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LoserFest 2022 - Niagara Falls
My flight from Nashville to Washington Dulles was fine and I got there about 10:30 in the morning. The tricky thing was that I was flying to Toronto at 10:30 at night. So I didn’t really have significant time at home. I was worried about my flight being cancelled, since they were predicting thunderstorms in Toronto, but everything went smoothly. Canada has an app called ArriveCan which you use to upload your COVID vaccination certificate and your travel plans. Having done that meant that all I had to do when we arrived was scan my passport at a kiosk and get a receipt with photo. I did stop to use an ATM at the airport and had a bit of a wait for a taxi, but I was at my hotel in downtown Toronto less than an hour after my plane touched down. (Had it been earlier in the day, I’d have taken the train. But I was tired and not sure how often the trains would be running, if at all.)
So why Toronto? Actually, I was heading to Niagara Falls, Ontario for LoserFest. Losers are followers of / participants in the Washington Post Style Invitational, which is a humor contest that’s had a community grow up around it. There’s an active FaceBook group and there are brunches roughly monthly, for example. And every so often (ideally, annually, but less often in practice), there is an out of town gathering, called LoserFest. I’d been to past ones in Pittsburgh and in Frederick, Maryland and always had a good time. I’m also friendly with the chief planner of the event, Kyle, who is officially the LoserFest Pope, as well as several other people who planned to attend. In the end, there were 11 of us - plus one more person who joined us for events on the New York side of the falls.
But first, I had several hours in Toronto. I caught up on sleep, had a late brunch, and took a longish walk around downtown. I had contemplated going to something called Little Canada, but it is pricy and their website suggested that their definition of “Canada” is pretty much limited to “Ontario and a couple of acres of Quebec.” And most of the museums I might want to go to (e.g. the Textile Museum) are closed on Mondays. In the late afternoon, I took Megabus to Niagara Falls and a taxi to the hotel. Kyle selected the Niagara Falls Marriott Fallsview Hotel and Spa, though only 5 of us actually stayed there. When I got up to my room, I discovered that the hotel was, indeed, very accurately named.
We had a late dinner at Turtle Jack’s (across the street from our hotel), after which I went back to staring out my hotel room window.
The next three days were completely packed with the events on Kyle’s “Fungenda.” This was a detailed spreadsheet with a lot of activity, all of which was optional. A few items had been prepaid. On Tuesday, we started out taking the incline railway down to the Table Rock Center to redeem the Adventure Pass tickets we had bought in advance, which took some time. The first activity we did was the Journey Behind the Falls. You get a rain poncho, then take an elevator down and walk through several tunnels that provide views of the falls.
Here I am, making good use of the poncho, on the outside platform that’s at the end of one of the passages.
There’s a tourist bus system called the WeGo and tickets for that were included in our Adventure passes. We took the WeGo up to a restaurant called The Secret Garden for lunch. I’d had a large breakfast, so just got a berry smoothie for lunch. After lunch, we walked through some gardens, before strolling over to the boarding area for the Voyage to the Falls boat tour. This is, essentially, the same as the Maid of the Mist that goes from the New York side. This time, you get a pink poncho. The spray is forceful enough that at least your hair is likely to get wet anyway.
The next item on the Fungenda was a self-guided tour at the Power Station. I skipped this because I was in need of a bit of introvert time. I walked in the Queen Victoria Gardens for a while, then climbed up the hill to the Fallsview Casino, where I slightly enriched the Canadian economy. I still managed to have time for a short nap before we went to dinner at Taco N Tequila. That was the biggest failure of our trip as they were out of several menu items, had excessively loud music, and had surly service.
After dinner, some of us went up to Clifton Hill, which is a large amusement park area. It was a bit of a wait to get on the Sky Wheel, which is an observation wheel. Unfortunately, we were still in line when the nightly fireworks over the falls went off, so we got a view of the machinery of the ride instead. When we did finally get to go, we did enjoy the ride, especially when we could see the falls lit up in a pride rainbow.
Wednesday started with breakfast at the Flying Saucer Restaurant, which has been around for 50 years.
The interior decor continues the theme.
