Toronto- Niagara, Orlando, Crystal River, Tampa, Venice, Naples, Miami, single thread. April 2022.

[Bootrip2]

Great informative post, given me lots to think about! Great you got your room sorted out! Lovely pictures too, x can’t wait for next instalment!

[levtweeney]

I like the honesty of your posts, warts and all. That will keep me reading

[CCFCRJ]

Am off to Lizard Point next week CFB and have decided to give Falmouth Hooters a miss now... the (bearded) Cornish waitresses are not what I expected it seems!

[cornishfrogboy]

Originally Posted by levtweeney

I like the honesty of your posts, warts and all. That will keep me reading

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That honesty bit is rather important to me, as I go geographically just a little off the beaten track at times and within the dibb, my trippie might be the only review available to prospective dibb visitor on which to base a decision.
Many imho, only report through ‘rose tinted glasses’, bigging up the good into ‘wonderful’ and at best, glossing over any issues, disappointments or mistakes.. a bit like a Facebook boastfest (no insult intended to anybody at all). This type of reporting and recommending can lead people into possibly costly mistakes on the basis of misleading by the author.

I have learned far more from reading of poor decisions, errors, mishaps and problems of posters, than ‘Mary’s prayer’ posts. (everything is wonderful, if you know the song).

I also think it possible that DIBBERS might be swayed by mine and others trip reports, in my case into areas that are out of their normal comfort zone. With this in mind, comes responsibility. I would never forgive myself if I led others into disappointment, whether it be a location, restaurant, attraction or anything else, hence the ‘warts and all’ approach. I guess that an earlier career in summarising evidence helps with this.

Cities.
In probability, we would never return to Toronto as in future, we will have seen Niagara Falls. Quick research into ‘things to do’ evidences why. Our problem was that whilst Toronto may not have much for a visitor, Buffalo had even less and with Niagara Falls the focal point of this phase of the vacation,I believe that we picked right. We should maybe have opted for the night at the airport, one night downtown and then onwards to Niagara next morning. That would have given us a further night later on, probably in Naples.
When recommending cities on a freestanding basis, then Boston, NY, DC, SFO, San Diego and even though I am not keen on it, LA , knock Toronto out of sight.. Any of those are great for things to see and do, even in isolation. We have hardly scraped the surface of any of them.. yet.

Thankyou for what I perceive as a very nice compliment!

[JoJo88]

Hmmm, Toronto isn’t floating your boat, and it doesn’t sound like it would float mine either! I’m looking forward to reading about Niagara

[cornishfrogboy]

Originally Posted by JoJo88

Hmmm, Toronto isn’t floating your boat, and it doesn’t sound like it would float mine either! I’m looking forward to reading about Niagara

See more...

I try to be transparent. When I arrived in Toronto, an Army friend from Vancouver who has lived there since 1990 with his Canadian wife popped up on Facebook.
He described Toronto as ‘sterile’, and that is an accurate description. The CNTower was great, but as a whole, it is simply a City, any old City with no great history, nor a Capital with all the National Museums etc that you would expect a Capital City to have.

If I planned a variation on this for another, then I would look to a couple of nights in Boston, a flight to Buffalo and a walk over the Rainbow Bridge to the Hilton by the Falls, staying the night.
I would then recross the Bridge, taxi to Buffalo and then fly down to Orlando.

This would give you a better start point, still get you the ‘money shots’ at Niagara and also not affect the later parts of the vacation. I believe though, that when you add it up, it may cost more after Flights, Hold Baggage on all flights, leg prices and Hotel prices are taken into account.

You would need..
a) 2 internal flights, not just one.
b) ETA and ESTA either way.

You may save on
a) A night in an Airport Hotel as Boston would be straight into town, albeit that Hotel night in Boston would cost more whilst placing you in the right place straight away.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. My experience may prompt people to a different plan if wanting to see Niagara, than the obvious one.

[Robin3]

I find your trip reports so helpful. Look forward to reading more. Enjoy your holiday.

[Bootrip2]

Originally Posted by cornishfrogboy

I try to be transparent. When I arrived in Toronto, an Army friend from Vancouver who has lived there since 1990 with his Canadian wife popped up on Facebook.
He described Toronto as ‘sterile’ that is an accurate description. The CNTower was great, but as a whole, it is simply a City, any old City with no great history, nor a Capital.

If I planned a variation on this for another, then I would look to a couple of nights in Boston, a flight to Buffalo and a walk over the Rainbow Bridge to the Hilton by the Falls, staying the night.
I would then recross the Bridge, taxi to Buffalo and then fly down to Orlando.

This would give you a better start point, still get you the ‘money shots’ at Niagara and also not affect the later parts of the vacation. I believe though, that when you add it up, it may cost more after Flights, Hold Baggage on all flights, leg prices and Hotel prices are taken into account.

You would need..
a) 2 internal flights, not just one.
b) ETA and ESTA either way.

You may save on
a) A night in an Airport Hotel as Boston would be straight into town, albeit that Hotel night in Boston would cost more whilst placing you in the right place straight away.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. My experience may prompt people to a different plan if wanting to see Niagara, than the obvious one.

See more...

You’ve described what I have been thinking, doing NFalls but via a different start point!

Like you say hindsight is a wonderful thing. At least you got around the covid testing though - lol!

[sizzle]

Loving your review. We did 5 nights in Toronto a few years ago purely to visit Niagara Falls. Really we only needed 4 at the very most. The highlights of the trip were going to see the Blue Jays and the Marlies play unfortunately both on the same day so had to miss some of the baseball. I had never been to an ice hockey match before and absolutely loved it. I’m glad I’ve been but have no desire to visit again.

[OB1LukeLucas]

So lovely to see you all back on your travels again, I feel like your cancellations seemed worse as you visit so many places it seems more disappointing that you missed out!
Looking forward to following along with your trip, I had a quick read over your pre-trip again for the itinerary and of course I had to read Daniel’s report too.
I have always wanted to visit Canada, I am busy watching Charley Boorman Extreme Frontiers as I think I like the idea of the more wilderness part than the cities! I hope you enjoy Niagara Falls.