Niagara Falls cruise

Almost everyone arrives with the same picture: a deck full of people in coloured ponchos, the boat turning into the white water at the foot of the Horseshoe, and the noise. The picture is real. What it hides is that there are two different boats at Niagara Falls, in two different countries, leaving from two different docks, and the nineteen listings here differ mostly in which one you end up on.

On the Canadian side the boat is Niagara City Cruises, which most visitors still call Hornblower. It leaves from the Niagara Parkway and sails into the Horseshoe basin, and its ponchos are red. On the American side it is the Maid of the Mist, from Niagara Falls, New York, in blue. Journey Behind the Falls, sold with a boat on most of these listings, is a third thing: tunnels cut behind the wall of water, yellow ponchos, and not a boat at all.

Our top pick puts the falls in front of you three ways in one booking: the helicopter ride, the city cruise and the Skylon Tower at $263, rated 4.8 across 1,048 reviews. Five to eight hours, with the sailing seasonal on the listing and the descent into Journey Behind the Falls at the end.

The cheapest way onto the water is the American side: the guided tour with the Maid of the Mist cruise at $57 for two hours, rated 4.5 across 793 reviews, a walk along the New York bank with the boat admission written in. Two larger American days build on the same cruise at $139, adding Cave of the Winds — the wooden decking under the American Falls — and the Observation Tower.

The Canadian combinations are where most of the list sits, and they are variations on the same pair: the boat into the Horseshoe basin and the tunnels behind it. Three hours with a guided walk and VIP tunnel access is $96; the version with priority boarding lanes is the same $96 and goes 125 feet below the bedrock; the two-and-a-half-hour version carries the highest rating on the page at 4.9. Add the Skylon Tower and the day stretches to $135 or $156.

The evening is its own product. The fireworks cruise sails from the Canadian side for forty minutes at $39, rated 4.5 across 2,769 reviews, and it is the lowest fare here: the illuminated falls, the skyline and the fireworks from the water. The premium night tour takes four hours at $234, with a seasonal fireworks cruise, dinner at a local restaurant and a turn at the Illumination Tower controls.

The jet boat is a different river altogether. At $67 for forty-five minutes, rated 4.8 across 1,297 reviews, it runs the class 5 rapids downstream of the falls rather than the basin beneath them, and the listing lets you choose the wet seats or the dry ones. Book it alongside a cruise rather than instead of one.

Then the long days. From Toronto it is about two hours of road each way, and the boat is one part of the day rather than all of it: ten hours with the boat and the tunnels at $52, nine hours with skip-the-line tickets at $118, a private day at $310. So the plan is plain. Decide the side first, because that decides the boat and the dock. Dress for spray, and hold the date early, because the boats run from about April to November.