The menu is pretty standard diner fare. I got blueberry pancakes which were pretty good. After eating, we went to Bird Kingdom. There’s a history museum first and an area with turtles before you get to the birds. There were lots of different birds to look at, including various parrots and macaws and these scarlet ibises.
But the best part was lorikeet feeding. Here, Ann and I are holding little cups of nectar and the lorikeets are enjoying lapping it up. (This was a rare occasion when I actually paid for a photo at a tourist attraction, by the way.)
Our next stop was White Water Walk. An elevator takes you to the bottom of the Niagara Gorge and there is a boardwalk that runs along the Niagara River, affording views of the rapids.
That was followed by Maple Leaf Place, which offers a number of opportunities to shop for souvenirs. We also had lunch at their food court. After that, we went to the Whirlpool Aero Car, a gondola style vehicle which travels on a cable across the river and back. It wasn’t as scary as I thought it was going to be.
For a number of reasons, we ended up with some free time at this point. Which I used to catch up on exciting things like reading FaceBook and staring out my hotel room window at the falls some more. Our evening activities were one of the highlights of our trip - a three part experience conducted by SeeSight Tours. It started with a brief van tour of the area, on our way from the hotel to the Niagara Falls Power Station, where we saw their interactive light show, “Currents: Niagara’s Power Transformed.” This is similar to the immersive shows that are all the rage now and was enjoyable, though I thought it was a little longer than it needed to be. (Click through to Flickr see the video.)
Next came a three course dinner at the Table Rock House restaurant, overlooking the falls. I enjoyed the tempura vegetables, chicken, and chocolate cheesecake. (We had to take the desserts to go, because of the third part of our evening adventure. So I actually ate the cheesecake in my hotel room as a midnight snack.) I also had one of their signature cocktails - the very tasty Niagara Parks Power Station, which consisted of spiced rum, blue curaçao, pineapple juice, and ginger beer,
To close out the evening, we were taken to the Illumination Tower which controls the lighting of the falls.
There are separate controls for the American / Bridal Veil Falls and the Horseshoe Falls.
One press of a button on the tablet - and voila! Now the falls are green!
This was so much fun! Also, being at the Illumination Tower gave us a great vantage point for the nightly fireworks. (Again, you can click through to Flickr to see rhe video.)
We each got a certificate saying we’d lit up the falls and then were taken back to the hotel. I ate my cheesecake and went to bed happy.
On Thursday, most of us went across to the New York side of the falls. We also met up with another Loser there. This was the one day where we had less than stellar weather. During a heavier downpour, we took refuge in the gift shop for the Maid of the Mist. When the rain stopped, we stopped for a group photo. Kyle and Mike are in the back, with (from left to right), Pat (the empress of the Style Invitational), Kathleen, Sharon, Sarah, and Mark (the Royal Consort) in front. I don’t know where Ann and Jonathan were. Ed and Doug had stayed in Canada. I was taking the photo, obviously.
Then we took the trolley over to the stop for the Cave of the Winds. This was another amazing experience. You watch a short movie about the falls, then take an elevator down to the walkway. There is no longer any actual cave access, but the paths take you very close to the falls (and, along the way, a lot of nesting gulls.) Despite the yellow ponchos they give you, you do get quite wet. The worst of that was how wet my feet got. But the views were amazing and this was definitely another highlight of the trip.
We had been advised that border crossing traffic was heavier than normal due to a holiday weekend, so we went back to Canada earlier than planned. We stopped at the hotel for people to change clothes (ah, dry socks!) and then had lunch before going to our next stop.
The Butterfly Conservatory is pretty typical of that sort of thing - a screened in area with lots of butterflies flying free. One of them tried to abduct me! Or maybe it just wanted to eat my hat.
A few people walked around various parts of the surrounding botanical gardens. Then we drove over to Niagara on the Lake. We didn’t have any actual plan there, so I resorted to my usual method of travel planning - namely, a quick look at Atlas Obscura. (We did drive around some first, looking at fancy houses and shops that sell things people don’t actually need.) Eventually, we stopped at The Living Water Wayside Chapel, which is notable for being extremely small.
