Ripley's Believe It or Not!: Niagara Falls Travel Guide

Shrunken heads on Clifton Hill

Clifton Hill is the steep neon strip of wax museums, haunted houses and arcades running up from the Niagara River. Ripley’s is one of its anchors, at number 4960. It’s well known and plainly a tourist attraction, so don’t expect a quiet curiosity shop.

Inside, it’s the Ripley’s formula that grew out of Robert Ripley’s newspaper cartoon. Expect galleries packed with odd artefacts, and the collection includes:

• shrunken human heads
• rare animal skeletons
• the record-breaking oddities and illusions the brand is built on

The kitsch is the point. The labels read like captions from the original cartoon, which gives you something to talk about in every room.

Fitting it around the Falls

Plan on roughly an hour, a little longer if you read every case. Currently the doors open 10am–11pm daily. That makes it one of the few indoor options still running after dinner, once the Falls lookouts have emptied.

From Table Rock at the Horseshoe Falls, walk north along the Niagara Parkway past the American Falls and turn up Clifton Hill. The walk takes around 20–25 minutes. The WEGO visitor bus also stops near the foot of the hill if you’d rather save your legs.

Everything nearby is within a few minutes’ walk:

• Niagara SkyWheel, the big observation wheel further up the strip
• Niagara City Cruises, the boat to the base of the Falls, at the bottom of the hill
• Rainbow Bridge, the crossing to the US, just north
• Queen Victoria Park, the riverside gardens, across the Parkway

Getting through the door smoothly

Here’s how the strip works. Clifton Hill is busiest on summer weekends and holiday evenings, and these attractions are usually done as a back-to-back crawl. Coming in the morning, near the 10am opening, is a reasonable way to get ahead of families working their way up the hill. A late visit after the dinner rush can also thin things out.

• Tickets: buy at the entrance or on Ripley’s official site, which lists current prices and any combination passes. We don’t print prices here, as they change.
• Payment: cards are taken as standard across Clifton Hill, and Canadian dollars are the default.
• Pace: it’s a one-way, self-guided route. Move at your own speed, but expect to bunch up at the most photographed exhibits.
• Kids: some displays, the shrunken heads especially, are gruesome. Have a quick look before younger children do.

Is it worth your hour?

It’s worth it if you enjoy roadside-museum weirdness and want something indoors on a rainy or cold day. It’s consistently well rated by visitors, who mostly praise the variety rather than any single object.

If you’ve been to another Ripley’s, a lot will feel familiar. In that case, the SkyWheel or a boat trip will give you more Niagara for your time.

Parking on and around Clifton Hill is paid and fills on busy days. If you’re already staying near Fallsview or the river, walking or taking WEGO is usually easier than driving in.