There are two Niagaras. There is the one at street level — the fudge, the wax museums, the queues for the boat — and there is the one you meet from a high floor at Fallsview, where the Horseshoe Falls hang in the window like a painting that happens to move. I have reviewed this resort three times over the years, and the view has never once failed to earn the drive. What I come back to test is everything behind the glass.

Fallsview is built into the cliff, which means the arrival is theatrical: up the escalators, through a shopping galleria, past the perfume of the gaming floor, and into a hotel wing that is grander than most casino resorts attempt. My Fallsview room this visit looked straight down the gorge, the bed was genuinely excellent, and the double glazing did its job — I heard neither the falls nor the slots once the door shut. Guests say the same in their own words; one recent reviewer called it "the best night's sleep I've had in ages," and another praised a check-in that was smooth and staff who were, in her phrase, exceptional.

The floor, the spa, the show

The casino is the engine of the place: better than 3,500 slots, well over a hundred tables, and two entertainment venues in the Avalon Theatre and the OLG Stage that pull real touring names rather than tribute acts. It is a big, confident floor, and on a Saturday it hums. What Fallsview does cleverly is keep that energy sealed off from the hotel — you visit the noise, it does not visit you. The full-service spa is the counterweight, and it is a good one; a guest travelling with health needs told us the staff "went out of their way," which matches what I saw.

You come for the view and the floor; you stay for a spa treatment and a bed that, on a good floor, is worth the whole trip.

Dining runs to eighteen outlets, which is a lot, and the quality is uneven in the way that number implies. Book the sit-down rooms and you eat well; drift toward the quicker options and you can end up paying resort money for ordinary food. A players-card visitor cheerfully reported winning on his first spin with a little free play — the resort knows how to make an arrival feel lucky — but I would not plan a trip around the buffet.

Where the four diamonds wobble

I review resorts on the whole night out, and Fallsview mostly delivers it. But the badge is doing some work here. Not every room has been refreshed on the same schedule, and I read — and can believe — recent complaints of a musty note, rough towels, and a room that "didn't quite feel worth the premium." Parking is the other recurring grumble: expensive, and, as one guest put it, "a bit inconsistent." There were also too few outlets by a modern traveller's count, a small thing that a resort of this ambition should have solved by now.

Who it is for

If you want the falls in your window and a proper casino under your feet, there is nothing else in the city that does both at this level. Ask at booking for a renovated Fallsview room, treat the spa as a headline rather than an afterthought, and keep your dining to the restaurants that take reservations. Do that, and the frayed edges recede behind the view.