2015 Niagara Falls

It didn’t make sense to fly to Toronto ($400 per person) and then rent a car when it was within a reasonable 1-day driving distance. I planned to take a half-day off of work on Thursday, stay in Buffalo (where it was considerably cheaper than in Niagara), and then cross the border the next morning. After great consideration, I decided to pay for a nice room in Niagara Falls, Ontario where we could park and walk to everything that we wanted to see. The next morning, we would drive to Toronto where we would stay within walking distance of the concert. We would then drive home on Sunday.

On Thursday, Kendra got off work at 7:00 AM and I started work at the same time. She came to my house to get in a nap before taking the dogs to the breeder for boarding. She overslept and didn’t wake until I was on my way home at the planned 11:00 AM. We cooked our planned lunch and got ready to run out the door only to realize that Kendra had left her passport in her apartment. In Louisville. Kendra ate her baked Chicken Bacon Ranch Pocket while I drove the dogs to the breeder, and I ate mine as she drove us to Louisville. We finally got on the road at 1:00 PM instead of the planned 11:30 AM.

I drove us through Kentucky on I-71 and onto Cincinnati backroads (because of the huge backup on the bypass), and then up I-71 to Columbus while Kendra slept. In Columbus, we stopped for gas and bathroom breaks, and then got back on the road with our planned snacks to hold us over until our late dinner in Buffalo. Kendra went back to sleep until I hit my driving limit, which appears to be about 7 hours or Erie, PA. At that point, my neck and back were in knots and I was ready to kill every #$@#%@$ that parked in the left lane. To quote an old bumper sticker that my dad had, “Lead, follow, or get out of the way”.

Kendra drove us the rest of the way to Buffalo. While we drove, I called ahead to the pizza place we had planned to visit and placed a delivery order to our hotel. When we arrived, we checked in with no problems to Country Inn and Suites in South Buffalo. The room was large and clean and included a refrigerator and microwave. I wasn’t impressed with the room for the $135 CAD, but I wasn’t unhappy either. At least the wifi was free.

Kendra hung out in the lobby until the food arrived from Imperial Pizza, and we dug in. We had ordered two sets of boneless wings – Mild Buffalo and BBQ Garlic Parmesan. Both of them were knock-your-socks-off amazing. They were perfectly crispy and good-quality chicken (no noticeable gristle or fat). They were delivered very hot because they were wrapped in aluminum foil. The garlic butter sauce under the BBQ Garlic Parm wings was great on both flavors. My daughter was sad that the BBQ Garlic Parm wings had no heat, but I’m a wuss, so I mostly ate those and was thrilled. The mild wings had as much heat as you would expect. My daughter said that dipping the Mild wings in the garlic butter was awesome! We also ordered a 1/4 pizza (3 slices). The pizza was okay. We were a little disappointed. Neither of us finished the pizza, but we ate all of the wings. Also, the three slices were jammed into a small box where they didn’t fit properly. Overall, if we went back to Buffalo, we would try another pizza place, but might end up back at Imperial for the wings.

After dinner, we organized our bags for the next day and went to sleep.

Friday morning, we slept in until about 7:00 AM, showered, got ready, and ate breakfast at the hotel before leaving. The Country Inn and Suites breakfast spread was pretty nice. We went immediately to the waffle station, but after looking around, decided to share a waffle. I also had some delicious oatmeal and Kendra had an omelet and potatoes. The juice was also good.

Because we planned to put our phones in airplane mode as we got close to the border (to avoid international roaming charges), I had printed out maps to where we were going. We did manage to miss a turn and had to double back through two tolls. Freaking tolls. We drove through Niagara Falls, NY to stay in the U.S. as long as possible, and then crossed the Rainbow Bridge to our hotel. The wait at the Rainbow Bridge wasn’t long compared to the line that we saw later in the day, but the Canadian border patrol is WAY slower than the U.S. side. Go early.

We were staying at Sheraton on the Falls on the Canadian side of the falls. Our room was $399 CAD (About $319 USD). When we arrived at just after 9:00 AM, our room was not ready, but we checked in and were assigned a room. We were also able to leave our bags with the concierge, which was good because the parking garage ($25 CAD/night) is a pretty significant walk. That means lock your bags if you’re driving.

