Mother Daughter Trip to Niagara Falls and Canada's Wonderland

While Oscar and Tyler were gone at Young Men's camp (See photos here and a video compilation here), Allison and I took a mother daughter trip to Niagara Falls, Canada's Wonderland, and Buffalo, NY. We left on Monday while Oscar and Tyler didn't leave until Tuesday, so Oscar dropped us off super early at the Denver airport for an 8:00am flight to Buffalo. Once in Buffalo we rented a car, got some lunch at KFC, then drove to the American side of Niagara Falls. 

After exploring the lookout we went down the elevator to board the Maid of the Mist. The American side has decent views of the American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls, but you have to do the boat tour if you want to get a view of Horseshoe Falls.

Horseshoe Falls is amazing, though I had no idea there would be so much mist you can't even tell that it's horseshoe-shaped. 

Here's a nice shot of the American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls. Bridal Veil Falls may look small compared to the other two falls, but it's just as big as many other impressive falls out there. There's a Cave of the Winds tour that gets you up close to it, but we opted out of that one. 

We crossed the border, which was surprisingly quick compared to when we'd go to Canada from Washington, and checked in at our hotel. After a nice break, we went to the store to get some Canadian goodies and a mount for the rental car, then had a nice dinner at the hotel restaurant.

We got to bed as early as we could that night (about 10pm, which was like 8pm for us) because we'd heard the traffic going through Toronto to Canada's Wonderland could be awful (up to 4 hours). We left around 6:25am and made it in about 2 hours. We went out for breakfast then went to the park. We picked up our Fast Pass wristbands, premium meal plan wristband, and FunPix pass. It was all well worth the money, and cost so much less than planning an equivalent day at Disney or Universal.

They let you enter the park around 9:30am, though the rides don't open until 10:00am. Since we had the FunPix pass, we got some nice photos with Wonder Mountain and the new Alpenfury in the background. Alpenfury hadn't yet opened during our visit, so we'll have to return again another time to ride it. 

We toured around the front part of the park for a bit, got Allison measured and given a 54+ inch wristband, then got in line for Leviathan.

Leviathan was amazing! Throughout the day we rode it 5 times! It's like flying, and it's so high. It was definitely our favorite. I don't typically rank coasters, but if I did, Leviathan would be my new #1. As a lover of high heights, big drops, and airtime far more than G forces and inversions, Leviathan, Yukon Striker, and Behemoth at Canada's Wonderland were the coasters for me.

We wanted to ride Yukon Striker next, but the pathway was blocked for a few minutes due to Alpenfury construction, so we rode Thunder Run instead. It's a fun little coaster that goes through Wonder Mountain. 

Fortunately the pathway was unblocked after we finished Thunder Run, and we were able to ride Yukon Striker. We ended up riding Yukon Striker 3 times during the day, and our first ride was in the front row. What a drop!

We saw an animal in the grass on the way over to Behemoth, and a silly goose followed us up the queue line. On our way out we saw someone pick up the goose and drop it over the side back toward its flock.

On Behemoth we rode in the front, which was just great. My first picture is terrible, though (the one on the top left) since I didn't know when to expect the camera, and it's in a loop after all the big thrilling hills. 

Behemoth was like a mini Leviathan. We also rode Behemoth 3 times and would have done it 4, but they dropped to one train at the end of the day and the line was moving too slowly.

After that we walked back to ride Vortex, which we did not like at all. I'd heard good things, but it was too forceful for my taste. Allison nearly cried getting her head banged around on the restraints. 

We enjoyed the Backlot Stunt Coaster and Windseeker, then we were a bit disappointed by Soaring Timbers. It took FOREVER for them to get us ready to go, and it reminded me of Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey but without the themeing and pausing to watch screens. We wanted to do the Fly since we had the FunPix, but the line was longer than we wanted to wait and it doesn't have Fast pass. We skipped that along with Snoopy's Racing Railway and a few others since they also don't have Fast pass, and we figured we could ride them on a future visit when we don't pay extra for Fast pass. We did do Silver Streak and Wonder Mountain's Guardian, though, since the line for Silver Streak wasn't too bad and we wanted to wait the 20 minutes for Wonder Mountain's Guardian since most of the line was indoor and gave us a break from the sun. 

Wonder Mountain's Guardian is a unique coaster combined with a shooting game. It's visually stunning. If we'd had another day or if it had Fastpass, I would have definitely done it again.

Wonder Mountain is really beautiful, and they utilize it well with several rides going through or up and over it. Next time we'll have to come when they have the summer diving show.

After our 2nd ride on Leviathan we rode Dragon Fyre, but neither of us cared for it. Allison did cry because it banged her head around so much she got a headache. She wanted to just sit for a bit, so we walked over to Camp Snoopy and rode Swan Lake and Boo Blasters. 

Once she was recovered we rode Ghoster Coaster and Taxi Jam to get more fun photos. Allison was super social getting all the kids in line psyched up for all the kid coasters and telling them how she'd already ridden Leviathan twice. I can't remember the order here but at some point we rode Skyhawk, Wildebeast, Tundra Twister, Timberwolf Falls, the drop ride, and Sledgehammer. Wildebeast was a bit rough for me and the seats were too tight. I honestly preferred Ghoaster Coaster. Timber Wolf was refreshing in the hot sun, and the others were fun and unique, especially Sledgehammer. There were plenty of other rides we would have enjoyed, but we focused our remaining time on rerides on the big 3. We left exhausted with my watch telling me I'd walked 26,000+ steps. The drive home back to Niagara on the Lake was traffic free and we arrived in an hour and 15 minutes right around 9:30pm.

