I’ve searched threads about both places and have a very general idea of things I’d like to see. But I don’t know how to split my time between the two places, what to see for how long and what my best transportation options are.
I’m flying from Minneapolis/St. Paul in late May and staying 6 or 7 days. Should I fly into Buffalo or Toronto? From my orbitz searches, flights into Buffalo are considerably less expensive ($140/person roundtrip).
If I go to Buffalo, can I expect to just rent a car, drive across the border, show my passport and be on my merry way? Is there any advantage to just going to Toronto and departing from Toronto? Am I missing an option?
This trip is for my 1 year anniversary with my wife and we both thought it was an absolute shame that we hadn’t been to Canada despite living in Minnesota for over a decade. Winnipeg was our first thought but I think the main draw of the city is that it was the closest major city in Canada (I’m ignorant about Canada, if Winnipeg is great please let me know).
I should list our interests and places of interest: Niagara Falls of course, boat cruises of all kinds, forests and cliffs, serious museums and to a lesser extent the novelty type places, the CN Tower, architectural marvels (old or new), mid-range or fast restaurants, mild to moderate hiking, and maybe 1 casino night.
And I’ve become a baseball fan in the past 5 years or so and see that the Blue Jays will be at the Rogers Centre pretty much our whole stay. I’ve been to Target Field 20+ times and Wrigley once so it would be nice to see a game there.
If you go to the CN tower, skip the lines and waiting (x2), and go right up to the restaurant. You won’t wait in lines, you’ll get a full 360 degree view, it will be much less crowded, and the cost will be similar once you order some tea and cakes!
The alternative is pay a lot of money to stand in line to reach an over crowded 1st platform, with not a full view, wait in line again to get to the higher platform, even more crowded! Then wait on line twice again to get back down! Yikes!)
Toronto has a world class museum (ROM - Royal Ontario Musum) and art gallery (AGO -Art Gallery of Ontario) Definitely check them out! The Distillery District is pretty awesome too!
If you’ve got your passports, you shouldn’t have trouble zipping and back across the border. But one thing you should confirm in advance is that the rental car company is okay with you taking the car across the border. I wouldn’t think that would be a problem, but you’d want to be sure.
I’m on my phone so can’t search very easily, but last summer Elendil’s Heir started a thread asking about things to see in Toronto. Worth taking a look.
If you’re interested in aquariums, there’s Marineland in Niagara Falls (Ontario) - combination aquarium and theme park. I’ve not been myself, but see adverts for it all the time.
Niagara falls offers a 3 pack of tourist destinations (and 1 day bus access) for about $20-$25 or so. Much more reasonable than the other tourist traps in NF city. You get to go behind the falls, to a butterfly conservatory (a bit out of the city, but accessible on the bus) and a ‘virtual’ tour of the falls and some of it’s history - be prepared to get wet with that one. The butterfly conservatory is very nice, a warm semi tropical indoor environment designed to look like it’s outdoors.
While nothing is really over the top, it’s a nice and cheap way to see some attractions and can be done comfortably over 2 days, combined with other stuff.
On the more expensive side you can get a helicopter tour, about 10 minutes of the falls.
You can also walk across the bridge to the US side and the state park and the CIA restaurant.
There are a lot of fun places depending on what you like to do. The two casinos are awesome, the Hornblower Cruise is fun, the restaurants are good!
(OK, My Cousin Vinnies wasn’t up to the standards of Italian food by me, but there are worse. [SIZE=“1”]Most of the world has no clue about pizza anyway.) [/SIZE]
Ride the air conditioned ferris wheel… take the River Walk. Don’t forget to visit the wineries. Also, after dinner walks down to the falls are fun & occasionally have live bands & fireworks displays.
Niagara on the Lake is fun, but bring Money (figure your budget for the day & then bring twice that… but the food is Great).
I agree on the butterfly conservatory - its pretty cool. If the weather is warm enough the jet boat ride is fun. The White Water Walk gets you up close to some amazing rapids.
I’d rather hit the Ripley Acquarium than drive the 130 KMS on a short trip.
Speaking of short trips, I think there’s more than enough attractions already mentioned here to fill 6 or 7 days, but if the zoo is doable give it a try. Hey, it ain’t the San Diego zoo, but it’s still pretty nice.
The weather at the end of May in Toronto should be nice also. Possible rain, but zero chance of cold and snow.
Good luck!
Oh, and flying to Buffalo makes more sense to me. You won’t have an issue bringing a rental car across the boarder.
I went to the CN tower restaurant for dinner last summer and the minimum cost per person was well above the cost for a single admission (at least $10, say). Maybe it’s different if you go at lunch instead of at suppertime, however.
Yeah, the restaurant is a little up-scale, and besides if I was a tourist I’d want to spend time doing the tourist things, even if it meant a line-up. I can’t imagine late may would be extremely busy anyway.
ETA: Hey OP, have a look here to save 43% on major attractions.
Marineland is more of a Sea World type thing, with rides and attractions and all that. Ripley’s is an aquarium more focused on fish and sharks and such. Marineland has also recently come under fire with charges from the OSPCA on animal welfare. I have no kids and don’t care about rides or anything like that, so for pure aquarium enjoyment Ripley’s is probably the better bet; kids may enjoy Marineland more.
I was typing a reply earlier, and my computer ate it. We went to Toronto, and the Falls, for our anniversary a few years ago.
We flew on Porter Airlines, which serves Toronto City Airport, right in downtown Toronto (all other airlines go to Pearson, which is northwest of the city). Porter has great customer service, and the airport is really convenient, but they don’t serve MSP, unfortunately (we flew out of Chicago Midway).
The town of Niagara Falls proper (on both sides of the border) is a massive tourist trap. The falls are lovely, but unless you go in for kitschy touristy stuff, you may not want to spend a lot of time in the towns themselves.
We spent a night in Niagara-on-the-Lake, which is about 25 minutes north of the Canadian falls. It’s a lovely little town, right on Lake Ontario, with fun shops and a variety of non-chain restaurants. If you want to stay overnight near the falls, I’d strongly recommend staying there, rather than in Niagara Falls. We stayed at the Prince of Wales Hotel, which is a little upscale, but really nice.
I second the butterfly conservatory – it was tremendously cool.
We were there in August, and saw a Toronto Argonauts (Canadian football) game at Rogers Centre. I’d watched CFL football since I was a teenager, when they would show games on ESPN, and it was a very fun experience to attend a game. (The Argos have since moved to BMO Field, which they share with Toronto’s MLS soccer team.) However, their season runs from July-October, so too late in the year for you.
In Toronto, we visited Casa Loma, which is a mansion-turned-museum in the city.
We went to Toronto, and the Falls, for our anniversary a few years ago.