Vaughan to Rochester: the museum-of-play weekend by chauffeured car

Rochester, for the family with young children

Rochester is the American city Vaughan parents of children under ten discover through one building: the Strong National Museum of Play, the world's largest museum devoted to play, with the National Toy Hall of Fame, a working 1918 carousel, a Sesame Street set, a supermarket the children run, a butterfly garden and — since 2023 — a new wing devoted to video games' history. It is a full day, and the city around it fills the second: the George Eastman Museum in Kodak's founder's mansion, High Falls where the Genesee drops thirty metres downtown, the Lilac Festival in Highland Park in May, Seabreeze's rides on Lake Ontario in summer, the Susan B. Anthony house, and the Wegmans on East Avenue, the grocery chain's home store. The Visit Rochester site has the city; the border guide has the Lewiston bridge, which is this trip's crossing.

The road

From Maple the 400 and the 407 to the QEW, Niagara Falls, and the Lewiston–Queenston Bridge — the crossing for everything east on I-90 — then I-190 north through Lewiston to the Thruway at exit 50 and I-90 east past Batavia to Rochester's exits: three and a half hours by the estimate and three and three-quarters in practice with the CBP booth. The SUV carries a family of four; the Sprinter carries two families for the museum weekend. Letchworth's gorge is forty minutes off the route for a family that wants a stop on the way home.

The Strong, in a day

The Strong's day begins at ten when the doors open and the carousel starts: the Toy Hall of Fame's cases — the Barbie, the Lego, the stick — the Sesame Street neighbourhood, the Berenstain Bears' treehouse, the Wegmans supermarket with its checkout, the Reading Adventureland, the Dancing Wings butterfly garden's tropical room, the Pinball Playfields' working machines and the World Video Game Hall of Fame's arcade, and the Skyline Climb's ropes for the children over five; lunch in the museum's food court, and the afternoon's second pass through the parts the children did not finish. The Strong is a members' museum and a Vaughan family buys the day tickets online for the timed entry that summer Saturdays need; the SUV parks in the museum's garage and the chauffeur is back at four.

The Eastman Museum, High Falls and the Sunday

George Eastman's fifty-room mansion on East Avenue is the museum of photography and film — the house's rooms as he left them, the galleries of the medium's history, the Dryden Theatre's film prints — and a family's Sunday morning with the children in the camera-obscura room and the parents in the galleries; the Eastman Museum's site has the hours. High Falls is downtown: the Genesee's thirty-metre drop under the Pont de Rennes footbridge with the old mills and breweries around it, the Genesee Brew House's rooftop for lunch with the falls below, and the Center at High Falls for the story. The Susan B. Anthony house on Madison Street, where she was arrested for voting in 1872, is the Grade 8 student's hour.

Highland Park's lilacs, and Seabreeze

The Lilac Festival in Highland Park runs for ten days in May — twelve hundred lilac bushes of five hundred varieties on Frederick Law Olmsted's hill, a fair, and the city's biggest week — and a Vaughan family's May weekend is timed to it; Seabreeze Amusement Park on Lake Ontario's shore at Irondequoit Bay, the country's fourth-oldest, is the summer afternoon with the Jack Rabbit wooden coaster of 1920, the water park and the lake beside it, and the SUV in the lot. The Visit Rochester calendar has the festival's dates.

Wegmans, and the food

Wegmans is Rochester's grocery chain and the East Avenue store — the flagship — is a Vaughan family's pilgrimage for the prepared food, the bakery and the produce; the Public Market on Union Street on Saturday morning is the older Rochester, with the farmers, the Empanada Stop and the coffee; the garbage plate at Nick Tahou's is the city's dish and the teenagers' dare; Dinosaur Bar-B-Que by the river is the dinner. The cooler in the vehicle's bay carries the Wegmans cheese home within the CBSA's food rules.

The weekend, in shape

Friday at 3 from Maple, the Lewiston bridge at 4:45, the hotel on East Avenue or by the museum by 6:45, dinner at Dinosaur; Saturday the Strong from ten to four, Highland Park or Seabreeze after, Wegmans for the picnic; Sunday the Public Market at nine, the Eastman Museum at eleven, High Falls and the Brew House at one, the Lewiston bridge at 3:30 with the 48-hour CAD 800 exemption applied to the Wegmans bags, Maple by 5:30. Two nights, the SUV as a return with a Saturday afternoon on daily hire, one number in the booking engine, and the travel desk holding the hotel.

What the chauffeur replaces

The QEW and the Thruway twice with the children in the back; the Lewiston bridge as the driver; the Strong's garage and the museum's four o'clock exit with a five-year-old asleep; and the Sunday's drive home with the lilacs in the trunk. For a couple the trip is a car's; for a family of four with two children under eight it is the SUV's fare against the drive, and for two families the Sprinter's fare divided by two.

