drive us back up where we’d started. I’d assumed we just had to walk but we didn’t! They just drove us back on a narrated drive explaining some of the history of the falls, driving slower in the scenic places for picture taking. Once back at the top we thanked the driver and headed off to buy our boat tickets, which could be bought basically around the corner from the Zipline ticket counter. We used the attendant instead of the self-service stations to, once again, pay in cash, and they told us we could take any boat we wanted from now until 7pm, so we decided to hold off and get our coffees first!

It was nice to take one last stroll up and down the falls as we walked all the way to Horseshoe Falls to get to the Tower Rock Cafe where we ordered a mocha latte to try. We paid for that with some of the coins we’d amassed in our wallet as we kept forgetting that change is more valuable in Canada, with $1 and $2 coins. We did end up having to break a $20 when we got back in line because we decided we wanted a Mango Cream Puff which they sold for $14 because it seemed fun! We sat down to eat and drink on a rock by the falls and boy that cream puff made a mess! I had to run back in an get napkins but we enjoyed it well enough. It was indeed a cream puff with mange flavoured filling. The coffee was…ok. Tasted like a regular cup of coffee with some milk to be honest. Not sure they even remembered the mocha shot but it’s possible they saw us paying with coins and went “They get the bottom of the barrel coffee”. At least that’s what we joked as we started up again to head to the Queen Victoria Cafe.

We thought about getting some Maple Popcorn from a stand we passed but they didn’t take cash so we decided to just get something else at the next cafe and made our way there. We ordered a Caramel Macchiato and some mini donuts. While waiting for our order I rebrushed and rebraided my hair, as I must do regularly when it’s particularly windy out, and then we set off again. The caramel macchiato was excellent, LEGIONS better than the Tower Rock coffee, though the cup it was served in, perhaps because it was made of recycled materials or perhaps because of how it had been store, smelled basically like garbage. So, pros and cons to both cups of coffee, but the Queen Victoria Cafe cup was still the winner.

We perused a gift shop in the Grand View Marketplace as we finished our coffee, hit the washroom, then got in line for the Niagara City Cruise! We passed a few slow-pokes as we descended down the ramps to an elevator that descended us further down (while packed like sardines, as should be). After the elevator there was a whole outdoor restaurant which a number of people were eating and drinking at but Jess and I were set from our coffee and cream puff and donuts so we went right for the boat! We got our chintzy plastic poncho, red to signal this was the Canadian Boat Ride as the New York side wears blue, and headed right onto the boat that had just arrived! We waited in a slight line-up of people, who did NOT fill in all the available space because these people have never been to the Haunted Mansion apparently, and were up on the second floor deck and ready to go in no time!

I was shocked how fast we got on and took off, it really /is/ the off-season after Labor Day Weekend! It was almost 2:30pm by then, so probably prime-time for the boat stuff, and yet! No wait, easy on, AND we got a spot by the rails on the second floor! We took some photos and attempted to get our ponchos to cooperate. It’s windy by the falls on a regular day but it was a particularly windy day that day so we were all fighting the elements with those plastic pieces of crap they’d given us. They flapped about the boat like great, useless red sails. Imagine, if you will, the sound of several hundred ponchos slapping people in the face, left and right. Glorious. Absurd. What a treat.

The boat ride was just as we imagined! We felt the falls power, we got soaked in the spray, we took lots of photos, and had our moneys-worth of a time! We had planned to do the boat ride as our last falls-related activity of the day knowing we would get at least somewhat wet and could then easily segue into our evening at the water park! With squishy feet and wet arms Jess and I headed back to the Brock. For some reason this felt like the perfect time to get that Hershey’s Chocolate Milkshake at the Hershey’s store connected to our hotel so we grabbed one to enjoy as we got ourselves ready!

Back up in the room we got changed into bathing suits and selected which items we thought we needed to bring with us. The water park is connected to the hotel through the parking garage elevator for…some reason, so we could easily go back to our room if necessary. We would inevitably do that almost immediately, as we discovered at the check-in for the water park that they don’t provide towels for free, charging a totally insane $5 per towel rental. Now, we didn’t really need towels, but just in case I decided to head back up to the room real quick and grab two for us. As we’d gotten checked in and sorted I also brought the credit card and ID back up, since we wouldn’t need those anymore and they’d be safer up in the room.

I went back on the elevator with a guy who was on the phone the whole time and somehow ended up hitting the wrong floor, staying on the elevator through the right floor, and finally getting off on what might have been his floor but might have been just a break from riding the elevator. Jess was already inside the water park waiting, having claimed a chair for us to leave our stuff on. We just had our shoes, towels, some money, and Jess’s cover-up, so not too much to worry about as we hit the slides! We started with the tube rides, of which there are 4 with 2 ways to ride: Single or Double tube. You have to carry your own tube up, as is standard, so up we went with a single tube each! We promptly went up the wrong staircase, ending up on the stairs that led to the mat/body slides so we had to backtrack but we made it eventually!

