Royal Botanical Gardens

The price is too high for such a small place, it should be free, just like the botanical garden is free in Toronto.

The Escarpment Train located in the Rock Garden is an amazing display of G-Scale model trains. Only open on specific holidays and weekends. Check online at the Royal Botanical Gardens website.

My kids And I popped by for a train ride. One of the employees had forgot to charge the battery, so we had to come back the next day. We had lunch at the greenhouse Café both days. The first time we ate there, our meal was good. We had turkey wraps and potato soup with our teas and coffee. You receive five tablespoons of soup for Seven dollars.no, I’m not over exaggerating the cost of the soup or the amount you receive. The soup was good, however, not worth the price. Our wraps were heated up, so the outsides were just a little crispy, but the cheese inside was melted, and the turkey was so warm! The wraps are delicious! The woman serving us was a petite, dark haired girl with glasses. She was very attentive and kind. Upon returning back the next day for our train ride, we stopped by the café once again for lunch afterwards. There were two girls working. One girl, short, heavy set, with dark hair. The other girl was being trained by her. We asked for our wraps to be heated because the trainee had set the wraps down on the counter, cold with no plate. The dark haired girl was making up, excuses to avoid heating up our wraps? She said, they would be “sticky “. She also stated she preferred not to have them heated and rolled her eyes while speaking to us the rest of the time? My boys and I got the impression that she was lazy. She didn’t heat up our muffins and our coffees were cold, despite being poured out of a coffee container? It didn’t seem right for her to make up excuses to be lazy while she was standing around doing absolutely nothing to begin with? I am a RBG member, and in the past have received 10% off at restaurants which is included in my membership. This girl denied the greenhouse café being included in the 10% off discount. She argued with me as to why I was wrong? Even after showing her my membership card, she sneered at me and told the employee she was training, “Do not accept membership cards for 10% off here, it is only allowed at the Turner Pavilion teahouse and the rock Garden bistro”. I feel this dark haired woman needs to be retrained, so she understands what members are paying for as your membership fees are expensive, however, enjoyable. We checked to see who is working at the greenhouse Café before entering from now on. That heavier set, dark haired girl is extremely rude, very unpleasant to be around. Her arguing with us caused us to lose most Of our appetites. I hope management speaks with her

We had a great time and brought the kids on the train around the grounds.

It's definitely smart to bring blankets with you.

Loved spending a day with my mom, sis and niece. We had so much fun, learned and discovered a lot. And of course we took a millions pictures that we will remember forever.
I will definitely return and totally recommend

DJ'd a wedding at the Rock Garden in July 2022 - amazing space, friendly and helpful staff, and great food! Highly recommend this venue!

Many beautiful roses in June and tropical plants. But the trail is quite short. You can buy yearly ticket if visiting so often.

Apparently there are 3 locations and we just visited one and it was all right bit don't make the mistake we did and ask someone and make sure you cover all 3 locations.

You can get a discount with your presto card! Just show them when you're paying for the entry fee.

Very relaxing place to visit, with education about the plants too. This is a great spot for enjoying a variety of plants all in one spot. More curated than a regular park or hiking trails.

What a beautiful gem hidden in the city of Hamilton, Ontario. Need a break from the city, take a drive to the gardens. A peaceful and quiet place to have a picnic.

The winter wonderland experience was excellent for young and old. Thoroughly enjoyed the evening.

Had a great time with the kids looking at the trains and checking out the wide variety of plants.

I've been a member for a few years, and every show (lights, gardens, animals) still surprises me. You can tell the people who work there love it during the events

Winter Wonderland, a must-see! Beautiful light setup outdoors and an amazing indoor train setup.

Beautiful location and wonderful to visit even in fall and winter for indoor gift shop, Cafe and other special events.

Surprised to learn how large the gardens are and diversity abounds. I attended seeing the invisible show and thoroughly enjoyed this unique expression art.
The only disappointment was the gift store, l couldn't find many local products to buy. Too many items were from China.
Will definitely return.

Amazing place for a peaceful walk. Ideally visited in summer but still tons of flowers and photo opportunities in Spring and Fall as well.

A beautiful place, especially as the rose garden has come in. The trails are amazing, and if you're a moderately experienced hiker you can get all over the trails with ease. The gardens are wheelchair accessible.

Simplyv amazing! My wife and I dropped by and were impressed with the layout, the amount of gorgeous plant life and the kind staff. Do yourself a favor and make sure to allocate several hours to this place.

I've been waiting about a month to get a call back on potentially making a group reservation. Every week I call I get the same answer about a delay in responses with bookings. The website promises a call back within 3-5 days, if I recall correctly. If anyone is reading these reviews can you please provide a direct name or number to someone I can call?

