Montreal to Niagara Falls road trip with my parents: Toronto, Tobermory and Watkins Glen in five days

The moment we opened the hotel room door, Horseshoe Falls filled the window. My parents went straight to it before they had even put their bags down and said, more than once, “This is really, really good.” We put Toronto and Tobermory first so they would see Niagara for the first time from a room facing the falls, and saved the American side for the next day. This Montreal to Niagara Falls road trip was a loop through Ontario and upstate New York, starting and ending in Montreal.

01The five-day route, and why we saved Niagara for day three

We weighed three things in setting the order: stamina, schedule and route. In the end, though, what decided it was how we wanted to feel at the first sight. You could see the falls from the American side first and then check in on the Canadian side, but we wanted the first sight to be from a Fallsview room. Our Tobermory boat and Grotto parking reservations falling on Sunday locked the order in. Throughout the trip my parents often said, “This is a good trip,” and “There’s never a dull moment.”

02July 4: a Kingston picnic and half a day in Toronto

We left Montreal in the morning and ate the lunch we’d packed at a small lakeside park west of Kingston. The sky was a little overcast, but Lake Ontario opened up wide between trees half underwater. A month later we went back separately for downtown Kingston and Fort Henry; I wrote that up in the Fort Henry post.

In Toronto, we walked a route we had once done on our own, this time with my parents. Rain came and went all afternoon but never got in the way. Dinner was at an Indian restaurant, where we ordered a bit of everything: curry, naan, tandoori. Everyone was happy. The last time we were there, the square had been quiet, and we just took a photo at the TORONTO sign and moved on. This time a Middle Eastern food festival had filled it with noise. With sugarcane juice in hand, we watched the stage and I thought Canadian summers really do have a lot of festivals.

03July 5: Tobermory, the boat and the Grotto

We couldn’t get into the boat company’s parking lot before our departure time. The attendant told us to come back later, so we paid to park briefly at the restaurant next door and had lunch first. Its fish and chips turned out to be surprisingly good. The fish was fresh and tender; our kid finished a single order and then ordered more fried fish. With more time, we could all have ordered the unlimited option. The boat rounded the Big Tub lighthouse and passed over the wreck. The water was so clear that the ship’s frame showed sharply through the glass bottom and over the side.

In the afternoon we went to the Grotto in Bruce Peninsula National Park. You need a parking reservation to get in, and on a weekend spots rarely opened up. I kept checking the website and finally got a spot, and that made it all the more welcome. The color of the water was beautiful. It was shockingly cold, but our kid went in and played until completely soaked. Limiting parking cuts the number of visitors, and I thought, so this is how nature gets protected. My parents liked the drive up and down the peninsula too, for the way the scenery kept changing.

04July 6–7: Niagara Falls, Canadian side and American side

On the first afternoon, we picked up chimney cake and berry jam in Niagara-on-the-Lake and headed to the falls. At a winery on the way, we bought a bottle of wine for my parents. We walked down to the falls on purpose and, since we were already at the bottom, took the boat on the Canadian side. A few years ago we had taken the American boat, so this time it was the other side. We rode the Incline Railway back up to see a different way.

At dawn the next day, mist rising off the falls met the sunrise, and it was spectacular. My parents were up even earlier and took the spare key card down to the falls one more time. As we checked out and drove away, they looked back again and again. It felt like we had crossed something off their bucket list together, and that was the moment on this trip I was proudest of.

Lunch was the buffet at the Skylon Tower, which we had gone back and forth on for a long time. We had been told a good seat wasn’t guaranteed, but when we got there, we were given a good table by the window. We also looked down from the observation deck upstairs, through the wire mesh, but the falls looked better from the restaurant window. I had hesitated, but it wasn’t a waste at all.

We watched the Whirlpool Aero Car instead of riding it. The reason for the Whirlpool name was interesting, and the whirlpool was easy to see from above without riding. At the Rainbow Bridge border, the line ahead of us was long, and we waited a very long time. Once it was our turn, the check was over quickly. If someone in your car is entering the US for the first time, as my parents were, leave plenty of time.

