Our time living in NYC was coming to an end and we were determined to cross off one more “Northeasternly” activity on our bucket list: make a trip up to Toronto and Niagara Falls! This trip coincided nicely with my graduation from my medical residency program as well as my 30th birthday (!!) so the trip did quadruple duty as a vacation with friends + graduation celebration + birthday hurrah + farewell to the Northeast extravaganza.

We flew from Newark Airport (EWR) in New Jersey to Billy Bishop Airport in Toronto (YTZ). Billy Bishop Airport is conveniently located in downtown Toronto so it’s very easy to get wherever you need to go either by taxi or public transportation. We picked up our rental car and headed out for a big day!

St. Lawrence Market

First stop: a bit of sustenance for the drive to The Falls. St. Lawrence Market is open daily and brimming with fresh produce, land and sea proteins, and restaurants and shops. We stopped by for a quick bite and chose the classic Toronto food staples of a peameal bacon sandwich and a Portugese custard tart from Paddington’s Pump. The other famous restaurant in the St. Lawrence Market to get a peameal bacon sandwich is Carousel Bakery. Instead of ordering two peameal bacon sandwiches from the two different restaurants, we chose to try Carousel’s veal parmigiana and I regret not getting another peameal bacon sandwich. For anyone confused about what peameal bacon is (and count me among your ranks until this trip!): peameal bacon is brine-cured, un-smoked lean bacon rolled in cornmeal. It tastes more like fresh ham rather than the classic American cured or smoked bacon, and did very well in a sandwich with sweet relish.

Best Parking For Canada’s Niagara Falls

Tummies satisfied, we embarked on the drive from downtown Toronto to the Niagara Falls area. There was a good amount of traffic nearly the entire trip down and it took us 90 minutes to drive to Niagara Falls. A word on parking upon arrival to Niagara: don’t park in the parking lot/street metered parking spots right next to the Falls themselves, unless you want to pay $10 per 30 minutes…A quick search for parking on Google Maps led me to the parking areas A and B for Skylon Tower, where I was expecting to pay $15-$20 for parking. However, we then found an unnamed lot right next to the Skylon Parking Area A, being manned by a friendly gentleman asking only $5 CAD for parking all day long until midnight that night! I highly recommend checking out the Skylon Tower parking areas and/or this smaller and significantly cheaper lot, as it is a 5-minute walk to the Canadian Niagara Falls viewing area. This walk to the Falls is through a wooded but nicely maintained pathway, which does involve walking on an incline and several small steps, so keep this in mind if accessibility is an issue for your party.

We had two goals: board a cruise to see Niagara Falls up close, and experience the power of Cave of the Winds. We had not booked anything in advance and were able to buy tickets in person upon arrival with no issue or wait time for the timed tickets, but we did visit Niagara on a Friday afternoon. I imagine that weekend crowds might necessitate waiting for a later time slot if you purchase your tickets in person, so plan on booking the boat tour tickets in advance for your preferred time slot if time is a limiting factor for your itinerary. Pre-purchase of the Cave of the Winds timed-entry tickets was not available.

The two Niagara river boat cruises to choose from are the Hornblower Voyage to the Falls boat tour on the Canadian side and the Maid of the Mist boat tour on the American side. Both boats follow the same path and take you to visit the Niagara Gorge, the American Falls, Bridal Veil Falls, and the Canadian Horseshoe Falls. We chose the Hornblower boat because we started off our journey on the Canadian side.

Hornblower Niagara Cruise: Voyage to the Falls

Hornblower’s Voyage to the Falls boat tour cost a bit over $30 CAD. Ponchos are provided: red ponchos for Hornblower boat passengers and blue ponchos for Maid of the Mist passengers. I recommend wearing sandals or shoes that you are okay with getting wet or soaked. The “mist” experienced on the boat is more accurately described as “full-on sideways sweeping beating thundershowers” at times, especially when the boat approaches the middle of the Canadian Horseshoe Falls. It’s great fun being pelted by the “mist” and being surrounded by the awe-inspiring gigantic falls, with the waves in absolute turmoil beneath the boat, but it’s only fun if you came prepared to get wet (not just “misted”)! We brought a waterproof pouch for our phones and passports and wore a backpack underneath the poncho and everything did just fine.

The boat tour lasts 20 minutes and a boat leaves every 30 minutes (on the hour and on the half hour). It is probably the tour everyone who visits Niagara Falls chooses to take even if they have time for only one tour, and I agree with this decision. Nonetheless, I’m so glad we had time to embark on a second adventure: Cave of the Winds!

Cave of the Winds

Cave of the Winds is located on the American side of Niagara, on Goat Island. We walked to Goat Island from the Canadian side, taking Rainbow Bridge to cross the international border. Remember to take your passport and phone (to complete the mandatory ArriveCAN form) so you can cross the border between America and Canada! Rainbow Bridge offers spectacular views of all three falls, as well as the Hornblower and Maid of the Mist boats traversing the churning river.

Tickets to Cave of the Winds can only be purchased in person at the Cave of the Winds plaza on Goat Island. Tickets cost $19 USD per adult and it was so worth it. The Cave of the Winds experience starts with a short time of exploration in a small museum highlighting the history of Niagara Falls’ beginnings. Guests are then ushered into an auditorium where a short film is showed, focusing on the initial capitalist damage to Niagara Falls which was followed by a change in heart and commitment to restoration of its natural beauty. After the film, guests are provided with complimentary yellow ponchos and souvenir waterproof sandals (Cave of the Winds will be phasing out these sandals in the name of environmental conservation around July 2022).

An elevator takes you on a 175 foot descent into the Niagara Gorge. The actual cave that was created by the crushing force of the waterfall is no longer safe to visit, but you can still experience the magic and power of the falls on the Cave of the Winds platforms! A series of wooden walkways guides you around the base of the Bridal Veils Falls. The wind, mist, and crashing waves are awesome and frightening in all the best ways. Water floods over the walkways, spits at you in the face, and whips that poncho around and you will be hard-pressed to not have a huge grin on your face the entire time. The wooden walkways lead up to Hurricane Deck, where part of Bridal Veil Falls crashes directly onto the deck. At this point, winds can reach 75 miles per hour, at the level of a Category I hurricane! You can approach and stand underneath the falls themselves. This was the loudest, wettest, and most amazing part of the entire experience and we went back several times to experience the power of the waterfall firsthand.

I loved Cave of the Winds so much that we actually looped around and walked all of the wooden walkways a second time. I took a lot of pictures the first go around, and the second time I focused simply on appreciating and experiencing the Falls. I highly, highly recommend the Cave of the Winds experience! It’s self-paced is chock full of photo opportunities. Standing underneath Bridal Veil Falls and gazing up to the sky, squinting against the all-encompassing spray, and realizing how small you are is quite an experience— somehow both grounding and uplifting at the same time.