The next morning we did a little waterfalling in Hamilton, which is called the City of Waterfalls.

Hamilton does have a lot of waterfalls, but unfortunately, they were all pretty trickly. We must have been there too late in the spring. This was probably the best of them.

I had a few more on my list, but we hit construction traffic and heavy rain started coming down 3 hours earlier than was originally predicted. They also had day pass costs, which I didn't think were worth paying for just to hike 5 minutes in pouring rain to another tricky falls. We opted out of several on my list, but not until we'd already driven pretty far out our way to get to them. I ended up just picking up food then taking Allison back to the hotel to swim while I sat in the hot tub. 

That evening we went down to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls to see the falls when they light it up at night.

Everyone said the Canadian side is better than the American side, and that's definitely true. The views of Horseshoe Falls are just incredible (though you do get closer views of the American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls from the American side)!

After decades of wanting to see Niagara Falls, I had a hard time tearing myself away from each viewpoint. 

You can see the pink lights on the American Falls as it started getting dark.

The lights were so beautiful! I'm glad we came down in the evening. 

Once it was dark enough they started rotating the colors on both the American and Horseshoe Falls.

We hadn't known this when we first came down, but while watching the falls change color, we overheard people talking about fireworks. Apparently they do a 5 minute firework show every night from May - October.  We stuck around until 10pm to see that.

After the fireworks they lit it up with multiple colors like a rainbow. Thankfully someone offered to take these pictures of us.

And we enjoyed some more beautiful colors on our way out to the parking lot. I'd paid for an expensive parking lot that evening only to learn the next day I could have found a spot near Clifton Hill for 1/3rd of the price. Doh!

The next day we checked out of the hotel, grabbed some more Canadian goodies, and drove down to Clifton Hill where we'd purchased a multi-activity pass. We started off with the dinosaur themed mini-golf course. 

We then went on the skywheel where we quickly realized the aerial view of Niagara is absolutely necessary to see above the mist.

Thankfully we'd also made reservations for the buffet at the top of the Skylon Tower where we got an even better view.

We were given the perfect spot! As they were seating us one of the waiters said "you got the money shot!" This was just lucky since the floor the buffet is on doesn't revolve, though the ala cart restaurant above does. We picked the buffet since I figured Allison would be better able to find food she liked there, and the food was delicious! For $35 for me and $25 for Allison (in Canadian dollars), I thought it was well worth the cost. From this height you can see above the mist and actually see the horseshoe shape of Horseshoe Falls.

The fact that these pictures look this nice is also a testament to how clean they keep their windows. I've been up other observation towers/revolving restaurants whose windows weren't this clean.

Our waiter apologized for the overcast skies, but who cares when you have this amazing view of the falls.

After lunch we went up to the observation deck for 360 degree views. 

Though if I had to pick between the two floors, I'd choose the buffet. I'd rather sit and enjoy the view than have to peer through the fences. And those windows were so clean, my view was just as good.

There were lovely views all around the tower, but I kept coming back to the falls. I loved watching the boats going into the mist and knowing we were just on one a few days earlier. The blue ones were from the American side and the red ones were from the Canadian side. I'd read that it's the same tour from either side, and that you're better off doing the American one since it gets less crowded, which is why we picked the blue Maid of the Mist tour.

Allison was exhausted, especially since we'd been up late for fireworks the previous evening. I let her sleep for about an hour while I walked around the parking lot. I didn't have a hotel to take her back to yet, since we were staying in Buffalo that evening.

After she woke up we finished using up our passes at Clifton Hill

Part of the acitivity pas was touring the Wax Museum. It's not quite as realistic as Madame Toussaud's, but certainly worth passing through.

After using our passes we drove to our hotel, ate leftovers, then crashed hard while watching Zootopia. I think we fell asleep around 8:30pm.

Our flight left at 6:30pm that evening, so we had some time between check-out and going to the airport. Allison's choice was visiting the Buffalo Zoo. It was a nice zoo. We got great views of the lions, who were very active with their barrels.

We then enjoyed seeing the tiger. He got up into the window at one point, but we didn't manage to make it around to the window in time.

I'm also glad we got to see the Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep. Even though I live in the Rocky Mountains, and we visited Rocky Mountain National Park after this trip, I still haven't seen any bighorn sheep here. 

We took a break from the sun and enjoyed seeing the reptiles and other animals in the indoor exhibits. 

Allison particularly liked seeing the komodo dragon and the sand cats.

We continued touring and saw the Bison and Meerkats.

Allison is a big fan of snow leopards, so she was happy to find one there.

There was a fun dog show during the afternoon. This group tours around the country and just happened to be in Buffalo while we were there.

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After the show we kept working our way around the zoo where we saw the polar bear, rhino, and river otters.

We also saw the giraffes and explored the tropical habitat.

Allison played in the indoor play space for a bit then we saw some birds on our way out. We had to go back to the hotel since I'd accidentally left our chocolate bars in the fridge in our room. Thankfully they kept them in the front desk fridge for us, which was better than having them sit in the car at the zoo. They would have melted for sure.

We had long delays on both of our flights, and didn't get back to COS until after midnight, but it was a great trip. Allison met a mother and daughter in the DFW airport that enjoyed chatting with her while she showed them all of her drawings. Once on the plane she slept the rest of the way back (even I got a few minutes) and my friend Kristen picked us up.