Thanks

Great gardens. Augmented reality show was amazing.
Just started raining heavily, gad to leave earlier.

A beautiful place to visit - any season. It was our first time visiting the the largest botanical garden in Canada and one of the largest in the world. It covers 2,700 acres (1,100 hectares). The parks and trails were vast. We only covered part of the property and enjoyed the grounds, both indoor and out on a beautiful sunny fall day.

Highlight of the Ontario botanical garden is the Mediterranean Garden.
Hendrie gardens has nice gardens but I guess my expectations were too high since they are working with local plants and trying to display the variety, I guess this is as good as it gets in Ontario.
Head toward the greenhouse, Mediterranean Garden and royal court

Beautiful gardens. Excellent spot for photography. The gardens are spread out over a large area so its wise to budget time to drive to a few locations around the main indoor garden.

Having been to many botanical gardens including Singapore, Montreal, Dubai, Japan, Brazil, Hawaii, Victoria, etc i was expecting Royal quality gardens.i even went twice to this garden to make sure.in my opinion there's isn't anything much royal about this garden, pretty plain jane and quite small for the pretty penny you pay to get in.the indoor greenhouse area was closed and no reduced price to get in.the structures are descent but overall nothing here is spectacular.it's just ok, like the toronto botanical garden and that's at least free.there's so much that could be done to improve this garden to make it absolutely breathtakingly spectacular, but in the end it's just meh.

One review for this whole place is very hard. There are so many subdivisions I would like to review but all-in-all its a great place for so many different reason. The gardens as a whole are lovely and worth the visit for them alone. They don't change much but there are constant events happening throughout the year with lots of reasons to go back. Recently I went for the "Seeing the Invisible" event. Unfortunately you need to download an app to get the best experience. The app was nearly 1gb and even on their wifi the wait times to download it were a little ridiculous. It would have been nice to have been prompt to download before hand. Luckily they had free-to-use tablets on hand. Weddings here on the other hand are perfect. The venues are gorgeous, the food and service are top notch. So many good things to say and so little bad. If you're from the area, you gotta go.

I TOTALLY love the RBG. I used to come here a lot - but now that I live farther away I seldom come. There have been a lot of changes since I was here last - all looks amazingly wonderful. The RBG is a healthy vibrant and beautiful place to spend time.

Amazing gardens and impressive displays of many types of flora. I would recommend planning an entire day to visit since it is so massive. There is a lot of walking involved if you plan to see everything and I would prepare accordingly

Just got married here a few weeks ago and couldn’t be happier with the team and our venues. All of our guests commented on how beautiful it was. I can’t wait to receive my wedding pictures and see how beautiful the gardens look.

Did not reach our expectations, don't expect to spend more than 1 hour there, with a ticket almost $20 per adult
will not be back again

First place of entry when buying tickets for individuals or families. Tickets bought here will allow visitors to access the 3 other gardens and get access to parking for those as well.

Lovely place and well kept. Definitely takes more than 1 day to see it all.

Summer 2021 visit: Unkept - dead blooms and a lot of areas are closed off. Disappointing visit.

First time visiting and it was a very nice experience. The staff were so helpful and knowledgeable. The walk is very nice and lots of photo opportunity areas. They also has a story book walk which was nice for the kids. The variety of trees and plants is amazing. They have an area with an elevated board walk to go through the trees. Their are lots of benches to sit on while listening to nature. The tea house is cute and the drinks were good. Lots of flowers still in bloom and the sunflowers are beautiful. There are 3 different sites to visit and I personally likes the rock garden the best. I loved the entire walk and it also has a accessible path! You might need more than one day to really look at everything at the gardens. I will be going back!

A beautiful place to go check out, not to far away from Toronto. Lots to learn, and plenty of unique plants with something interesting for everyone

Fantastic place. There were just enough to do and see during the summer months. I've done a lot of the public trail in the area and the gardens themselves provide a different type of experience. Brought our 9 years old nieces and was surprised that the whole experience was not too boring for her haha.

Great place to visit and the flowers are currently blooming. You have to buy tickets to go inside but it is well worth it. You'll get access to all RBG nearby parks

We held our wedding ceremony at Royal Botanical Gardens on July 31st, 2021 and it was an amazing experience. Our ceremony was in the Rose Garden and right from when we first saw it in August 2018, we knew it was the most beautiful and perfect venue. We were forced to postpone our wedding due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the staff at RBG were flexible and worked hard to ensure we had properly moved everything to the new date. Amanda was our contact and she provided constant communication to ensure everything was organized. She was very professional at both the rehearsal and ceremony and everything ran smoothly thanks to her efforts. RBG is a stunning wedding location and we would recommend it anyone as a beautiful ceremony destination.

