Surfergeeks

But is anything ever?

So after breakfast we strike out for Ontario Place. No issues at all getting there although the signs along Lake Shore Blvd. were warning of traffic delays at night due to fireworks. Once there the GPS had us turn into a spot that isn’t actually parking but instead a drop-off for the West entrance. We didn’t know that at the time or else I’d have dropped off everyone then and went to park. Parking was $12. I have a feeling it’s not normally $12 but since last night was fireworks they bumped the price a bit. We were there before 11 so the rides weren’t actually operating yet but some of the other things were. The first thing Alex & Nikki went on was a dinosaur simulator ride. Alex didn’t like that and apparently they needed to stop the ride early so they could get off. Fortunately, they were actually the only ones on that particular ride so it’s not a big deal. Pretty much at the stroke of 11 Alex headed for the “Wilderness Adventure” ride. It’s a log ride that he was quite excited to go on. I went on with him as I’m always game for a good log ride. He loved it! I almost cried as my brand new Tilley hat flew off at the bottom of the drop. Fortunately, it fell inside the boat so I didn’t lose it. We weren’t even off the ride yet and he was asking to go on it again. For round two Nikki joined him and I watched the little dude. He wanted to go again but there were other areas of the park to see. He also loved the Go Zone which was basically a giant play village area like McDonald’s or Fantasy Fair from the day before. We finally dragged him out of there to explore the rest of the park. There were a couple driving rides he went on as well as a couple other smaller rides. The other big hit of the day was the water park area. Needless to say he was too small for the real water slides, although I think he could have gone on one or two of them if Nikki or I went with him but we didn’t take our swim suits so he was out of luck there. Inside the kids area he pretty much stuck to the one water piece there that feature two small slides. He would slide down one and run back in line to go down the other. Watching from a distance I saw that he was very good in line and didn’t try to shove his way to the front and he listened to the guy at the top to tell him when he could slide. Ryan ran around but didn’t really get into the water. I think that the lake shore breeze made it a little chilly for him. Of course that didn’t stop me from dragging him through some of the sprays of water. We had lunch at The Marina Grill inside Ontario Place. Reasonably priced restaurant quality food overlooking the marina. Some of those boats were beautiful. Must cost some serious coin to berth at Ontario Place. We made another trip back to Wilderness Adventure. This time I left the hat with the stroller and off we went. Nikki then went with him right after and then I followed it up with a third time in that block. Yeah, he went five times total and would have went many more times if we’d have let him. By this point Nikki’s feet were killing her and she couldn’t walk much. We went to the Cinesphere and watched The Wild Water on the IMAX screen. Pretty neat movie about sardine migrations and their predators (seals, sharks, birds, dolphins, and more) of the coast of South Africa and Eastern Africa. We didn’t really care which of the two movies was playing, we just wanted to sit down but it ended up being a really cool movie. The boys were a little restless for it but overall not too bad. About 7:00 or so we found a spot on the grassy hill to watch the fireworks from. They started at 10:30 so we had a lot of time to kill. Alex and I finished eating the hot dogs we had picked up on the way there then I took Alex back to go on this one race car sort of ride. We settled onto the hill to wait as the sun sank behind the Cinesphere. Us, being the smart ones that we are, didn’t really put a lot of thought into this whole spend-the-whole-day-late-into-the-night-at-Ontario-Place thing. We had shorts and T-shirts. Yeah, no pants, no blanket, nada. We are smart – S-M-R-T smart. With the lack of sun it cooled right down. Ryan was already fussy, Nikki was beat and her feet were still killing and finally Alex asked “When can we go back to the hometel?” (Yeah, he calls it hometel) Those eight little words sunk the fireworks. We packed up and headed home. Both were out in the van but did wake up once we got back to the room. They settled down fairly quickly and went back  to sleep. I was the last to call it a night and I think I was asleep by 11:30 at the latest.

Wheeeeeeeeee!