This
is about some rough patches of a day spent in Canada, visiting
Niagara Falls.
But
it isn’t a travel piece.
It’s
about a runaround. At the Skylon Tower. And a runaround that just
kept increasing in stupidity and comedy as the impossibility of
the silliness played out. It’s about staff that seem uninterested
at best and improperly informed at worst.
We
had made the mistake, as a group of four, of heading up to the
Falls and over to the Canadian side during the July 4th holiday
weekend. To describe it as busy would be a massive understatement.
There was a wait of an hour in a line off to the side that needed
to be entered and finished just to be able to get into the two-hour
line for some attractions. That three-hour wait doesn’t include
lapping Clifton Hill, Falls Avenue, Niagara River Parkway, and
Murray Street to search for parking and attempt a bit of site
assessment reconnaissance.
It
was crazy.
We
kept extending out circles back a bit, and eventually some different
actions led us to the Skylon property. Went inside and asked about
the options for the observation tower. And this is where things
get funny…
First,
you need to know there are several options for heading up the
tower.
Second,
you need to know there are several areas of construction and renovations
and something else we really couldn’t figure out taking place
around the Skylon property.
The
first item meant that at the ticket counter, a discussion was
taking place. The observation deck was, obviously, the centerpiece
of the talks. Where they extended was for the restaurant and the
extra-special-super-fantastic-brilliant-beyond-compare 3D/4D movie
extravaganza. The options overlapped in ways that doing one with
another, in certain combinations, would get some portion included
at just about no extra charge. Dining reservations were made,
we set off to see the movie, and had plans to head to the Falls
then return later for our trip to the top of the tower.
Handed
our tickets, we asked for directions and were told to head down
and to the left. And that’s where funny shifts to frustrating
and laughable.
The
incredibly helpful and friendly, though we would soon learn also
massively mistaken, cashier pointed off to the right of the counter.
She told us to head that way, then follow it as it turned down
and to the left. That’s where we would find the movie theater.
Only
we didn’t.
Down
and to the left went past a retail shop, into a corridor, and
led to an escalator that dropped us into an entertainment center
with arcade games and food options. Food options that here looked
even less appetizing than the worst arcade food options you’ve
ever encountered or imagined. Big signs for the food, however.
Just nothing for the 3D/4D event of the century.
When
we finally identified an employee and asked where to go, he pointed
to a set of doors that would lead us outside. Once we got through
the doors we should head down and to the left.
Only,
again, kinda wrong.
The
doors led us to an exterior walkway that ended with an escalator
that was not operation, a flight of stairs, and an elevator. None
of them were completely off to the left, but with no other alternatives
they seemed like the next step of the journey.
We
selected the elevator, and then as a joke in our conversation
elected to get out and head down and then off to the left. In
doing so, we eventually came to a corner where there was a ticket
booth. Even though you had tickets, you needed to go to the ticket
booth to check in before heading about thirty yards away to a
separate building which had the doors to the theater. Let me consolidate
the next few points…
Number
one – We should have given up. I have zero clue why we kept heading
along. Perhaps we were stubborn, crossing the line from flustered
to headstrong and arriving at determined in our quest to find
this place. Maybe we knew we were moving toward the walkway near
the Horseshoe Falls and it felt as though we were at least moving
a bit closer to where we ultimately wanted to be. But the truth
is, from the first escalator to the game room to the broken escalator
and hot box elevator, there were places where normal people likely
gave up and turned around.
Number
two – The movie was horrendous. Whatever you do, avoid it. Skip
it. The film was a story about how a woman decided against going
to her hotel room for a good night of rest because she needed
to complete a scavenger hunt in order to meet her boyfriend at
an overlook of the Falls the next day.
(And
before anyone says anything about my summary being way off, the
film was promoted in a wildly misleading way. I was told I was
going to see a marvelous production about the Falls. Instead,
I saw a woman putting fire and water clues together overnight
as she raced to beat sunrise. To support my position, this: The
movie has a scene early on where there is no water flowing over
the crest. I wanted to know more about the history, and was intrigued
by the no water. Why was there no water flowing over the brink?
We never found out. (Well, we did. But it was our own search that
found it. You can do your own search for no water at Niagara Falls
if you’d like.)
Finding
the movie from the ticket counter involved going down and to the
left, down and to the left, and down again and to the left again.
On a grid of streets, three lefts is a right, meaning there’s
a good chance we would have made it more quickly and easily to
the theater by randomly flipping a coin to pick our turns at intersections
or tossing a rock then setting off to find it. The only thing
more exasperating than the journey was the movie we found at the
end.
The
crazy thing about going left is that it usually is a helpful tip.
Especially in the United States, and other countries that have
similar driving on the right side of the road approaches. People
are so inclined, and in reality trained, to go to the right that
often going left is the best choice to make because everyone else
picked the other option.
When
it comes to the Skylon Tower, exciting movies and arcade food,
that choice is not true over the Rainbow Bridge when visiting
Niagara Falls. Go to the right. (And see if you can get your money
back.)