Canada (Caribana & Niagara Falls)

Trip Dates: July 31-August 4, 2015

Top 5, Top 5, Top 5, Top 5….if anyone loves Drake as much as I do, you can image how epic going to Toronto was for Caribana Weekend/ OVO Fest during the infamous Drake vs. Meek Mill beef. A good friend of mine invited me to Caribana to share a hotel package with her, and me being me, I couldn’t resist. I invited my best friend/travel buddy Brittany to join me on the adventure. At the time I was living in Boston and Brittany in Houston, so she flew to Boston and we decided to make a road trip out of it and drive together.

Niagara Falls, Canadian Side

Never having been to Canada, we first stopped in Niagara Falls (Canadian side) to check out the views, which were breath taking. There are a few excursions that you can partake in, which I wish we would have had time to, because they looked like a ton of fun. (See HERE for Maid of the Mist tour information) But alas, we stopped, we ate and we journeyed on to Toronto.

Kalyn @ Niagara Falls

Caribana weekend is a BIG DEAL, so there were a ton of hotel packages available which offered lodging and tickets to some of the weekend’s main events so we definitely took advantage of these deals through, clubcrawlers.com. Four of us stayed in one hotel room and we each got 4 tickets to events that we were able to choose from, for roughly, $250.  Because Brittany and I drove we just had to pay any tolls we encountered and gas in travel expense, and I must note, I have a Hyundai and these cars are amazing on mileage. (Travel expenses with the exception of Brittany’s flight from Texas to Mass)

Of the events to choose from, we chose:

1. Hot 97 Party Hosted by Fab
2. Pool Party Hosted by Fab
3. Four Floor (Reggae, Hip Hop, Latino & R&B) Club
4. Soca x Hip Hop Party

The entire weekend is star studded and booze filled, made for endless laughs and endless food. That being said, there wasn’t much time left for the simple exploration of all that Toronto has to offer. We mainly walked/uber-ed to any party or place that we needed to go to.

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I am a PSU alum, and We Are….everywhere! So it was of  little surprise that I bumped into a few friends/few PSU alum.

My absolute favorite event of the weekend was the Grand Parade. Everyone was dressed up in their beautiful garb just gallivanting through the streets, it was like a movie. This was the first Carnival I had experienced at the time, so it was quite the event.

Kalyn, Brittany and Friend at Carnival

Pros

1. Clubcrawlers package. I highly recommend going through this company to book a package to have both your hotel and your events squared away
2. Culturally wasn’t very different than US, which is a pro and a con, but if you are looking for a first place to travel or travel alone, Canada is a great place to start
3. Caribana weekend is wild and everyone should experience one

Cons

1. Pretty Pricey
2. Some events do however get cancelled and you are just forced to choose another
3. Parking sucks, just like in NY, in Toronto. I don’t regret driving but having to pay for parking at the hotel was annoying for sure.