There was also a shop next to it, with fresh fruit and junk food and souvenirs. Then we came back to the hotel and had free time until our farewell dinner at Morton’s. I had horseradish-crusted salmon, with caramel bread pudding for dessert. That was tasty, but really too much food. (And expensive.)
Friday was a travel day. I’ll write about that (and the next few days) in another post. Overall, it was a fun few days, even with all the logistic hassles of herding Losers. I’m looking forward to the next LoserFest whenever that happens.
So why Toronto? Actually, I was heading to Niagara Falls, Ontario for LoserFest. Losers are followers of / participants in the Washington Post Style Invitational, which is a humor contest that’s had a community grow up around it. There’s an active FaceBook group and there are brunches roughly monthly, for example. And every so often (ideally, annually, but less often in practice), there is an out of town gathering, called LoserFest. I’d been to past ones in Pittsburgh and in Frederick, Maryland and always had a good time. I’m also friendly with the chief planner of the event, Kyle, who is officially the LoserFest Pope, as well as several other people who planned to attend. In the end, there were 11 of us - plus one more person who joined us for events on the New York side of the falls.
But first, I had several hours in Toronto. I caught up on sleep, had a late brunch, and took a longish walk around downtown. I had contemplated going to something called Little Canada, but it is pricy and their website suggested that their definition of “Canada” is pretty much limited to “Ontario and a couple of acres of Quebec.” And most of the museums I might want to go to (e.g. the Textile Museum) are closed on Mondays. In the late afternoon, I took Megabus to Niagara Falls and a taxi to the hotel. Kyle selected the Niagara Falls Marriott Fallsview Hotel and Spa, though only 5 of us actually stayed there. When I got up to my room, I discovered that the hotel was, indeed, very accurately named.
We had a late dinner at Turtle Jack’s (across the street from our hotel), after which I went back to staring out my hotel room window.
The next three days were completely packed with the events on Kyle’s “Fungenda.” This was a detailed spreadsheet with a lot of activity, all of which was optional. A few items had been prepaid. On Tuesday, we started out taking the incline railway down to the Table Rock Center to redeem the Adventure Pass tickets we had bought in advance, which took some time. The first activity we did was the Journey Behind the Falls. You get a rain poncho, then take an elevator down and walk through several tunnels that provide views of the falls.
Here I am, making good use of the poncho, on the outside platform that’s at the end of one of the passages.
There’s a tourist bus system called the WeGo and tickets for that were included in our Adventure passes. We took the WeGo up to a restaurant called The Secret Garden for lunch. I’d had a large breakfast, so just got a berry smoothie for lunch. After lunch, we walked through some gardens, before strolling over to the boarding area for the Voyage to the Falls boat tour. This is, essentially, the same as the Maid of the Mist that goes from the New York side. This time, you get a pink poncho. The spray is forceful enough that at least your hair is likely to get wet anyway.
The next item on the Fungenda was a self-guided tour at the Power Station. I skipped this because I was in need of a bit of introvert time. I walked in the Queen Victoria Gardens for a while, then climbed up the hill to the Fallsview Casino, where I slightly enriched the Canadian economy. I still managed to have time for a short nap before we went to dinner at Taco N Tequila. That was the biggest failure of our trip as they were out of several menu items, had excessively loud music, and had surly service.
After dinner, some of us went up to Clifton Hill, which is a large amusement park area. It was a bit of a wait to get on the Sky Wheel, which is an observation wheel. Unfortunately, we were still in line when the nightly fireworks over the falls went off, so we got a view of the machinery of the ride instead. When we did finally get to go, we did enjoy the ride, especially when we could see the falls lit up in a pride rainbow.
Wednesday started with breakfast at the Flying Saucer Restaurant, which has been around for 50 years.
The interior decor continues the theme.
The menu is pretty standard diner fare. I got blueberry pancakes which were pretty good. After eating, we went to Bird Kingdom. There’s a history museum first and an area with turtles before you get to the birds. There were lots of different birds to look at, including various parrots and macaws and these scarlet ibises.
But the best part was lorikeet feeding. Here, Ann and I are holding little cups of nectar and the lorikeets are enjoying lapping it up. (This was a rare occasion when I actually paid for a photo at a tourist attraction, by the way.)
