The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living – Socrates
Casino Reviews
Niagara Weekend Summer 2011
Aug 3rd
The Keg – Niagara Falls, Ontario
Spot the lobster...
It’s lobster summer which usually means an attempt to cover their insanely overpriced meals by adding lobster and giving them fancy names. However, nothing, even lobster, is going to soothe the sting of paying $45 for a plate of middle of the road restaurant food. The restaurant was packed, but we were seated quickly and our waitress was very attentive, friendly and happy to get 50% of our order right. Actually to be fair, she did put in the order correctly we can only assume that the kitchen messed up the thing. 2 of our 4 dinners were correct, but Nicole got a salad with no dressing (although she had asked for balsamic dressing which THEY DON’T HAVE!) and another of our party got a baked potato with her sides nowhere to be found. The problem wasn’t only with the order being wrong, but also with the fact it took 10 minutes to get put right. As I rightly predicted, the manager apologized and offered to pay for desserts for the whole table which we gladly accepted. As far as the food goes, I had ordered the scallops wrapped in bacon followed by the steak topped with lobster seafood mix. Both dishes were acceptable, there was a total of 2 tiny claws of lobster on my lobster dish which was a total rip off but all in all the taste was good.
For dessert I had the cheesecake but in retrospect I wish I’d had the creme brulee. I don’t know about you, but for me the Keg gives me the same feeling every time, the food is good, just good enough that you don’t wan’t to complain about the price but once you leave you realize you just got ripped off. I’m not saying the quality is bad, it’s not, but the prices are all about 20% too high.
Whirlpool Jet Boat Tours Niagara Falls Ontario
This was an amazing outing. About 45 mintues of the best laughs and thrills you can get while getting completely drenched in river water. Make sure that you plan on a warm day because even with the water being 80 degrees it was still chilly for some. The boat is a massive 3 engined 1500 HP beast that can do 360 degree turns and run level 5 rapids like they are nothing. We learned a bit about the area, the falls and the rapids themselves but the highlight is running downstream through the rapids as the boat scoops thousands of gallons of water over you. It was a great adventure, something I would recommend to anyone going to Niagara. It’ s only $60 per person so it’ s well worth the price, just remember a change of clothes!
Copacabana Brazilian Steak House Niagara Falls Ontario (Website down)
There are plenty of bad reviews for this place but we decided to go anyway since the lure of the place is too strong for a meat freak like me. The only real complaint I had is that the idiot woman who seated us complained that we couldn’t have the table instead of the booth since “everything” was reserved. Obviously she was not thrilled to have to work, didn’t care about us or the way she treated us and was basically your typical asshole twenty something stick insect who thinks the world owes her something because she thinks she is hot. Anyway, the place was pretty fun, loud and filled with good looking waiters and waitresses obviously catering to a younger crowd. The process is that you get some sides from the buffet area and wait for the meat guys to come around and cut meat off their giant skewers onto your plate. There are 17 different kinds of meat on offer and I think we tried them all. As long as you don’t expect a quiet restaurant to chat with friends and you don’t mind a fast paced and energetic vibe you should enjoy yourself here. The meat itself was, for the most part, very good. They have encrusted meats, cheese stuffed meats and good quality steaks on offer. The meat was, I have to admit, salty but not to the degree that it was offputting. The cheese stuffed prime rib was fantastic and I had at least 3 servings of bacon wrapped sirloin! I would definitely recommend that you go at least once, it’s very much like being on vacation in a tropical island, it’s loud, the wait staff are sometimes forgetful but always happy and the place itself is like a tiny getaway. I think we would try the one in Toronto to compare experiences but next time I will have to remember to 24 hour fast before hand. It did take me 2 days to get over the amount I ate, but that is a sign that we all had a great time!
Doubletree Hilton Niagara Falls Ontario
We have stayed here before and obviously since we returned we liked it enough! The room this time was a little bizarre and since we had 4 of us in one room utilizing the pull out couch for 2 of us it was a great experience. For the other 2 however, they were sleeping on a pullout that was barely a double and filled the extra room completely. There was only a single bathroom for all of us and the main room had fixed curtains that blocked the corner windows which I found bizarre. Last time was better, I have to admit, but this time was cheaper overall. I think for the future though it would be worth getting separate rooms. We had breakfast in the hotel on Sunday and once again the buffet was well stocked, had an omelette maker at their own station and the food was good quality, hot and well prepared.
Hotwire and Priceline Not Always The Best
Sep 2nd
So we thought we would stay in Niagara since we had to be in Buffalo for the weekend, and as usual I thought we would get a good deal through one of the discount sites, Hotwire.com or Priceline.com. Now, we have had great success with them in the past but I came across a post that jogged my memory of something I heard. The poster claimed to have paid $220 for a room that they could have got through the Casino Niagara site for $139. Wouldn’t you know it, I checked the site and managed to BOOK a Fallsview room in the Crowne Plaza for $139 plus tax ($165ish total) when the Hotwire and Priceline rates both had an INFERIOR room listed at $272 per night!!!!
Yes, I was blown away but in the deep recess of my brain I recalled someone in a hotel mentioning that exact issue at the fron desk. Anyway, from now on of we are going to Niagara, we will check the Casino Niagara Site along with the discount sites.
The actual site is http://www.niagarafallshotels.com and it is embedded with a code saying that you came from the casino site however when I went back into the site to check without going via the Casino site it was $389!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So stick with the promo code, we are saving $240 a night which makes me physically sick to think of people getting screwed by these hotels.
