A straight answer about the Canadian-side Niagara boat — and how it works if you'd rather be driven.
Yes — the boat sails directly into the mist at the base of the Horseshoe Falls. A recyclable poncho is handed out at the dock, but expect a genuine soak, which is the whole point.
On the Canadian-side Niagara City Cruises boat, getting wet means a genuine soaking, not the light mist some visitors picture. The thin recyclable poncho the crew hands out keeps your torso mostly dry, yet your face, hair, lower legs, and shoes still take the spray head-on. The heaviest drenching arrives in the final few minutes, when the vessel idles inside the Horseshoe Falls basin and the churned-up mist falls like warm rain.
That soaking only lasts part of the roughly 20-minute Voyage to the Falls, so most guests are comfortably dry again within the hour. Wear closed shoes you do not mind getting wet, seal your phone in a zip bag, and expect glasses and camera lenses to fog and bead up. This is the Ontario boat that runs late April through November; the American Maid of the Mist is a separate route we never join, so there is no border crossing or passport.
A private chauffeur quietly solves the damp-and-cold end of the day, waiting steps from Hornblower Landing with dry seats. That means no soggy transit ride and no long, chilly walk back to a distant parking lot after you climb off the boat. From Toronto it is about 128 km and 90 minutes each way, charged as one flat per-vehicle rate with the 13% HST already inside — never per person, never a deposit.
See your flat per-vehicle price in seconds and reserve with no deposit.