A few days ago I left Toronto and I’m still sad about it. It was a beautiful city to see covered in snow. It was my first time in Toronto and even just to Canada. Whenever I go to a new city/country/state I like to do all the tourist things to tick them off my list. I reserve some days for the main tourist things as well as some time to explore the town to find less known things to do and see.
In order to see most of the tourist spots, I bought a city pass. City passes are great, they have plenty of tourist activities included in the cost and they work out being about 20-50% cheaper than if you were to buy everything separately. There are passes for lots of cities in America and Canada. You have 9 days to do all the activities before the pass expires unless you have bought a pass that specifies the number of days. Toronto’s city pass includes the CN Tower, Ripley’s Aquarium, Casa Loma, Royal Ontario Museum and your choice of either the Toronto Zoo or Ontario Science Centre. The Toronto city pass costs $105cad after tax and fees (price as of 11/2/2020, Price to increase after the 1/3/2020).
I managed to see the CN Tower, Aquarium and Zoo using the city pass and I also got to see Niagra Falls and the Hockey Hall of Fame in 3 days. I usually allocate a day to travel to another city or country so I may have extra hours in the city depending on the travel. In this case, I arrived in Toronto around 6 pm and by the time we went through customs and got a ride to the hotel it was 8 pm. So there was no time to do anything besides order in. Leaving Toronto our flight was at 9 am so again meant we couldn’t do anything.
This is the break down of my 3 full days in Toronto:
Day 1- Starting the day around 10 am (because sleep in your on holidays), then walk or get a lift to the Hockey Hall of Fame and grab a hot chocolate on the way, allow at least an hour to look around and learn about the history of ice hockey and the players ($20cad as of the 4/2/2020). Around noon walk to the Aquarium and CN tower. Doesn’t matter what you do first, but as its getting to lunchtime the Aquarium would have a better chance of there food shops being open during the offseason. Do half the aquarium then stop for food around 1:30 pm. After lunch continue through the aquarium. When you are finished head next door to the CN Tower. Outside is an instagramable Canada sign, so be sure to make a quick stop there. You go through a quick security check then take a 58-second elevator ride to the lookout. Roughly allow 1.5 hours up there. By this time it should be around 4:30 pm. Walk the 20 minutes over to the Toronto sign, where you can ice skate in Winter. Allow 1hour ($10cad for skate hire, price as of the 4/2/2020). After skating walk 15 minutes to China town for dinner, the time should be around 6:15 pm. After dinner, you can get a ride or walk back to where you’re staying.
Day 2- I decided to do a guided tour of Niagara falls because I wasn’t too sure about what to do there. The tour started at 9:30 am from the hotel lobby. The bus drove 1.5hours to Niagra-on-the-lake where it stopped at Lakeview Cellars to try Ice wine. I recommend trying it if you like sweet wine. After a 20 minute stop at the winery, the bus was back on its way to Niagra Falls. When you arrive at the falls an hour is allocated for lunch, then off to the whirlpool rapids. After the rapids, 3 hours is allocated for the hornblower in summer and journey behind the falls in winter, and free time. This is more than enough time to do the activities, take photos, shop and watch the falls. After free time its back to the hotels. The whole tour was run by Grayline and lasted for 9 hours from hotel to hotel. I recommend this tour highly as the guide was very well knowledgable, it gives plenty of free time, has added inclusions, includes transport and was very cost-effective. The entire day tour cost $160aud ($107usd as of 20/1/2020, not including gratuity). After arriving back around 6 pm a pub meal or even ordering in would suit the busy day.
Day 3- This day ended up being a pretty bludged day. All that happened was the Zoo. I’m going to tell you what else you can add on though. The zoo opens at 10 am so best to arrive just after. Get a lift to the zoo, allow 4hours for lunch and walking around. Leave around 3:00 pm and get a lift to either Casa Loma (allow 2hours, closes at 5 pm) or the museum (allow 2 hours, closes at 5:30 pm). After head out for dinner at a restaurant, the get a lift or walk back to where you’re staying.
Toronto, Canada was an amazing place to see in the snow and I think I want to head back very soon. When I go back I would like to spend a night or two in Niagra because I had no idea that there was a big town with lots of things to do. I would want to go to the bird kingdom, and the big Hersheys shop. This town would be an amazing place for families as there is an indoor water park, a big arcade and so many smaller attractions, this town is even good to road trip through for a couple of days. I would also love to see an ice hockey game in Canada one day as well since to me they are the home of hockey.
What would you like to do in Toronto? Comment down below.
