WildPlay Niagara Falls Zipline to the Falls — Attraction in Niagara Falls

TLDR advice: not for you if you don’t have at least 2 hours to spare and/or if you are an adrenaline junkie and/or you didn’t plan to pay for an express pass. Read the rest if you wanna know why.

Extremely disorganised. I bought my tickets together with the Whirpool Jet Boat Tour package. No clear instructions on how and where to claim your zipline ride.

Arrived at 10.15am, saw the check in counter that had big words “express check in” hence we skipped it and thought the booth was not for regular tickets. The layout of the entrance to the zipline was bad (ie anyone could have just walked up the stairs). Then realized that it says either blue or no helmet hence didn’t think we were doing it right. Went back to the “express” check in counter. The lady at the counter wasn’t able to handle different situations (eg claiming my tickets from a package). She tried searching for my “last name” and couldn’t find anything, then asked for “help” from her supervisor. Then the supervisor told her what to tell me - claim my tickets at another booth instead because it’s “third party”. We walked to the other booths - only 1 (out of 4/5) is open. There were probably 3 parties of 2-3 people ahead of me. It took 15-20 mins to get to the front. The person tried to “search” for my last name again despite me telling that I bought it from a package. Then he said “I thought you said you bought tickets online”. I’m like - yeah I bought the package online. He then asked for my name to be input to the system, I said I could just type to make it quicker and he said it’s not allowed (2 men who spoke very little English were allowed to type their own names) so I don’t understand the difference in treatment. They also put up a sign about signing a waiver online by via their wifi while waiting which sounded helpful except the wifi does not work at all.

Then I’m back to the initial check in counter. There were again 3-4 parties ahead of me. One poor party (two ladies) queued for nothing, went up to the front of the line to buy tickets and was told to go to the “booths” instead. When it was the turn of the two men in front of me, the lady had to then again ask her supervisor for assistance. Finally by 11am, it’s my turn. We were asked to move from the front to the side of the counter to be weighed, by the same lady. Can’t help but to think why can’t they have more staff to support? Finally got our wristband and helmets and good to head up to the launch tower.

There were about 20 people ahead of us. 4 lanes. They did not fully utilize all 4 lanes - not sure if there was something wrong with the very last lane but the most I’ve seen is 3 people going at the same time. Most went 2 by 2… extremely slow. Staff were friendly and helped everyone with putting on gears. We were asked to stand at one of the “prep stations” by around 11.25am and put on our gears. There was only one party of 2 ahead of us. With some people (about 4 parties) coming through the express lane from time to time, we literally stood there and waited for almost 40 minutes with all the gears before our turn. There was about 10 mins where no one went and we don’t understand what is happening. Not to mention that they were confused with the sequence of the turns when they allowed an express pass group to go and we were supposed to be next, but then they skipped us and let the people who’s behind us go first. I reported, they said we would go next, but no apology. More people arrived at the platform after myself - some of them were asked to put on gears even before they are at the prep station. Poor them, they would have needed to carry the heavy gears with them for a long time…

It’s finally our turn at 12.10pm. It was slow, and you feel no mist from the waterfalls as you zipline down (honestly there’s no “feeling” of being close to the waterfall, probably because you are truly not), and yeah - the “ride” was less than 1 minute. By the time we were sent back to the top of the hill, it was 12.25pm.

Seriously a shame at such a prominent location. Truly a waste of...

September 7, 2022 2 guests Early afternoon

Very conflicted on this experience. The zip line ride itself was a 5 star experience. Everything else surrounding it was subpar at best. There were about 10 staff working in different areas and each staff had a different idea of what was going on!

Remember: this is an attraction where communication, customer safety and staff safety are paramount. Communication and team work is essential.

We purchased tickets in advance, went to the location and the signage indicated to go right up the stairs. As it was the beginning of September we thought maybe they have combined registration and putting on gear all in the same place. Not so, we got to the top of the attraction to be told by one staff to walk down and go around behind the building (he indicated someone must have moved the sign) - he was the only staff to be proactive to fix a mistake and walked down with us to make sure the (1) sign they had out directed people correctly.

