CHAPTER FOUR - OHHHHHHHHHH CANADA, WE'RE SNEAKIN' IN!
Sorry for the delay. I spent the weekend watching IT: CHAPTER 2, which runs approximately 48 hours long, so you can see why I was unable to post.
Returning to this now, and the next day, Wednesday August 28, had been designated Sneak Into Canada Day. Originally, we were supposed to stay in Canada, we were supposed to go to the Shaw Festival, we were supposed to go to Canada's wine country, we were supposed to go to Canada's Wonderland. But noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. After a little research showed that a big monster could be denied entry, we cancelled all that. Yeah, I know, I've mentioned this before, but not sure who is late to this party.
Plus, I started seeing scary videos on YouTube with people getting turned away, and that was the last straw.
So, NY side it was.
BUT..........could we get a Philmonster across the border if we
walked him across the bridge? We intended to give it a shot.
But first - breakfast in our concierge level club room. Hurray!
Below is a picture of the room from the hotel website.
Looks pretty and peaceful, right? Rigggghhhht.
Now, all you have to do is imagine this room, filled to the rim with 15,000 people, half of whom are screaming, sugar-shocked children, behaving like starving locusts, swarming a single lonely tray of cold, runny, scrambled eggs, a plate of stale pastries, and a cereal station that contained generic versions of Fruit Loops and Frosted Flakes, with an empty pitcher of milk beside it. Plus, the family who had taken over the couch/tv area had the tv tuned to Fox News.
We left.
What the holy hell?!?!?!?! Is this what concierge level is like???? So far, not exactly what we had imagined. But anyway, after a quick bite at the Starbucks downstairs, it was time to try to get Phil over the border. Does he look nervous to you?
So, we started walking over the Rainbow Bridge. Before you start walking over the bridge, you have to go through this thing:
I was like "Boy! This is easy! You just go through a revolving gate, and you're in Canada!"
WRONNNNNG!
First, you have to walk over this really long but scenic bridge. Look! More water!
And then, you arrive at this:
Well, suddenly, I felt like I was back at Disney, because I was in a line longer than Space Mountain!
It may not look like it, but this line was not only long, but apparently, the Canada ride is a real slow loader, because we stood in this thing for two hours. I am not even kidding.
They only had one (1) single person checking people into Canada that day, and whomever was doing it that day was taking their job pretty, pretty seriously.
I don't know if any of you have noticed but I am apparently a relative of Snow White, and being so, ummm, white, and having not even thought about wearing sun-block in upstate NY in late August when the temps were supposed to be low 70's, well, let's just say that my skin was getting slow-roasted by the Canadian sun as we inched closer and closer.
Luckily, Phil is the size of a small mountain, so I was able to hide in his shadow a lot of the time, but I still ended up a little burned. Not as bad as tomorrow at Darian Lake, but bad enough. Funny, I've been to WDW a million times and have never gotten a sunburn. I come to Niagara Falls once, and I end up lobstered.
Anyway, 150 years later, we finally got up to the processing person, and he was actually a little mean:
AGENT: "What is your purpose for coming to Canada?"
PHILMONSTER: "To spend money."
AGENT: "Spend money on what?"
PHILMONSTER: "We're tourists - just tourist things."
AGENT: "Like what?"
PHILMONSTER: "You know, Clifton Hill, maybe the Skywheel - "
AGENT: "How long will you be here?"
PHILMONSTER: "Couple of hours."
AGENT: Why are you walking across instead of driving across?"
What the----??!?!?!?!
I was freaking out and thought they were going to release the hounds, but after Phil told him it was because it was a nice day, and our hotel was just across the bridge, the border agent took a long pause and then said:
"Welcome to Canada."
We were in! Sunburned, but in!
P.S.: Just a tidbit about those machines -- the ones that use familiar TV show characters (images) to catch your attention, are the machines that pay out the lowest. Reason is that the company pays royalties (some very high -- such as in the case of the blockbuster shows like Game of Thrones, for example) for the privilege of using the images. 
