The Build-A-Bear Workshop was supposed to open Friday, March 28. I don’t know if it did or not, but it was definitely open on Saturday, March 29. I was by there when we were visiting the area for Earth Hour, and I guess it fit right in. There was no sign on the outside at all that would light up. There were still exposed wires where the sign would be. You could see insulation in areas, and wood in other areas. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done on the outside.
The inside however looked totally complete and was very nice. For some reason I thought it was going to have two separate floors, but it is just a single floor with ceilings that are two-storeys tall. As I walked in, there was the typical cheerful host welcoming me and asking if I had any questions. She said they had a special Niagara Falls t-shirt for only $2 (I don’t know if that was a special grand opening price or a regular price). The t-shirt decal had a bear in a barrel going over Niagara Falls. It was cute.
On Saturday night the family piled into the mini-van and went to see how Earth Hour went in Niagara Falls. I guess you could say we did our part for Earth Hour since we didn’t have our house lights on at all 
Here are my observations:
- Basically right at 8 pm most of the Fallsview hotel lights went off. Within 5 or 10 minutes many more were off.
- The red vertical casino lights were off, but the red horizontal lights on the top of the casino were on.
- Many of the operations on Clifton Hill did NOT participate. As far as I could see, none of the HOCO properties were participating. The “L” in Movieland was off, but I think that was just a coincidence
- The Falls Ave properties were participating. The Sheraton was dark, the Hard Rock Cafe guitar was off, and there were minimal lights on at their other attractions
- The Niagara Clifton Group properties were participating. Guinness, Fun House, etc had their lights off
- The Ripley’s Niagara properties were participating as their 3 properties were dark
- The Clifton Family Restaurant was dark, but still had people inside eating
- Going up Victoria Avenue, the Criminal Hall of Fame was dark and the Classic Iron Motorcycle Museum didn’t seem to have all of their lights on. Other than that, very few of the “mom and pop” places were dark. I guess they need the lights on to compete.
- The Skylon was probably the latest place to turn off the lights. They even turned off all of the lights at the top. This surprised me as there was no flashing beacon/warning light. The Fallsview Casino, other hotels, and the Hilton crane all had a light that was flashing, but the Skylon didn’t. I wonder if that was allowed/safe?
Here are some pictures:
The lights that normally light the falls were off
The American Falls without lights
The Horseshoe Falls without lights
The light at the top of the Fallsview Casino was still on
The light on the side of the Fallsview Casino was on before 8 PM
The light on the side of the Fallsview Casino was off after 8 PM
The Fallsview wall of hotels looked nice dimly lit
The top of the Skylon Tower was still lit up just after 8 PM
The top of the Skylon Tower was dark a little later
The Niagara SkyWheel with the Fallsview Waterpark and the Kodak Tower at Casino Niagara in the background before 8 pm
The SkyWheel and Fallsview Waterpark were still lit up after 8 pm, but the Kodak Tower lights were off
Someone with a Wordpress.com blog wrote about some travelling during a week, which included a visit to Niagara Falls:
Tuesday we began our journey to Niagara Falls. We would’ve made record time except we missed the exit for the peace bridge and ended up in an infinite loop through Buffalo. Luckily Ontario Man saved us and we made it into Canada. Our hotel suite was amazing but the weather was horrible. It was that awful rain/snow mix that doesn’t stick to anything but soaks you completely. We spent all of five minutes at the falls and went back to the hotel to dry off and get ready for dinner. We went to a Brazilian steakhouse, which was decent but in no way compared to Brazzaz in Chicago. Wednesday morning the weather was more favourable. We went back to the Falls and did the Journey Behind the Falls tour. We wandered around Clifton Hill a bit, I chased a squirrel around and Chris yelled at me for it and we headed back to the states. After some very personal questions from the American border patrol we were on our way back to Pittsburgh.
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