After checking in and parking, we followed the plan (~7 miles of walking):

We arrived back at the Sheraton On the Falls hotel at 3:00 PM with tired and sore feet and were able to get into our room. We were on the top floor and had an AMAZING view of all of the falls from our balcony. (More shameless selfies) The room was large, cool, had a refrigerator and a jetted tub. Wireless internet was included at no additional cost. The balconies are tiny. You can stand on them, but there’s not room for a chair. Because we didn’t have any plans until our dinner reservations at 6:00, Kendra took a nap and I took a shower and then bath in the jetted tub trying to relax my neck and shoulder muscles. I had been fighting a migraine since just before lunch. When the bath didn’t help, I called down to schedule a massage at the resort spa.

The spa was able to schedule appointments for me around our dinner reservations and throughout the evening, I had a total of 90 minutes of deep tissue massage. Both of my masseuses were amazing. They worked really hard to break up my knotted muscles.

We had made dinner reservations at Windows by Jamie Kennedy for 6:00 and arrived on time. We were seated promptly by the window. The view was nice, but really, any of the floors above had better views. The restaurant is strategically placed on the 13th floor. The spa is on the 14th floor, and the top floor of rooms is on the 22nd floor. We ordered two drinks – a peach something and a wine martini. They were both good. For our appetizer, we ordered the Maple Roasted Pork Belly sandwich with German Potato Salad. The bun on the sandwich was warm and delicious. the pork belly sandwich was very, very fatty with only a few bites of meat, which were tasty, but tough to chew. The potato salad was really good. For our main course, we shared the Chicken Two Ways. Both pieces of chicken were very small – maybe totaling 4oz between them. The bacon-wrapped chicken was a little bland, and I eat chicken breast all of the time. We couldn’t taste the bacon, though the chipotle-herb sauce was good. The apricot stuffed thigh was good, but there wasn’t a lot of meat. The mashed potatoes were maybe some of the worst that I’ve ever had. They were dry and flavorless. They really needed butter and cream. We barely touched these. The steamed veggies were delicious, cooked properly, and well-seasoned. The kale was very good. For dessert, we ordered the Lemon Tart and the Sticky Toffee Pudding. Both desserts were small – definitely not big enough to share. The lemon tart had a thick crust, not much baked product, and the mascarpone mousse was lumpy. It tasted good but wasn’t impressive. The pudding tasted more like chocolate than toffee, though the caramel was thick and delicious. The vanilla ice cream tasted okay, but was extremely crystalline and crunchy.  Our meal was $120 CAD for two drinks, one appetizer, a chicken main course, and two desserts. Overall, it wasn’t worth it. After dinner, we walked out and looked at the Fallsview buffet. The view there was actually BETTER because it was on the end of the building closer to the falls. As for the food, we had been to a couple of very popular buffets in Las Vegas and really regretted it. This buffet looked and smelled much better and was $35 CAD per person. There were even some stations that cooked food to order. If we went back, we wouldn’t go to Windows, but we would recommend the the buffet for decent food and a great view.

After dinner and a massage, we relaxed in our room until the fireworks display. Because of Canada Day (July 1) and U.S. Independence Day (July 4), there were scheduled fireworks every night. We had been told that the fireworks typically started at 10:00 and we would be able to see them from our balcony. At around the appointed time, the fireworks began. They were great, and we had an amazing view from our balcony. We were really happy. And sleepy. Very sleepy.

On Saturday, we woke and realized that there was no free breakfast included with our room. Seriously, $399 CAD and no breakfast included! We looked out of the window by the elevator at the Tim Hortons and saw a line out the door. We decided to catch another Tim Hortons on the interstate. So we checked out, got the car and got on the road.

We stopped on the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) at a Tim Hortons. It’s a counter service restaurant. I had a Canadian Bacon breakfast sandwich (think McDonalds Egg McMuffin but with better ingredients) and a maple doughnut. Kendra had a pretzel bagel BELT (Bacon Lettuce Egg and Tomato sandwich) and some Nutella-filled cinnamon sugar doughnuts. She also had an orange-pineapple smoothie that was amazing.

Back on the road for the 1.5 hour drive, my migraine came back. We made it to our hotel. On Saturday, we stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel. I chose this hotel based on its proximity to the Air Canada Center and the CN Tower. I had requested an early check-in and at 11:30 AM, we were able to go right up to our room. The room was on the 7th floor and had no view, and had cost $210 CAD. The room was older, but nice enough. The beds were really comfy. The fridge had a lock on it, and the wifi was an extra $13. When we paid for it, there was a comment box and Kendra complained about the fridge and the wifi. The front desk called and signed us up for their rewards program, which included free wifi. They also said that we could use the fridge with no charge. Customer service was really top-notch. However, again breakfast was not included and was very expensive in the hotel.