On the American side, the Cave of the Winds was my parents’ favorite stop of the whole trip. In rain ponchos, we climbed the wooden stairs to just below the falls and took the spray full on. In the journal that day, our kid wrote that they hadn’t known the American side was so big.

05July 7–8: Buffalo, Rochester, Watkins Glen and back to Montreal

The evening we left Niagara, we stopped at the University at Buffalo. We have a connection to the school and wanted to see it. The campus was huge and quiet, with the feel of an American state university. Dinner was Buffalo wings, since we were in Buffalo. We picked Rochester for the night because the city has a waterfall right downtown. We got in late, slept, and in the morning took only a quick look at High Falls before moving on.

We had been to Watkins Glen a few years ago on our own and walked up from the bottom. This time we started at the upper entrance and walked down. The views are better going up, but even on the way down you keep turning around to look back. Last time it was hot and we were short on time, so we turned back before reaching Rainbow Falls. This time it turned out to be closer than we’d thought. My parents still remembered the photos we had sent them back then. On the way home, at a winery, they picked out one more bottle of wine to remember the Niagara side of the trip.

We crossed the Thousand Islands Bridge around 8:30 p.m. It was the same bridge we had seen from the cruise a few days earlier, so everyone was glad to see it, and our kid recognized it right away. That day is in the Thousand Islands cruise post.

06Where we stayed, and the fireworks

Stay

Between a city-view and a falls-view room, we chose the falls view. That one choice gave us the evening lights and the dawn mist without leaving the room.

Hyatt Regency Niagara Falls Fallsview

You can walk down to the falls, and you still see them when you get back to the room.

Check availability on Trip.com

Same hotel in Canadian dollars (Trip.com)
Other hotels in Fallsview (Trip.com)

Plenty of people go back and forth between the Hyatt Regency and the Marriott Fallsview. Travel sites credit the Marriott with the closest view of Horseshoe Falls, while also noting that parking and a resort fee are charged separately. The Hyatt Regency kept the two-room suites from its Embassy Suites days, which gives families space, and it’s described as newly renovated in 2026. Having stayed there, I can say the room was big.

We chose the Mississauga hotel once Tobermory was in the plan. We had thought about a night near the Thousand Islands, but once we decided to go a bit farther, the Toronto area had more hotels and better rates. We got in late the first night, and the hotel had left a small cake in the fridge for our special day. The Fallsview hotel is a place we had stayed before, in the summer of 2022, when it was the Embassy Suites by Hilton. It reopened as a Hyatt Regency in April 2026, and we only realized it was the same building while booking. It is not the same as the other Hilton-branded hotel there (Hilton Niagara Falls/Fallsview). One catch: from a Horseshoe Falls room, we couldn’t see the nighttime fireworks well. We caught a quick glimpse passing through the bar and restaurant downstairs; next time I’d probably head outside at that hour. The fireworks weren’t reason enough for us to upgrade the room.

FAQ

Is it worth seeing both the Canadian and American sides of Niagara Falls?

Yes. On our Montreal to Niagara Falls road trip, the Canadian side gave us Horseshoe Falls head-on, and the American side took us right up beside the falls at Cave of the Winds. Just allow plenty of time for the Rainbow Bridge border crossing.

Can you do Tobermory as a day trip from Toronto?

Yes. From the Mississauga airport area it’s about 3 hours 15 minutes one way by car, about 269 km (167 mi). That makes for roughly 553 km (344 mi) of driving in a day, so book the boat and Grotto parking ahead of time.

Wrap-up: our Montreal to Niagara Falls road trip

Our Montreal to Niagara Falls road trip took five days and four nights, and we saw four waterfalls: Niagara’s Horseshoe Falls and American Falls, High Falls in Rochester, and Rainbow Falls at Watkins Glen. Still, what stayed with me longest was my parents standing at the Fallsview window, seen from behind.

Sources: Parks Canada list of Fathom Five operators, Bruce Anchor Cruises, Blue Heron Cruises, Toronto Arts Foundation event listing, City of Kingston park information