The employee in the ticket booth was less than enthusiastic about being disturbed by customers. Once we signed our waivers and picked up our helmets, we were directed to go around the building and use the elevator back to the top (which we did). Waited not too long to get harnessed up and took our trip to the bottom. AWESOME experience. At the bottom you have the opportunity to purchase a second ride for $15 which we did. Employee at the bottom, "see you in about 15 minutes as there is no line up now". This sounded great to us! We hoped into the shuttle back up to the tower and the driver told us everyone was going on break ...everyone! The attraction would be closed for about 30 minutes. (apparently his colleague in the landing spot did not know break was happening!). We went back to the information booth and asked about timing as we were trying to make plans. She said they would be closed for 45 minutes and we could have a refund or just wait around, our choice. We decided to wait around. Came back at specified time to check in and get our helmet and head around the elevator as we previously did to be told by the staff wandering back from break that the elevator is not for patrons. Stairs are over there. I have no issue with taking the stairs. My issue is with different staff providing different direction and not with a customer focused tone or attitude. We went back to the top, got into our harnesses and waited for over 10 minutes while the folks at the bottom decided to come back to work. The folks at the top had no idea what was going on, were not able to connect with their colleagues at the bottom- we were thinking...was the attraction open or should they have waited to harness us up? Does anyone do a safety check prior to reopening?

I share this as a note to the ownership/management. The attraction is a fun thing to do but the customer service was abysmal, the communication among the team was non existent and the confusion definitely negatively impacted the experience.

Simple solutions: Add signage at bottom of attraction with clear direction to ticket booth and hours of operation (this should help in times of low staff availability) Add signage at each level of the stairs reconfirming the hours of operation and details of what you need to continue up the stairs (helmet, waiver signed, payment etc) - focus on the customer, what helps them have a good experience Train and ensure all staff are aware and capable of talking about hours of operation, how to get the most out of the attraction, questions or comments - instill confidence staff are taking the customer experience seriously Make sure whoever is staff lead for the shift communicates with each of the on site staff - staff expectations, customer expectations, ensure customer safety and experience are top of mind that the staff on the same page for safe enjoyable trip...

was hesitant to do this only because i saw many reviews on how it was a bad experience for some people. i’m not afraid of heights or anything of the sorts. The staff at the ticket booth were friendly and welcoming, the staff up on the top where you zip line off were not as nice. there was one rider ahead of me when i got up there as he was a younger teenager, he was all ready in his harness ready to go, but then i saw other staff harnessing up to go ahead of him, i’m not sure if it was because he was needed at the bottom but i didn’t see him doing much of anything when i got down there on my turn. Anyways, i’ve seen many many pictures of people being able to have one of them sitting all harnessed up and on the line before they get launched off, i asked the guy who harnessed me up if i could have him take one of me, he was in the middle of answering me when the girl who was working the actual line, brown curly hair who seemed to be around 23-25 years old immediately said no, the guy was trying to ask me for more specification as i think he was willing to do such but she kept cutting in and saying no. as soon as she got me all set and i was sitting on the line waiting to be let down, she was talking about how it was 2 minutes away from her shift being almost over and that she needed to harness up before the next group of people who got up there 5 mins after i did. not sure if its because she needed to go down there but it seemed like more of she needed to get off the clock but still wanted to take a leisure zip line down just because, she was my least favorite part of this experience lol. was really hoping for a photo at the top as i’ve seen MANY reviews where people have them. Ended up buying the video at the end due to the disappointment but the video was not that great either; the guy who takes the photo for you was awesome and a super nice guy so all the credit to him! overall this experience was 50/50. it was fun to zip line but i’m not sure if it’s worth the money to do it again, i saw a bunch of other reviews of people saying it’s a longer wait due to the fact the staff lets friends/other staff jump the line ahead. just keep that in mind if you decide...