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Monday, July 15, 2024
Family Road Trip: Erie, PA, Niagara Falls, and Cedar Point
Hello there, travel buddies! Do you like road trips? I LOVE road trips. The snacks, the open road, the snacks, uninterrupted crochet or reading time, and did I mention the snacks? What's not to love!? HBW Hubby has to be talked into them and I have t…
Do you like road trips? I LOVE road trips. The snacks, the open road, the snacks, uninterrupted crochet or reading time, and did I mention the snacks? What's not to love!? HBW Hubby has to be talked into them and I have to space them out with a mix of camping trips and air travel, but variety is the spice of life, right?
A couple weeks ago, HBW Hubby and I packed up the van and the kids and hit the road! It's been a while since we did a road trip of this length (14+ hours - I think the last one of this length was our trip to Hershey, PA), but with several stops to break up the drive, it was easy peasy! Just like the Caribbean Cruise last summer, this was a larger family trip with HBW Hubby's family. They all flew up from Florida and we met up with them at the first stop. The whole thing was a surprise for my father-in-law, and boy was he surprised to see us show up in his hotel room!
Of course, I made a video for our road trip to share with you! It shows the highlights of each stop we made and I hope it conveys the sense of fun and spirit of adventure of a good family road trip can give. But read on for more details of the trip not included in the video, plus another video below exclusively about our day at Niagara Falls.
First Stop: Erie, Pennsylvania
Admittedly, we weren't really trying to play the tourist in Erie, though there is a lot here worth seeing, like Bicentennial Tower, the Maritime Museum with the Brig Niagara, Warner Theater, and . For us, it was more personal in nature, as this is where my father-in-law grew up. Dad wanted to show us around all his old haunts and get a visit in with his cousin, HBW Hubby's godmother, who still lives there. We went down to the pier and had dinner, walked down to Bicentennial Tower, then took off for the Whippy Dip for a frozen treat. Another night, we had dinner in the restaurant at the top of our hotel and saw the most amazing sunset over the water. Sigh. I love a good sunset.
Maritime Museum
Sunset over the pier with Bicentennial Tower
Off to Whippy Dip for a sweet treat!
Family dinner
Next Up: Niagara Falls
A two and a half hour drive from Erie and we were in Niagara Falls, NY! We stopped for lunch at Hard Rock Cafe, because it's fun knocking another Hard Rock location off the list. Then we crossed the border into Canada to settle in at our hotel, Hilton Fallsview. We heard over and over again that the best side to stay on is the Canadian side because you had a better view and I have to agree! We were completely wowed at the view from our hotel room, both daytime and night time, when they lit up the falls and shot fireworks every evening.
Hard Rock Niagara Falls in Buffalo NY
Hilton Fallsview - where we stayed
Daytime view from our room
Nighttime view from our room, night 1
Nighttime view from our room, night 2
We spent 2 nights and 1 full day in Niagara, and boy, did we make that day count! We found a tour that included a shuttle for the day to all the top attractions, including the famous Maid of the Mist and Cave of the Winds, where you can stand on the hurricane deck if you dare! We also got to view the falls from the observation deck above the Maid of the Mist dock and the Skylon tower. Our driver took us to view the natural whirlpool, which circles counterclockwise this time of year but will circle the other direction when the water flows less in the off-season. She also took us up to Table Rock Visitor Center, which allowed yet another perspective of the falls and has a huge souvenir shop inside as well, if you're interested. We even had a chance to sample some maple syrup!
View from Maid of the Mist boat
View from Maid of the Mist boat
View from Maid of the Mist Observation Platform
Cave of the Winds
Cave of the Winds
Niagara Whirlpool
View from Table Rock Visitor Center
Skylon tower
Rainbow Bridge, as seen from Skylon
If you want to see more of Niagara that what you'll find here on the blog post or in the trip highlights video above, check out the Niagara Falls video below. I have a couple clips without too much background chatter that I was able to share the sound of the falls. Such an awe-inspiring place! Beautiful just doesn't seem to cut it. Its raw beauty is both wonderful and terrifying, powerful and peaceful.
Last Stop: Cedar Point, Sandusky, Ohio
The family that thrills together, stays together, right? I often joke with the kids that the reason we had two kids is so that we had the perfect number for riding roller coasters! I jest, but it does make it nice, especially now that our youngest is finally starting to ride. He mostly sticks to the tamer coasters (40 mph and under), but he did manage a couple rides outside his comfort zone this trip (Magnum XL 200, MaXair and Skyhawk)!
Cedar Point boasts over 90 rides, 17 of which are roller coasters. From wooden coasters to steel and even a hybrid (Steel Vengeance), tame (40 mph) or daring (60+ mph), there's something for everyone. Even if you're not big on coasters, there are still plenty of other entertaining rides to pass the day with! There are so many things to do, you need to allow at least 2-3 days to do it all.
We stayed for 2 days and 3 nights on site at the Hotel Breakers. When you stay on site, you're able to get into the park an hour before everyone else, well worth it if there are popular rides you want to ride but don't want to have to wait 2 hours for. It worked out well because we started each of our days with rides on Millennium Force. So fun!
We were able to do everything we wanted to do, with the exception of Top Thrill 2, which was closed for maintenance. That said, there was a LOT we didn't get to in the non-roller coaster rides. I'm not going to lie, I avoid wooden coasters like it's nobody's business. They just jerk me around too much and I pay for it for days afterwards in bodily pain, so I personally stuck with the steel coasters. Even so, some of those can be a bit rough too (I'm looking at you, Corkscrew and Raptor).
Ready to ride!
Gatekeeper
Iron Dragon
Boardwalk area
Apart from coasters, HBW Son 2 loves the spinny rides and ones that fling you around, just like his mama, so my buddy and I took off toward The Boardwalk area for those! We loved Wild Mouse, though it did jerk me around a little, the Atomic Scrambler, which is always a favorite, and Troika, which HBW Son 2 rode on repeat several times.
Some rides were better than others, but all were great fun! Our family's top 3 rankings were as follows:
Me: 1 - Steel Vengeance; 2 - tie between Millennium Force and Maverick; 3 - MaXair
HBW Son 1 (13 yrs): 1 - Steel Vengeance; 2 - Magnum XL; 3 - Millennium Force
HBW Son 2 (9 yrs): 1 - Gemini; 2 - Magnum XL; 3 - SkyHawk
Just for another little bit of fun...we were passing by one of those airbrush shirt shops where they had a mannequin dressed in shirts with popular Gen Z slang. Now, you should know that I take great enjoyment of using this slang on or around HBW Son 1 to get a reaction out of him. It brings me great joy. So imagine my delight upon seeing this display! I made him pose with it and you can see how thrilled he was about it haha.
A little bit of nostalgia, a lot of natural wonder, and two days of thrills, this was such a great trip! We had a lot of fun! It was even better because we did it with family. Family is so important and I love how close my boys are with their cousin, even though they don't get to see him that often! Shout out to my mom for helping us break our travel up a little more by allowing us to use her house in Indianapolis as a pit stop out and back.
Do you have any favorite road trips you've taken, and if so, where did you go? And more importantly, what are your favorite road trip snacks? Hehe.
Safe travels, friends!
xx
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