Waterloo Things to Do

The Princess Cinema and the Princess Twin are both located near King street in Waterloo. They are almost right across the street from one another. They play all sorts of interesting movies, usually the ones that you wouldn't find at the larger cineplexes; documentries, foreign movies and artsy Candain movies. The popcorn and drinks are fairly pricey. Admission to a movie was about $9 as of 2008. The inside of the cinema is old fashioned, so its like going to a movie back in the 60s. It's a great place to go for a date, there are plenty of nice restaurants and King street is nicely alluminated and sparkly at night.

We visited this park couple of summers ago just to have a picnic. This 27 hectare park plays host to a number of events throughout the year, the most significant being the Cambridge Highland Games which is held each July.

We enjoyed the small animal viewing area. There were deer pen, pheasant pen, and a waterfowl area. The last one was being used by wild waterfowls all the time offering good photography. There are also wheelchair accessible children's playground, splash pad, ball diamonds, soccer fields, picnic area (without a covered shelter), and nature trails.

The Duncan McIntosh Arena for skating is located within Churchill Park (Christopher Dr. entrance).

We also noted that the park has a small campground area with 14 serviced sites that seem to have their privacy. The sites are available on first come first serve basis and no advance reservations are available.

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There are many activities other than drive through.

• Kids in the entourage loved Jungle Playground, the Misumu Bay Wet Play Area, and Pet’s Corner’.
• All of us visited the show ‘Parrot Paradise’
• The ‘Elephant Round-Up’ is another well admired show
• We took a cruise on the African Queen
• We also boarded the Nature Boy Railroad for a scenic tour of the park by rail.
• The Birds of Prey Conservation Centre is a thrilling and educating experience, with raptors flying around the spectators at speeds of up to 40 miles per hour.

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We visit The African Lion Safari near Cambridge every other year. The Safari Park consists of 750 acres and over 1,000 exotic animals and birds.

African Lion Safari was founded in 1969 by Colonel G.D. Dailley, to preserve wildlife species that were endangered. The park has succeeded in breeding 30 species on the Endangered Species List and 20 threatened species. In 1985, as a result of success with working with African elephants for 14 years, the park began a program to breed endangered Asian elephants.

Admission includes a drive through the Game Reserve in your own vehicle, a cruise on the African Queen, a tour on the Nature Boy Railroad, the Birds of Prey demonstration, Parrot Paradise, Elephant Round-Up, and an opportunity to watch the elephants bathe at the lake.

We drove through the Game Reserve in approximately an hour. Rangers keep reminding the visitors to stay in their cars at all times. All of our photos seem to have been taken in low light situation because they have been taken with windows closed. Do not open the windows, as monkeys and baboons won’t hesitate to reach into the car.

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This is my university and is located in Waterloo. It also has campuses in Brantford and Kitchener, Ontario. It is named in honour of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the seventh Prime Minister of Canada. The City of Waterloo is home to both Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo.

Laurier offers a full range of undergraduate and graduate programs in a variety of fields. Laurier is one of the fastest-growing universities in Canada (enrolment more than doubled from 1997 to 2006).

Although the University is comparatively small, it has consistently ranked among Canada's top schools in its category, an honour which is regularly confirmed by Maclean's magazine's annual rankings.

The Laurier School of Business & Economics is the largest faculty within the university with over 4,500 enrolled students and is a strong proponent of co-operative education programs.

Laurier is the current headquarters of the Academic Council of the United Nations System (ACUNS) which was previously hosted by Yale, Brown and Dartmouth. The ACUNS goal is to strengthen the study of international organizations and to create strong ties between the academic community and diplomats within international organizations.

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After watching the DVD we started our journey on discovering the Mennonites through an informative exhibit of photos, artifacts, and displays that describe the history, culture and faith of the Mennonites.

The exhibits take you on a journey of the Mennonite faith as it was practiced previously and in the today’s world, in this region and around the world. The best thing for us was an exhibit area depicting Mennonite faith’s interaction with other religions including Islam. The quotation that supplemented our viewpoint in general about religion was by a group of Islamic scholars, who after interacting with Mennonites declared that these people living the life as it is will surely find abode in Eden as truly blessed people of God.

Group visits can be arranged by appointment and group rates include a guided tour. $4.00 per person donation. We were not asked to pay anything. However, we did pay a token amount as donation.

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The Visitor Centre educates travelers about the Mennonites. We visited this newly refurbished, little known, but definitely a pleasant surprise of an attraction in April 2009. We are sure that many others have since visited it at our recommendation alone LOL.

Finding the Visitor Centre is tricky, although it is located on the most visited street of St. Jacobs that passes right through village centre. Why? The Visitor Centre is located in the same building as the Canada Post Office (see main picture). One can easily miss it.

We began the tour with a multi-media journey, which shows a 13 minute introductory DVD presentation about the Old Order Mennonites. Since this Centre was less known at that time, we were almost all by ourselves, which is a good thing to have when you are trying to learn new things by reading and observing every bit of information and exhibit (see picture # 2).

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St. Jacobs is reported to be Canada’s premier tourism success stories. The village has a small town feel and hosts thousands of visitors each week for different reasons – observing the Mennonites, cultural museums, markets selling fresh produce, or for strolling through the main street shopping for gifts, new pieces of art, intriguing handcrafts and furniture, food, antiques, fashions, toys, etc. Needless to mention, we have visited St. Jacobs for all these reasons on many different occasions.

Tourists arrive by car and by bus, but the town is the home community of many old order Mennonites, who come to town via horse and buggy (see picture). The Mennonite culture is also reflected in many of the craft and gift items for sale in St. Jacobs shops, and there is a fine interpretive centre in the heart of downtown St. Jacobs – “The Mennonite Story,” at the Visitor Centre.

There are over 100 shops on the main street of St. Jacobs and farther afield that are famed for their personal service, for their unique environments and range of unique items. In some artisan shops, you can actually see the craftspeople at work.