I re-visited Niagara Falls after 13 years since my first visit and stay there. Coincidentally this visit happened on Friday the 13Th of August 2010. We spend about 20 hours driving to and back from VA. About 8hrs in the hotel (we stayed in Quality Hotel in Rainbow Blvd, good and clean beads, nice two double beds, free WiFi Internet access, a safty locker the size of a micro oven, and over looking the Niagara falls side though no direct view to the falls, we were able to see the rainbow from the falls mist from out bedroom in the morning sun light, I wish they had a bigger better bathroom and a microwave oven (we like to get out popcorns and watch tv at night) and 2hrs in the long lines of 'Cave of the Winds' and 'Maid of the Mist'. About 14hrs in the NY State park itself. We enjoyed this trip, since the kids has grown, no need to lug around the strollers, diaper bags etc. We were more free to take the 2 rides that I have mentioned above this time. Actually we enjoyed drenched in the water spray from the falls. When we left for the trip, it is raining in VA as part of a storm system. Fortunately Niagara was dry and the weather was in the upper 80s to lower 90s.
In all the good things happens one bad note is that my trusted(? yeah most of time) Palm Treo 680 (yeah I know its old) based TomTom 6 navigator died, sort of. I would say it went into a unrecoverable coma. When we check out of hotel (11 am), I tried to find a parking spot in Niagara state park's parking lot#1, and couldn't get a place there so I have to drive back to the Rainbow Blvd municipal parking lot and got a spot in the level 4 and parked in front of the elevator. When it was time to return to retrieve our car and start our drive back home, the Palm Treo 680's screen becomes very dim. I tied to adjust the screen brightness and it didnt help.
Every thing shows up very faded and unable to read the map or its direction. Since I turned off its voice prompt earlier, I couln't able to turn it on cause, I am not able to ready anything to turn it on. So we decided to buy a GPS on the way home and found a Walmart in on the way and got a Garmin Nuvi 1300. It was not on sale. And we paid the full price of $149.00, it 4.3" screen much bigger than the Treo's 2 inch screen.
If I am visiting again in a hurry, I will bring my bicycles and buy the 'Maid of the Mist' boat ride ticket.
We planned to arrive on Friday 4pm, Check in hotel, take a shower, walk to the park get the Discover Tickets, take the Maid of the Mist boat ride first, get back to park, walkaround the falls visit the Goat Island. get back to main st, have dinner, enjoy the live music concert in front of the Hard Rock Cafe, do some shopping on the street side walk, get back to the movie at 9pm, get back to the 'Maid of the mist store' enjoy the fireworks and illuminations get back to the main st have some late piza or dosai (if you want to try you hands on dice, you can visit the Casino instead of the galss plaza) in the new glass plaza get back to hotel and watch tv with popcorns and go to bed.
We stop by a few vineraies on our way to Niagara Falls (its on Rt 20), and were able to taste at one place and it was so awsome wonderful, I will have a seperate blog about that. Anyone plan to open a wineshop in Niagara Falls, with sepcialised local wines and a grill, I am for it.
