The Maid of the Mist is the name of a boat tour in Niagara Falls (and it's the name of the actual ships too). The boat starts off at a calm part downstream from the Falls, cruises up the stream past the American Falls and the Bridal Veil Falls into the mist inside the curve of the Horseshoe Falls. On the Maid of the Mist, you will get the real feel of the power of the Falls and you will see them from a very close distance. If you get to visit The Falls, be sure not to miss the Maid of the Mist ride. Even if you had to ignore everything else in the Falls, Maid of the Mist alone is worth it.
The tour and the boats deserve the name. There boat gets sprayed by the mist inside the curve of the Horseshoe Falls.
The Maid of the Mist boat is available on both the Canadian and the American sides. However, the Canadian boats are bigger. The boat in the front is the Canadian one and the boat in the back is the American one. This is actually true for the whole Niagara Falls tourist resort too; the Canadian side seems to be in much better shape. There are many more attractions and they seem to be much better maintained than on the American side.
After buying the tickets, the tour operators took a picture of us against a green background. At the end of the tour, we had the option to buy a picture showing us against the Falls; the only downside was that the two copies of the picture were more expensive than the ticket itself. But I think that's the same with all tourist attractions.
There were a lot of people waiting for the ride, so the queue seemed long, but since there are three boats and since every one can take a lot of passengers, we were moving very quickly. Each visitor also received a blue rain coat. We were supposed to wear them, because where the boat was heading, there would be a lot of water falling down from the sky, and the rain coats were supposed to keep people dry. At least that was the theory.
But one visitor decided not to play along, because rain coats are overrated and it's gonna be more fun without wearing one anyway. As you already know, Nicole and Dar promised Michal that he would get wet in Canada. Michal wanted to make Nicole and Dar happy, so he went for it big style.
Then we boarded the ship. You have an option to go either on the upper or the lower deck, but the experience is so much better on the upper one (since there's nothing above you to block the rain), so we went there. In the beginning of the ride, we saw the familiar landmarks: the Skylon tower, the Sheraton hotel, the Rainbow Bridge.
Then we passed the American Falls and the Bridal Veil Falls. On the last two pictures in this paragraph, you can see one of the attractions on the American side: a path that leads you to the lower part of the Falls and even behind the Bridal Veil Falls. That's where the people in the white raincoats are.
This video was taken as we were passing the American Falls.
At this point, we were still pretty dry. There wasn't much water falling out of the sky, because the American-sized American Falls don't create much mist.
And, just to make sure no one would forget that Nicole and Torsten just got engaged, they were kissing! And John and Dar were, umm, sticking their tongues at us!
Then the Maid of the Mist headed towards the Horseshoe Falls. The view was spectacular; we were able to see The Falls from much closer distance now. And we were able to hear it too!
Here's one more video that will give you a better idea what we were getting into.
And then we finally made it into the mist; it was like a heavy rain. The ship was standing still inside the curve of the Horseshoe Falls for a few minutes - though the engines were running pretty fast to counteract the wild water. Splish splash, Michal got very wet (for the fourth time in Canada), and judging from the pictures, he was very proud of it! The first picture shows him in the mist; he almost looks like he's thinking Yes, MORE!. The remaining pictures show him afterwards, when others started to make fun of him - Hey, look what he did, he's totally wet!. (Yes, Nicole and Dar, you won!)
It was a good idea to get wet though, because the weather was hot and wearing a wet T-shirt was very comfortable. Nicole even used Michal's T-shirt to cool off regularly afterwards! Besides, the raincoat design wasn't perfect; while Michal's T-shirt was wet and his pants remained more or less dry, everyone else had their pants wet, because all the water pouring down the raincoats ended on their pants.
Copyright notice: Text, images, and videos copyright by Michal Řeháček, Nicole, Torsten, John Philip, Darlene Sine.