Seasons

May for the lilacs; summer for Seabreeze and the Strong's air conditioning; September for the Public Market's harvest and the Eastman's gardens; the Canadian March break, when the Strong is the reason Vaughan families choose Rochester over anything further; December for the Strong's holiday train show and the city's lights. Winter's lake-effect snow on I-90 between Buffalo and Rochester is the chauffeur's watch.

Pairing it

Rochester pairs with Letchworth forty minutes south for the gorge on the way home, with the Finger Lakes an hour southeast for the parents' wine afternoon, with Darien Lake thirty minutes west for the coaster day, and with the Bills' training camp at Pittsford in August.

The Strong's day, in order, for a family of four

From the East Avenue hotel at 9:30 in the SUV: the Strong's garage at 9:45 and the doors at ten with the timed tickets; the carousel first because the line grows; the Wegmans supermarket and the Sesame Street set until 11:30; the Toy Hall of Fame's cases with the parents' childhoods in them; lunch in the food court at 12:15; the butterfly garden at one; the pinball and the video-game arcade until 2:30 with the tokens; the Skyline Climb for the seven-year-old; the gift shop's queue at 3:45; the SUV at four for Highland Park's lilacs or Seabreeze's Jack Rabbit. Six hours inside, and the second day's second pass is the reason the two-night version exists.

Pittsford, the canal and the Bills' camp

Ten minutes southeast of the city, Pittsford's Schoen Place is the Erie Canal's towpath village — the canal boats, the ducks, the ice cream at the wharf, the towpath's bicycles — and the summer evening a family walks after the Strong; St. John Fisher University beside it is the Bills' training camp in late July and August, with the free practices that the Bills post describes, and a Vaughan football family's Rochester weekend is timed to a practice. The Erie Canal's locks at Fairport and the Sam Patch tour boat are the canal hour for the older children.

Costs, plainly

The Rochester weekend is a return with a Saturday afternoon on daily hire in the booking engine, or a daily hire for the two days; the Strong's tickets, the hotel and the Wegmans bags are the family's own, and the 48-hour CAD 800 exemption per person covers the bags on the way home. Against the fare are the QEW and the Thruway twice as a driver with two children under eight, the Lewiston bridge both ways and the Sunday's drive home after two museum days; a couple does this in a car, and a family of four with young children books the SUV for the sleep in the back seat and the parent who is not driving.

The Genesee's other falls, and Charlotte

The Genesee drops three times through Rochester: High Falls downtown, the Lower Falls at Maplewood Park's rose garden with the old Driving Park bridge above, and the river's mouth at Charlotte on Lake Ontario, where the 1822 lighthouse, the Ontario Beach Park's carousel of 1905 and the pier are the summer evening — a Vaughan family's Sunday afternoon in the SUV from High Falls down the river to the lake before the drive home, with Abbott's frozen custard at the beach as the reason the children agree. The Visit Rochester site has the beach's hours.

The Memorial Art Gallery and the parents' hour

The University of Rochester's Memorial Art Gallery on University Avenue — five thousand years in a manageable building, with the Monet, the Rembrandt and the Centennial Sculpture Park outside — is the parents' Sunday hour while the grandparents take the children to the Strong's second pass; the Rochester Museum & Science Center and the Strasenburgh Planetarium on East Avenue are the alternative for a rainy afternoon, and the museum's site has the hours. Rochester is a city of a million with a university's culture, and the weekend has more in it than the children's museum.

The Finger Lakes afternoon, for the parents

Canandaigua Lake is forty minutes southeast — the lakefront's Kershaw Park, the Sonnenberg Gardens' Victorian mansion and greenhouses, the wineries along Route 21 and the New York Wine & Culinary Center's tasting room on the lake — and a Vaughan couple whose children are with the grandparents at the Strong does it as the Saturday afternoon in the SUV; the Finger Lakes post has the region, and the Sonnenberg's site has the gardens' hours.

The Eastman's garden and the Sunday's light

The Eastman Museum's terrace garden and the West Garden behind the mansion are the Sunday morning's ten minutes with a coffee before the galleries open, and the mansion's conservatory — with the elephant's head Eastman shot in Africa above the pipe organ — is the room the children remember; the Dryden Theatre's Sunday film is the parents' option if the grandparents have the car and the Strong. It is a Sunday that starts slowly and ends at the Lewiston bridge by 3:30.

Booking it

Book a return from your Vaughan address with a Saturday afternoon on daily hire, or a daily hire for the weekend; tell us the Strong's day, the hotel, the seats and every passenger's citizenship for the bridge, and the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before.

Book the Rochester weekend