My Niagara itinerary

amother

OP ↓

Thu, Aug 29 2024, 3:04 pm

I see people asking about Niagara a lot- what to do there, and stops on the way, so I thought I'd make a post about what we did in case it helps anyone for the future.

We drove from long Island. We left motzei shabbos (had almost everything except the perishable food packed up and ready to go) and drove 2.5 hours to Scranton. Stayed there overnight in a hotel. I can get the name if anyone wants, it was great because there were a lot of kosher OUD packaged items at the breakfast - muffins, banana bread, coffee cake, and there was fruit and yogurts and cereal. Didn't check the kashrus of the cereal.

Then we drove another 2 ish hours to Corning, and did the museum there because everyone told us to. TBH, none of my kids really cared much about it. I guess you have to know your kids. We did pay extra to do a glass fusing workshop, my kids made mezuzos actually. If I could do it again I would spend more time going to the 'shows' in the museum vs walking around. But again that's personal preference.

From there it was 2.5 hours to Niagara. We stayed at an Airbnb which was great because we had a full kitchen, 4 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms. Plus parking is free at an Airbnb which isn't true for any of the hotels. Downside is its a bit further from the action and no falls view.

We paid for the Jpass from chabad, which gets you admission into 5 attractions:

1) maid of the mist- this was amazing and so much fun, everyone loved
2) skylon tower (could be substituted for an imax) also really fun, we went at night and watched fireworks from there. Make sure to get there by 9:20 ish to get a good spot.
3)Ripley's believe it or not- didn't love this, but it was something to do and kept the kids entertained ish for about 2 hours
4) mirror maze- very short but the kids loved it, about 5 minutes long
5)ferris wheel- forgetting the name of it. Kids loved this, great view. Might be scary if you are afraid of heights but I think still worth doing.

We also did the speedway go karts. This was really fun and relatively inexpensive.

We brought all our own food, though chabad does operate a fleishig and a milchig restaurant during the summer season.

We left Niagara Wednesday morning, and went to the Rochester children's museum (again forgetting the name, I'm so tired). This was cute and the kids enjoyed, but again I think just a tad over hyped. My older kids were just a little bored.

Then we drove to Binghamton and stayed overnight there. My husband davened by the chabad there. They only have minyanim when the university is in session so check ahead of time if this is something you want to do.

In the morning we packed up and drove to Monticello for pizza lunch, and from there we went home.

Will post some other tips in the comments when I have a few minutes. Hope this was helpful for someone! Happy to answer any questions if anyone has..