WT - Toronto & Niagara Falls

We spent a couple of nights in Toronto so that we could take a tour out to Niagara Falls. Booking our hotel online we thought we would stay close to the airport at an inexpensive (actually dirt cheap @20% of what we would pay at the Fairmont) hotel and see what kind of digs we would get.

Actually not bad at all - a brief comparison of the Monte Carlo Hotel with the Fairmont Palliser in Calgary, - 1) Not central to anything at 12 kilometres from the airport and 35 from the CBD. 2) Room was twice the size of the Fairmont. 3) We had two Queen size beds instead of one. 4) beds were comfortable as opposed to too soft and we are convinced that the Fairmont bed was broken in the middle. 5) A view of the Monte Carlo courtyard and street was better than a view of ducting and derelict building. 6) Both had dirty bathroom floors but you could turn around in the Monte Carlo whereas you had to backup into the Fairmont's - literally! or climb into the bath to turn. 6) Room service was none existent at both. 7) Monte Carlo dinning room and kitchen were still open and serving after 8.30pm. The meals were comparable but half the price. 8) Service was slow at about 10 minutes waiting but three times the speed of the Fairmont. 9) No nibbles were provided with the drink but the drink was half the price. 10) Paper napkins were issued as opposed to the Fairmont's crisp white linen.

We booked the Niagara Falls tour through Kings tours and although not 5 star the tour operators were friendly and informative. We were offered a helicopter flight over the falls but we didn't really see value for cost so opted to give that a miss but we did visit one of the wineries for a little wine tasting (Ronnie did the tasting - I just get a terrible headache).

We also visited the historical village "Niagara-on-the-lake". Tour buses are not allowed in the village and have a designated area outside the boundary 5 minutes walk from the village and which is serviced by a shuttle at no cost to the tourist every 10 minutes. Ronnie and I opted for the shuttle and were the only passengers (both ways I might add). Once in the village we decided that we were not going to see very much if on foot (the tour bus stopped for 50 minutes) so we opted for a half hour carriage tour of the village and were treated to a very informed narration by a lovely pair of tour operators whilst "Charlie" carried us (sometimes rather reluctantly) around the village.

Whilst on the tour we heard a female voice yelling "Veronica" as we were travelling up the main street and lo-and-behold for about the 5th or 6th time while on our journey through Canada we had been spotted by Cheryl and Paul - it was delightful but we were unable to stop as we were very near our time limit. They are a wonderful couple and it would have been great to spend a little more time with them.

We then went on to visit the falls and took the Maid of the Mist cruise. Ronnie absolutely loved getting soaked on this one, of course photographs were taken as best we could but it was a true soaking in the misty wind making visibility through camera and glasses very hard. After our cruise we had a couple of hours to visit the nearby attractions but we decided to sit in the park and watch a squirrel at play. We did visit a restaurant for a quick coffee before leaving.

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