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Clifton Hill is the major tourist promenade in Niagara Falls, Ontario. The street, close in proximity to Niagara Falls and the Niagara River, leads from River Road on the Niagara Parkway to intersect with Victoria Avenue. The street contains a number of gift shops, wax museums, haunted houses, restaurants, hotels and themed attractions. For visitors, particularly families and teenagers, it is a major amusement area and centre for night life. |
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While tours of the scenic area are great to do during the day, a trip to Clifton Hill is a place of wonder to a child at night. The bright, garish lights and multiple entertainments catch your eye. What to do first??? The colorful Canadian Midway houses video games and a few rides. Our grandson was thrilled to use his souvenir money for this stop! Also, Cosmic mini golf was fun as we played the funky course in the dark. Next we toured the Movieland Wax Museum that featured characters fromThe Simpsons, Star Wars and other movies. Some of the figures actually did resemble movie stars. Before calling it a night, we sampled ice cream from one of the many food places lining the sidewalks. This was a fun night for all of us.
Niagara
Falls must be seen AT LEAST once in your life. I saw
them as a child and feel the need to drive 7 hours to
see them again and again. There is something magical
about the feeling you get standing in front of them and
while Clifton Hill IS, indeed, tacky. There's an
overwhelming magical feeling to it too that goes right
along with the falls. At night, all the lights are
beautiful and the attractions are GREAT for kids and
make adults feel like a kid again too. Ripley's museum
is a MUST-SEE. Everything is incredibly expensive (ex.:
2.75$ for a tiny carton of milk) and the food is pretty
bad on Clifton Hill but if you buy your souvenirs and
eat your meals on any other street, you will save a
little money. Check hotel entrances for booklets
containing money saving coupons (1$ off) almost every
attractions. Wonderful at night!!! Bottom line: Go, have
a great time, but prepare yourself mentally for wasting
a lot of money (paying too much for things).
Clifton
Hill is great! Perfect right next to the falls and you
still get more. Whenever I go to Niagara Falls I always
make time to go to Clifton Hill. This is a perfect place
to bring your kids. It's jam packed with family fun
entertainment. I took my family here and they simply
loved every bit of it. We went here at night during high
season (June, July & August) and even though it was
somewhat crowded we still had a lot of fun. We never
missed the falls because going down the hill you see the
magnificant falls. My family and I loved it here and
it's an easy walking to everything. I recommend when
your in Niagara Falls make some time to visit and I
gurantee you'll have fun!
What
is this street doing beside a natural wonder. It is
tackiness at its best. If you have a gambling problem
this is not the place for you between the
casinos,amusements and ripoff attractions, any extra
spending money you have, this street will get rid of it
for you. Pick your hotel carefully if you want a good
nights sleep, prebook a fallsview room. Lastly if you
expect fine cuisine, forget it.
Clifton
Hill will appeal to anyone who enjoys the area at the
lower end of the Boardwalk in Ocean City, MD. It's full
of lights, life, amusements, souvenier shops, and food.
Places to eat range from Boardwalk-type food vendors to
fast food chains to family style/diner-type places. The
Rainforest Cafe is worth at least a look inside, even if
you don't eat there (we didn't eat there because the
line was too long on Saturday night). Not too far around
the corner is Hard Rock and Planet Hollywood also. The
casino is also around the corner. Parking is probably
the biggest downside. There is limited metered on-street
parking. There are also numerous lots right off Clifton
Hill advertising public parking. On Friday night, we
noticed that these public parking places were
advertising $5 parking. These same lots on Saturday
became $20. We were fortunate enough to find a meter
which could be fed for up to 2 hours at a rate of $.25
per 15 minutes. Clifton Hill also has several budget
type hotels on it which would be centrally located to
the fun and a short walk to the American Falls. Tip for
US souvenier shoppers: buy your souveniers in only a few
stores rather than one thing here and there. The reason
is that you will be charged a goods and service tax
(GST) by the store which is refundable at the duty free
store on your way out of Canada ONLY if your receipt
totals $50 or more.
Talk
about cheesy tourism at its best! Only in Niagara Falls
can one view a wonder of the world then buy a t-shirt
claiming so. Clifton Hill has all the tourist traps--
arcades, gift shops a-plenty, wax museums, haunted
houses... But it's just so fun.
What
a neat place. Got kids? They will need to visit Clifton
Hill. It is a street of wonder and magic. There are
haunted houses, shops, fun houses and a Ripley's Believe
it or Not shop and museum. This street also has plenty
of places to dine including a Hard Rock Cafe. This
street could be enough to keep you (and your wallet)
busy for a day or more. Even if this doesn't appeal to
you, your kids will drag you kicking and screaming.
Clifton
Hill is a collection of (mostly nicely done) tourist
traps and restaurants. The area seemed to be clean and
well maintained but the high prices here are ridiculous.
Expect to pay around $12-$15 per adult for each of the
main attractions here - and most of the attractions can
be done in 10 minutes! Food is also overpriced, even
Burger King was around $10 for a Whopper combo meal!
Worth a walk around but there's nothing here that's
really worth the money.
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Many years ago there stood on the site
of the Garden Theatre the quaint and sprawling hostelry called the Clifton House. It was built in the 1830's and remained t shelter many 'of the important people of the early an meed-Victorian eras. Here stayed kings, princes, general statesmen, the great and near-great of the times, its register almost a scroll of history. Clifton, too, was the name the village here, now the city of Niagara Falls, Ontario.
During the spring of 1804, year of Lincoln's gravest crisis, a frock-coated gentleman scrawled his name on the register of Clifton House, Clement Claiborne Clay. Little did
the solicitous clerk know that before him stood traitorous United States senator come as a secret agent of the Confederacy and soon to be joined by others who planned to burn Frontier towns in New York and further to scheme for what must have been the first use of bacteriological warfare! Later
came Jacob Thomson, once President Buchanan's Secretary of the Interior, whose plan it was to ship rags infected
with yellow fever into the lake
port of Buffalo and Cleveland. Still later came James
P.Holcombe, Virginia professor of law, and former U.S.
Senator J.W.Mason, as well as George N.Saunders, a
gentleman of doubtful scruples from Kentucky.
Mr. Lincoln had been nominated at the Baltimore Convention in June but the War was not going well and the Peace Party, whose strident voice in the person of Horace Greeley was now almost hysterical, calling for an end to hostilities. Soon Greeley, self-appointed savior of the Union, was to learn of the men at the Clifton House and to establish contact with them, believing, or wishing to believe, that they were authorized to negotiate peace terms, in any event a fallacious assumption, None the less, the pompous Greeley finally arrived breathlessly at a conference with the group of schemers, only to have his grandiose scheme turned down by Lincoln with the following letter, addressed not to Greeley but to the public at large:
EXECUTIVE MANSION
WASHINGTON, D. C.
July 18, 1864
To Whom It May Concern:
Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and which comes by and with an authority that can control the armies now at war
against the United States, will be received and considered by the Executive Government of the United States, and will be met by liberal terms on substantial and collateral points, and the bearer or bearers thereof shall have safe conduct both ways.
(Signed) ABRAHAM LINCOLN
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Clifton Hill: busy tourist area
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Dinosaur Park Miniature Golf at Clifton Hill
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Louis Tussaud's Wax Museum at Clifton Hill
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