I had a massive migraine and took massive medication. We both stayed in bed and slept until after 4:00. Our dinner reservations were at 4:45 at 360 in the CN Tower. I had called at 11:30 and was told that there were no available slots to change our reservation. So we got ready and arrived at 4:45.

Anytime that you go to a needle or tall building in a city, the building typically charges tourists to go to the observation tower. Tourists line up for the privilege. If there’s a restaurant up top, and if you have reservations, you get a free (well, included anyway) ride to the top. Eat your meal and then go to the observation deck. That said, we went straight up the 360 restaurant elevator, skipping the general line. We were seated immediately at a window. This is another trick – get an early reservation to ensure that you get a window seat.

After we were seated, we ordered two drinks from the cocktail menu, and we chose our meals. We ordered from the Prix Fixe menu. We ordered one appetizer, two main courses, and one dessert. Our meal total was $200 CAD. For our appetizer, we ordered the Smoked Trout and Potato Chowder. Frankly, it was the only appetizer we would consider. I thought it was good but had too much red pepper, but my daughter really enjoyed it and finished it. The bread was cold but good, and the butter was slightly firm but still easy to spread on the cold bread. For our main course, we both chose the Alberta AAA Beef Tenderloin. I got mine with the sauce on the side (because I’m not a fan of a cognac sauce) but got the menu sides. My daughter ordered sweet potato fries with lemon aioli and broccolini with parmesan cheese. It took a while to receive our food, and when we did, our steaks were cool (room temperature) and the sides were hot, indicating that our steaks were done and waiting for the sides. Also, the medium steaks were completely well done. No pink at all. We sent one back. I chose to keep my cool, overcooked steak, because it’s my experience that if you complain that a steak is overcooked, the cooks think that you don’t know what you want and send it back undercooked. Sure enough, her steak was returned medium-rare (borderline rare). She couldn’t even eat the center. For dessert, we ordered the chocolate lava cake, having visions of Morton’s. It was disappointing. It was small. The description appropriately called it Dark Chocolate Lava Cake. The cake was a dark chocolate. The cake was warm and crusty. The chocolate ice cream on top was good. The tiny amount of vanilla custard was thin, but did balance the dark chocolate nicely. Overall, the food was good but not great and you’re really paying for the view. About the view – It was amazing and it’s really nice to take in the view while you relax and eat instead of vying for a spot on the observation deck. The service started out very attentive and helpful, but as the restaurant filled up, got slower and then atrociously slow. It took 50 minutes from the time we finished eating to order dessert, get dessert, and wait and wait for the check. I’m glad we went, because of the unique view. But for the price, we could have had dinner at a great local steakhouse and just paid $35 per person to go up in the tower.

After dinner, we went back to the hotel and asked at the concierge desk for earplugs for me for the concert, because I’m old. 10 minutes later, they were delivered to our door. The concert was schedule to start at 7:30. We left around 7:45. We walked easily to the Air Canada Center and arrived. Kendra considered an $80 sweatshirt but decided against it. I bought $20 CAD of vodka cranberry drinks and a bottled water. We entered the stadium to catch the second opening act. Imagine Dragons came out around 9:20. The show was great, and there were cameras everywhere. The band was recording the concert for some kind of video. We’ll have to find that later.

After the concert, we went back to the hotel and to bed.

On Sunday, we slept in until 7:30 and after looking at the room service menu, decided to have breakfast downstairs. They had me at Brioche French Toast. Downstairs at Azure, I ordered the French toast and Kendra got the buffet. We both had juice. Breakfast cost $57 CAD. It was good, but overpriced. We *might* have stashed a few extra croissants in my handbag for the road. We have no shame. We grabbed our stuff, checked out, and pulled out at 9:15.

On the road, Kendra drove through Detroit and around Bowling Green. We stopped for gas, bathroom breaks, and Wendy’s carryout. Asiago Ranch Chicken Club. Enough said. We ate and continued on our way. North of Dayton, we swapped and I drove the rest of the way. Closer to Dayton, traffic began to slow, and Google Maps indicated that there were two accidents ahead. We hopped off the highway and used the map to take an alternate route. We made some good choices and got back onto I-75 two exits later to zero oncoming traffic. Yowza. We continued and made it to Georgetown around 6:15 and picked up the dogs. We ordered pizza using the Dominos app and were home by 7:00 PM. The pizza showed up before we finished unpacking.