On Friday night I came down with my wife to Niagara Falls (without the kids). We wanted to get some ice cream, and then we walked around for a couple of hours. Our first stop was in Dave & Buster’s on Clifton Hill. We didn’t play anything, but here are a few observations:
- The first thing my wife said was that it looked very similar to what is across the street (Great Canadian Midway)
- There are many games that I’ve seen elsewhere, but lots of them are bigger versions of what I’ve seen elsewhere (like Stacker and similar games).
- The redemption area is very nice. It’s like a small store. You can physically handle the items yourself, and decide what you want, and then take it to the “checkout”.
- The sound system is excellent on the first two floors, but sounds very hollow on the third floor (where the restaurant is).
- The second level is open and you can see down below. This is very nice
- The third floor restaurant area wasn’t impressive. It was mostly a big open area with tables and chairs. It seemed to lack something, but I’m not sure what.
One other comment… I just don’t get the swipe card system. It confused me. All of the existing arcades in the area (Great Canadian Midway, Adventure City, Skylon Tower, Great Wolf Lodge, and Americana) use tokens. You can clearly understand that X amount of dollars gets you Y amount of tokens. You can then clearly see how many tokens each game costs. With the swipe card system you get points, and then the games cost a certain number of points. Unfortunately, you buy a quantity of points that are a whole number, but the games cost a decimal amount (4.9, 8.9, etc). This means that you will virtually never be able to use up all of your points. If you have 1 token let at a different arcade, you’d be able to use it. I also wondered about the spontaneous visitor. Let’s say someone is going home today, and they have $5 or $10 CDN left they want to get rid of. It’s pretty easy to go into an arcade, get some tokens, and use them up. It’s quick and easy. Buying a card, figuring out the points, playing, and leaving points on your card doesn’t seem very appealing.
Generally, the building is very nice. It’s new, and clean. As indicated above, the sound is pretty good. The windows look small from the outside, but actually provide quite a bit of light, and give a decent view.
Here are a few pictures I took (you can click on them to view a larger version):
More painting being done on the side of the building
These are new signs they’ve put outside. I’m guessing people were thinking that the place was just the first floor
Main floor
View from second floor “balcony”
You can only take the elevator up to the third floor restaurant
The elevator makes it seem like there are 5 levels
A swipe card mechanism
A cup to carry your tickets in
View from the second floor window
You have a very informative blog. Thank you for being so detailed. I am planning my trip and I have a question, in Movieland Wax Museum can you have your picture taken in the scenes? I understand you can in Louis Tussauds, but the Movieland website does state “Have your picture taken with blah blah” Thank you advance!
I’m glad you like the site Heather. Tell everyone you know 🙂
Movieland is setup with various sets that are fenced off. The only one that you can actually be right beside the characters is The Simpsons. However, many of the sets are setup so you can get pretty close and the pictures turn out quite nice.
Welcome 🙂
I just noticed the 3rd pic going down from the top looks slike the old Skylon arcade with the orange boards.
Thank you very much for answering my question! I will certainly be passing on this site.
Thanks so much! I love your website and this information was very helpful. I was going to have a birthday party there, but I don’t like the card-swipe idea. Thanks for saving my party! I think im going to go to the Canadian Midway.
I have it on good word that there is another D+B opening up in Niagara near Fallsview. Next to the Hilton and beside Marios.
I don’t think the existing one is doing very well. I don’t know why another one would open…
I’m not sure if it is not doing well or not, but the one on Clifton is the most ridiculous looking building in the core. It’s also very uninviting from the outside and just looks unfinished. The time it took to complete, it should have been a much cleaner finish then a bunch of scattered wall murals? JMO
Fully agree with Lonny!
Visited D&B for the first time on Saturday with my wife. We were both confused with the payment system. Some machines were simple and only took one credit (usually 4.9 – 10.9 DB credits), while others took up to 3 swipes. It’s obvious that the decimal system is designed to leave you with value remaining on your card (which we now have). That may work in regular locations to help draw back return customers, that model doesn’t work for tourist areas. This method also allows them to change the cost of a game based on time of day/week/year. We didn’t even know how to get to the 3rd floor. Silly that you NEED to take the elevator to get to it.
We walked across the street to the Midway and noticed much the same games. The prices were better at Midway, but the prizes are better at D&B.
I just don’t think the D&B model works well for its location. We didn’t get to try the laser tag, but that sounds like fun, depending on the size of the play floor.
I didn’t like the place. Seemed unfriendly to fat people. I was looking for somewhere to haul my belly, but I couldn’t find the third floor restaurant. Got stock in the skee-ball on floor 2. I remain there until this day.