Our next stop was White Water Walk. An elevator takes you to the bottom of the Niagara Gorge and there is a boardwalk that runs along the Niagara River, affording views of the rapids.
That was followed by Maple Leaf Place, which offers a number of opportunities to shop for souvenirs. We also had lunch at their food court. After that, we went to the Whirlpool Aero Car, a gondola style vehicle which travels on a cable across the river and back. It wasn’t as scary as I thought it was going to be.
For a number of reasons, we ended up with some free time at this point. Which I used to catch up on exciting things like reading FaceBook and staring out my hotel room window at the falls some more. Our evening activities were one of the highlights of our trip - a three part experience conducted by SeeSight Tours. It started with a brief van tour of the area, on our way from the hotel to the Niagara Falls Power Station, where we saw their interactive light show, “Currents: Niagara’s Power Transformed.” This is similar to the immersive shows that are all the rage now and was enjoyable, though I thought it was a little longer than it needed to be. (Click through to Flickr see the video.)
Next came a three course dinner at the Table Rock House restaurant, overlooking the falls. I enjoyed the tempura vegetables, chicken, and chocolate cheesecake. (We had to take the desserts to go, because of the third part of our evening adventure. So I actually ate the cheesecake in my hotel room as a midnight snack.) I also had one of their signature cocktails - the very tasty Niagara Parks Power Station, which consisted of spiced rum, blue curaçao, pineapple juice, and ginger beer,
To close out the evening, we were taken to the Illumination Tower which controls the lighting of the falls.
There are separate controls for the American / Bridal Veil Falls and the Horseshoe Falls.
One press of a button on the tablet - and voila! Now the falls are green!
This was so much fun! Also, being at the Illumination Tower gave us a great vantage point for the nightly fireworks. (Again, you can click through to Flickr to see rhe video.)
We each got a certificate saying we’d lit up the falls and then were taken back to the hotel. I ate my cheesecake and went to bed happy.
On Thursday, most of us went across to the New York side of the falls. We also met up with another Loser there. This was the one day where we had less than stellar weather. During a heavier downpour, we took refuge in the gift shop for the Maid of the Mist. When the rain stopped, we stopped for a group photo. Kyle and Mike are in the back, with (from left to right), Pat (the empress of the Style Invitational), Kathleen, Sharon, Sarah, and Mark (the Royal Consort) in front. I don’t know where Ann and Jonathan were. Ed and Doug had stayed in Canada. I was taking the photo, obviously.
Then we took the trolley over to the stop for the Cave of the Winds. This was another amazing experience. You watch a short movie about the falls, then take an elevator down to the walkway. There is no longer any actual cave access, but the paths take you very close to the falls (and, along the way, a lot of nesting gulls.) Despite the yellow ponchos they give you, you do get quite wet. The worst of that was how wet my feet got. But the views were amazing and this was definitely another highlight of the trip.
We had been advised that border crossing traffic was heavier than normal due to a holiday weekend, so we went back to Canada earlier than planned. We stopped at the hotel for people to change clothes (ah, dry socks!) and then had lunch before going to our next stop.
The Butterfly Conservatory is pretty typical of that sort of thing - a screened in area with lots of butterflies flying free. One of them tried to abduct me! Or maybe it just wanted to eat my hat.
A few people walked around various parts of the surrounding botanical gardens. Then we drove over to Niagara on the Lake. We didn’t have any actual plan there, so I resorted to my usual method of travel planning - namely, a quick look at Atlas Obscura. (We did drive around some first, looking at fancy houses and shops that sell things people don’t actually need.) Eventually, we stopped at The Living Water Wayside Chapel, which is notable for being extremely small.
There was also a shop next to it, with fresh fruit and junk food and souvenirs. Then we came back to the hotel and had free time until our farewell dinner at Morton’s. I had horseradish-crusted salmon, with caramel bread pudding for dessert. That was tasty, but really too much food. (And expensive.)
Friday was a travel day. I’ll write about that (and the next few days) in another post. Overall, it was a fun few days, even with all the logistic hassles of herding Losers. I’m looking forward to the next LoserFest whenever that happens.
no subject
This sounds like a lot of fun!