A Saturday evening trip to Niagara Falls in December. The bus leaves Toronto at noon, gets you to the Butterfly Conservatory for 2:00 PM, then brings you down to the falls for the Winter Festival of Lights, eight kilometres of displays that switch on at five. The Niagara Parks Power Station and its tunnel under the falls are there if you want them. Back on the bus at 9:00 PM, home around 11:00.
The bus leaves from 34 Asquith Avenue, just north of Yonge and Bloor, at noon.
Coming soon
We are running this one. The seats are not loaded into the booking system yet, so there is nothing to click. Leave your email and you will hear the moment it opens, which is usually before it goes anywhere else.
Leaving Toronto in the meantime
Cancel 14 or more days before you go and you get 90% back.
Choose your own adventure: we drop you off, and the bus picks you up in the same spot.
A short, flat walk on even ground, at your own pace.
Not included
The bus drops you at the Niagara Parks Botanical Gardens on the Parkway, a few kilometres upriver from the falls, for the Butterfly Conservatory. It is an 11,000 square foot glasshouse kept at tropical temperature all year, with more than two thousand butterflies of over forty species loose inside it and 180 metres of path winding through.
In December that is the warmest hour of the day, and the one where a butterfly lands on your sleeve. It is self-guided and there is no timed entry: you go in when you arrive and stay as long as you like. Admission is in your ticket.
Tropical, in December, and in your ticket.
Then the bus brings you down to the falls for the Winter Festival of Lights. It is the forty fourth year of it: more than eight kilometres of displays along the Niagara Parkway, through Dufferin Islands, past Table Rock and across Queen Victoria Park to Clifton Hill, lit from five in the evening until midnight. Three million lights, and admission is free.
You have the evening to yourself. Walk the Parkway, stand at Table Rock with the falls lit up beside you, eat where you like. The Niagara Parks Power Station is right there if you want it: the first big power plant on the Canadian side, finished in 1905, with a 670 metre tunnel that drops 55 metres and comes out on a deck at the river's edge. Plan on about two hours for it, and it is paid at the door, not in your fare.
The bus leaves at 9:00 PM and you are back at 34 Asquith Avenue around 11:00.
Eight kilometres of lights, and the drive home is somebody else's.
Butterflies first, then the lights. The bus does the drive between them.
We pick you up
Just north of Yonge and Bloor subway station. Come up the Asquith exit and look for the bus.
An 11,000 square foot glasshouse at the Botanical Gardens, 2565 Niagara Parkway, kept tropical all year. More than two thousand butterflies of over forty species, and 180 metres of path through them. Self-guided, no timed entry.
Good to know:
Facilities: Washrooms, Accessible throughout, A gift shop
Note: Admission is in your ticket.
The falls, lit, and the festival around them: Dufferin Islands, the Parkway, Table Rock, Queen Victoria Park and Clifton Hill, from five until midnight. Three million lights and no admission. The Niagara Parks Power Station and its 670 metre tunnel are a short walk from Table Rock if you want them; that one is paid at the door.
Good to know:
Facilities: Washrooms at Table Rock Centre, Restaurants and cafes along Clifton Hill and the Parkway
Note: The bus leaves at 9:00 PM. Be back at it by 8:45.
We drop you back
The bus returns to the same place it left from, so you go home the way you came.
This is our estimated return time, not a guarantee. Traffic can change it and some trips do run late, so please leave yourself some room afterwards rather than booking something tight against it.
A warm coat and good shoes. You will be outside after dark in December.
The Winter Festival of Lights has no admission, and the Butterfly Conservatory is in your ticket.
The Niagara Parks Power Station and its tunnel are optional. If you want them, you buy that at the door and plan on about two hours.
The bus leaves Niagara Falls at 9:00 PM and gets back to Toronto at around 11:00. The subway is still running.
Be back at the bus by 8:45. It cannot wait for anybody on a two hour drive home.
One date, Saturday 5 December. Tickets are not up yet; the date and the fares come straight from the booking system when they are.
Placeholder dates · the real ones come from our booking system
We're Canada's outdoor bus service. Since 2010 we've taken more than 300,000 people to parks and trails without a car. You bring a warm coat. We handle everything with wheels.
The Winter Festival of Lights runs five to midnight. The reason most people from Toronto have not seen it is the drive home at ten. That is our job.
The Butterfly Conservatory at the Niagara Parks Botanical Gardens: 11,000 square feet of warm glasshouse, more than forty species, and 180 metres of path through them.
Dufferin Islands, the Parkway, Table Rock, Queen Victoria Park, Clifton Hill. The festival is free, and it is Canada's largest outdoor one.
The Niagara Parks Power Station, built in 1905, and a 670 metre tunnel that comes out on a deck at the foot of the falls. Optional, and you pay the park for it on the day.
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Took a day trip to Algonquin Park with Parkbus. They pick up on Asquith Ave. in the Bloor/Yonge area and have a quick break stop at the Onroute Barrie. All stops enable guests ample time to explore the destination. This is a highly a good idea trip for those that appreciate spending time in nature minus distractions.OnAir48444 · Tripadvisor · Oct 2025
Booked in minutes, had an unreal day in Algonquin, and was home by dinner.Cameron · Happy Parkbus customer
Cancel more than 14 days before departure and you get a 90% refund, with 10% withheld for payment processing. Inside 14 days refunds are not available, except for a medical emergency in the 48 hours before departure, which needs a signed doctor’s note within 14 days of the missed trip and returns 50%. Tickets are transferable: you can change the passenger name up to 48 hours before departure.
If Parkbus cancels a trip, you get a full refund. We decide no later than 48 hours before departure and only on confirmed conditions: the park closed or the park authority asking us to stand down, an evacuation order or alert, an area restriction order, the highway closed, or the trip judged unsafe to run. A forecast is not one of those things, and trips run rain or shine.
The lights are the point of going in December. The bus is the point of going with us.
Not quite the right fit? These all leave from the same spot downtown.
