The falls themselves are a thrilling sight. To get close on the Maid of the Mist or on one of the tunnel walks is a pretty awe-inspiring experience. I'd advise you to skip the cheesy '4-D' Fury of Niagara CGI movie, though. We also had a lunch up in the Skylon Tower, a massive and strange cement tower with a weird, Battlestarish name, and though the food was nothing special, the view in the revolving restaurant was great. And the elevator ride was fun, too.
We stayed in a crowded camping complex full of tents and RV's and cabins. Kind of like the good camp in The Grapes of Wrath. We had a cabin. I got to cook out most nights, and even succeeded in making a couple campfires. Gotta love fire. We had no plumbing in the cabin, so it was a shortish walk to the toilets and showers. There was also a swimming pool and waterpark, a playground and a small arcade. It was great fun.
A short walk from the Falls is Clifton Hill, a jarring and cheesy stretch of shiny tourist trap amusements, even worse than today's 42nd street. Ripley's, a House of Frankenstein, a Dracula's Castle, Wax Galleries, and so on. I wasn't expecting that kind of stuff, but it's good cheesy fun. We didn't get the chance to spend any money there, which is fine.
A funny mix of small town and touristy junk and natural wonder.
And the drive up was nice, we took 17 to Elmira, then up to Rochester and over to Buffalo. What a great big beautiful state New York is.
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We were just in Niagara for the first time this year as well. We avoided all the places on Clifton Hill for the majority of our stay, seeking out some smaller restaurants, but in the end, it was the pizza and salad at Spicy Olive on Clifton Hill that turned out to be the best food we had all week. That and the birthday cake we got for Otto's fifth birthday at Pure Cake Design. But we had such a fantastic time on the Maid of the Mist. And my kids are still talking about Bird Kingdom. Totally agree about the 4D show. We saw "The Legend of the Falls," which was absolutely awful, but it was the 10 pm showing, and we were the only people in the theatre, so that was kind of fun. I had no idea it would be such a fun vacation, but we all loved it.
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