Moral of the story, go to the Casino Niagara Site and to the gaming section. Click on the Book Your Hotel Here icon and off you go.
2nd Anniversary Weekend – Hilton Hotel and Suites Niagara
Aug 24th
It is weird to read what someone else’s experience is about an event that you share. It really depends on what you contribute to it and how that colours how you enjoy it. For example, according to Nicole I seem to have napped most of the time this past weekend and her overriding memory seems to be of the casino. For me, the poor sod who has to drive the car, the experience is completely different. Mostly I like driving, but when it comes to having to drive in torrential downpours and endless traffic jams my enjoyment is diminished significantly. My overriding memory of the weekend then is not the casino, which was a lot of fun, especially since I didn’t really lose any money. It is not the room, which was amazing, a pass through window to the bedroom from the jacuzzi bathroom and a view of the falls and the Casino. It is not our discovery of a brand new shopping and restaurant area in Amherst (I guess this would be like driving from Etobicoke into Mississauga and discovering all the different stores there) including the same ring store where we can now take Nicole’s engagement ring to get cleaned. It is not even the enormous pile of nachos that I had at the British Pub style restaurant at the casino as outlined below:
Their description:
After a busy day in Niagara, come meet friends or simply relax in the warm and inviting pub atmosphere of The Falls & Firkin. Enjoy a wide selection of domestic and imported draught beer, as well as wines and cocktails, while you seek refuge in a variety of comfortable seating overlooking the Falls. Their extensive menu includes traditional pub fare and delicious daily specials, covering lunch, dinner, late-night snacks and weekend brunch.
My description:
After a busy day in the Casino losing all your money and getting bumped from your machine by grumpy senior citizens with menace in their eyes even though you only stood up to stretch your legs, come and relax in the comfortable but oddly low booth seating in the Falls & Firkin. Enjoy watching us eject unruly Asian people as they attempt to eat their own food on our patio and marvel at the inappropriately tight Lululemon pants on our (obviously oblivious) slightly portly waitress. Enjoy a wide selection of food as long as it is fish and chips, nachos or beans and mash since our understanding of British Pub cuisine obviously comes from The Simpsons or Family Guy. You can have a myriad of different beers but in order to do so you have to catch the waiter with the weird hair or try and track down the bartender who is occupied chatting up some pierced face weirdo who looks more like a pincushion than a fashion statement. But take our advice, have the nachos, it will make all the rest of the experience go away.
My overriding memory of the weekend then was none of the above, and no, it was not even the traffic. My overrriding memory of the weekend was how amazing it was to me (if not to her) that Nicole was able to read tiny street signs, to see wonderful cloud formations and to see the beauty of the falls from our room without her glasses or contacts. It took me right back to when I had my eyes done and the marvel it was finally to be without contact lenses for the first time in 20 years. I know exactly how she feels, something which for men and women is rare. I even know how she will feel as the days and weeks pass which is even more strange. But most of all I know that she is happy which to me is the best Anniversary present of all.
The Hilton Hotel and Suites was nice, well appointed, comfortable and clean. The service was good, although we did not use any of the amenities. I would recommend the hotel but only of you can get a good deal on a room. There is no way I would pay $250 a night for it, but then again, there are very few places I would pay that kind of money for. The place is well built, pleasant to walk through which is nice, the lobby area is large and welcoming and the halls to the rooms are equally appealing and clean. The room itself as noted was very nice and interestingly laid out. However, the shower door seal leaked and the door did not close properly meaning that after I had finished showering the floor of the bathroom was completely flooded, not only a pain for me to mop up, but also extremely dangerous. The shower door has a full width handle on the outside but a very small and difficult to grip cylindrical knob on the inside. This makes it impossible to pull the door hard enough to close it should it not have been built properly, which our obviously had not. The windows were a decent size however I think that a flagship hotel overlooking one of the Wonders of the World could have full length windows or at least full width… Anyway, my enjoyment of the hotel was not diminished by these items. There was an amusing item as we walked from the parking lot to the hotel. Each floor has a “Hotel Events” large screen monitor encased in an expensive looking wooden display on which the hotel displays any conference information, helpful visitor tips and so on. The one on our floor however indicated that today’s Hotel Event was that “There are unused items on your desktop”. Maybe someone should call the helpdesk?
I am not sure if we reviewed the casino last time but the review is short and sweet. If you try hard you could imagine you are in Vegas. The casino itself is very nice, large and bright and well ventilated. It is not quite as loud as some of the Vegas casinos and certainly not as large but it is about as close as you will find anywhere around here. The machines play differently, there is no doubt that the payouts are less and that the variety is not comparable however it really doesn’t affect your enjoyment of the place. You can winn enough to keep playing which is the key and if you are very lucky like my wife (in more ways that one!) you can win enough to go shopping in Buffalo. One thing I did notice is that the Players Club works differently than in Vegas. They only bank points for the money that you put into the machine not for the time that you play. In Vegas you can put in $20 and play for an hour racking up credits enough to get you a free buffet in no time. At Niagara, unless you are putting cash into the machine you don’t get credits. Playing isn’t enough in other words, you have to pay! Their system calls for 100 points to get $10 play cash. However it notes that you have to put in between $40 and $60 to get ONE POINT!!! Enough said. Basically if you can’t get to Vegas and you want the next best thing go to Atlantic City. If you can’t leave the country then go to Niagara Fallsview. Just check the weather and the traffic before you go!