This was an amazing end to a day at Ontario Place. The Chinese Lantern Festival runs until October 7th this year, and it's definitely worth checking out.

Every night, over 40 enormous lanterns light up - from Chinese dragons and stories behind legends to cute pandas and logos for the next Olympic Games. We enjoyed Chinese acrobatics and a soundtrack of Asian music as we sampled familiar food in a seemingly perfect setting.

The crafts on sale were amazing - you could pick up a parasol or learn how to make a lantern for yourself as you walked along wondering just how long it took to make each massive display.

If you're planning to go to Ontario Place also, try to do this on the same day: it makes admission much cheaper. Whether discounted or full price, however, this is something you don't want to miss!

Information line: (866) 660-8996.

Families with young children will love Ontario Place - a great place to cool off on a hot summer's day. We arrived at 5pm and were entertained for some hours, especially in the water park - everything else is geared much more towards kids.

Queues weren't very long for all the steep slides and - what was best of all - you could go down them together - it's always more fun when someone's there to scream with you!

We were hungry and kept going at Pizza Pizza, Toronto's ubiquitous takeaway place. The food was pricey but, unlike Canada's Wonderland, I think you could probably take your own in okay.

It cost us $33.50 for each adult admission and that was with the west of the park closing for the Chinese Lantern Festival later on. A word of advice - if you're going to this buy your tickets once inside Ontario Place - it was much cheaper than buying both entry plus park rides right at the door.

It was easy to reach Ontario Place via subway and streetcar, but we elected to walk along the waterfront on our way - tiring but really pretty to watch the canoers and bigger boats.

On a hot day I'd definitely go back to Ontario Place. Not as big as Canada's Wonderland but much more convenient to Downtown Toronto, with fewer queues and a fun waterpark inside!