There's 4 tube slides are separated into 2 sides, so you select which you wanna ride and get into that line. Most people wanted to ride the ‘toilet bowl’ ride so that line was longest, but they called out occasionally for people on that side who wanted to ride the orange slide as that line was shorter. Jess and I both went with orange first, which was just a nice covered tube slide, then went back up to do the purple, then went up to do the green and yellow slides on the other side, which were another covered slide and an uncovered slide. As we finished that up the wave pool has turned on so of course we had to go do that for a bit, just really enjoying the act of floating in the water. Then, we did some exploring of the place, just to make sure we knew where everything was, and found some hot tubs we decided we would eventually end our day with. 

We did the mat and body slides next. We thought we’d gone up the wrong staircase for that again, but it turns out there’s just two ways to get to those slides and we’re a little stupid. With mats in hand at last, however, we went up to do some racing! Jess took the pink slide first while I did the blue, then we switched. I beat Jess both times. Then we did the body slides, me trying orange first while Jess took yellow. I’m not sure how anyone can beat yellow in orange though, as orange is a windy body slide where the yellow is a minor straight-drop. Jess and I couldn’t tell who won the first race, but I definitely beat her when I went down the yellow and she went down the orange. 

After that we took a turn about the kiddy water park section, exploring all the water guns and dropping water buckets and mushroom water jets and just wandering around to enjoy the area! We couldn’t do any of the slides as they were all children’s size, but we did have a grand time just wandering about the cove, despite how much colder that water was compared to everything else in the park. Then it was time for double-tubes down all the slides, so back up we went to do the orange, then purple, then green, then yellow slides, interchanging who got to be in front and who sat in the back. The guys at the top figured out what we were doing and basically just left us to our own devices as we knew the drill by then!

We were hungry, and I was a little dizzy, at that point, so we got some food at the restaurant: A crispy chicken wrap, a crispy chicken sandwich, and some orange soda. And that chicken was excellent! So crispy, so tasty! Maybe we were just so hungry on account of all the many, many flights of stairs we had just climbed after a day of walking, but we thought the food was almost good enough to make you think the $14 charge for each item was worth it! Having eaten, and having done everything else we wanted to do, we decided it was time to hit the hot tubs! The buttons to turn on the jets were, for some reason, down the stairs and up a little, and we had a hard time finding them so a park worker came over and turned them on for us, and then proceeded to keep coming over and turning them on whenever they turned off, as they seemed to have a run time of only 10 minutes. We stayed for about 30 minutes, maybe longer, just relaxing our bodies in the refreshingly hot water. At around 6:45pm, over two and a half hours after we’d arrived, we decided it was time to head up to the room and get showered.

Upstairs in the room I showered first then did some writing while Jess took her shower and then we got dressed again to go do some shopping. We still had about $200 dollars to spend and we can’t do anything with the money back in America so we were off to spend! The gift shop in the Brock didn’t have much we were interested in besides candies and sweets, but it did have a weird harmonica keychain that does actually work so I had to get that! We looked around the Coca Cola store and the Hershey’s shop before heading up the street to check out what other stores were nearby. The Hard Rock store had a fun Marilyn Monroe inspired Niagara Falls pin, so Jess got that, and next door we found another gift shop thing that was selling some Marilyn Monroe merchandise, but nothing particularly worth buying to us, but Jess did find a lovely pair of driving gloves she decided to commit to! 

We were also looking for something with a Goat on it on account of Jess and I came up with our own cryptid for Goat Island: Manny the Nanny Goat who was the sole survivor of a storm that killed all the other goats and livestock that were kept on the island. He’s an omen forewarning a storm is ahead and if you see him you need to get somewhere secure, at least off Goat Island. We did not end up finding any goat items. I guess all the goats really /are/ gone from the Niagara Falls area after that storm. They had nothing!

We did get a recommendation to try some of the stores on Clifton Street for Marilyn Monroe goods, so up we went! It’s so colorful there at night, a true mini-Vegas for families! The first gift shop was a bust with nothing fun, but the next shop had something cool! When we walked in we asked about Marilyn merch and the guy said they really only had t-shirts, which we weren’t interested in, but we decided to poke around anyway and Jess found in a bin with a bunch of I Love Lucy merch a metal poster of Marilyn with pink lettering, so perfect for her room! We got that, surprising the guy at the front as he didn’t know they’d had any more of those, and we left the shop happy with our purchases and ready to take one last look at the hotel shops to finish off some more of the money on candies.

We got a Hershey’s Hot Chocolate to enjoy as we finished our final round of shopping, spent a little more money at the gift shop, then headed upstairs. We still had $50 but there wasn’t much we could do about that as we didn’t want or need anything else and spending $950 of the $1000 we’d brought seemed good enough for us. Anyways, it was 9:00pm by then and time to start settling in for the evening. At least, settle in as much as we could. We found a channel playing National Treasure 2, a tradition when we’re travelling apparently, and got ourselves organized. We would lay down for a few hours then be up at 2:30am to cross the border and catch our 3:40am train back home!