I booked Hendrie Park and the Mediterranean Garden for wedding photos. I was surprised to find out when arriving that we had to line up in the same line as general admission. Furthermore, I was told that I could book the Mediterranean Garden for a 45-minute window; I wrongly assumed that meant we had private access to it. Instead, they did not even take our name down upon entry and we were trying to take photos avoiding the other patrons walking around. The living wall was great for photos. Being outside, Hendrie Park was more spacious and we had better luck finding good areas for photos. I do not think it is worth the $250 photography fee- you would be better off just showing up and paying the general admission.

It was really cute. A nice place with small details that work great for kids (and in our case even adults!) I think these gardens are best bloomed in spring so that would probably be the time I go next year.

We love RBG! Well maintained, friendly staff and volunteers. Good for adults or kids. They have programs for kids and always rotate through different educational exhibits. We also enjoy the EV chargers in the parking lot!

Beautiful place and big place. They have a trail which i didn’t know when i visited here. So i couldn’t really explore the area since i was just wearing the sandal.

Perfect place for photoshoot.

Many large varied-theme gardens spread across a large area. Visually appealing and lots of information to learn about different plant varieties. There's so much to see that you may not be able to do it all in one day but I highly recommend a visit. One downside is that the café sells drinks in plastic cups that claim to be 100% compostable, but if you do the research on PLA plastics they are pretty bad, and in not that environmentally-friendly, so I recommend RBG look into this and buy better environmentally-friendly cups and utensils.

Nice gardens but overcrowded today. Also used as a wedding venue, 3weddings in the space of 3hrs. Due to this we couldn’t really get around as the wedding photographers were everywhere and you had to be careful and wait around to avoid ruining the pics.

Nice staff and beautiful gardens but would be better to go on a less busier day to enjoy the flowers.

Surprising amounts of wildlife in the little park area. Great experience overall, the general admission is a really worth it for the amount of attractions.

The RBG had many magical places we love going with our kids. Our favourite places include the Rock Garden and the Cherry Hill Gate hike.

With seasonal displays, exhibits & acres of gorgeous protected wetlands, RBG is a local gem for Hamilton & Burlington.

If you're visiting the area it's worth the stop! Grab a hotdog from one of the oldest & most nostalgic hot dog stands in Canada at Easterbrooks (right behind the main building)

If you're looking for a breathtaking oasis, visit the Rock Garden.

If it's not the best weather, visit the main building for the indoor Mediterranean gardens, exhibits & the shops.

If it's Spring you should check out the Arboretum for the largest collection of Lilac trees in bloom!

This is a beautiful place for a walk. I recently visited The Rock during the winter of lights event. I have membership, but I was told that I have to pay 15$ per ticket, as it was a special event, which I did. I was disappointed though, as I expected the lights to be exceptional. They weren't. There was a straight line of lights on the walkways, a train exhibition, and a couple of gas fire pits, and.that was it. In my opinion, not worth paying 75$ for my family tickets. However, I went during Fall and the foliage colors were breathtaking. I highly recommend it. I often like going there to take photos, and there seem to be a plethora of diverse scenery. Just use your creativity. I really recommend that if you decide to visit, then enroll in the membership. I have a family membership, and it gives me access to the entire RBG. You get better value for your money.

Always a fun time.with the differe t exhibits for the kids. I would have given 4 starts but the train exhibit really needs to do something different when they take you out on the train.their Christmas decor is tires, old and looks like it's about to fall apart

The Royal Botanical Gardens is a world-class set of gardens and natural places accessible by hiking trails. The Gardens also provide conservation and research for the natural sciences. My favourites are the various hiking trails with an abundance and variety of wildlife.

We used to go and feed the birds with the kids and there was wildlife everywhere. We went last week and they have "please don't feed the wildlife" signs everywhere and I hardly saw any birds. I find it hard to believe that feeding the birds cause such detriment to the environment.

Love the RBG but was disappointed with the light display at the rock garden. Mostly clear lights along the walkways which drowned out any other effects. Could have been special but main focus seems to be on getting customers safely through and not on executing an interesting artistic vision. Big miss!

Very rare and beautiful place to see plants and this play area for children and you can actually feed the fish koi fish and see trains running around on trestles and tracks at Christmas time and Santa comes there too and they have a train to run around on to go see Santa. Great for kids.

My husband and I had our wedding reception in the Atrium on August 18,2018. Our biggest thanks goes to Robin who helped us get organized, understood our vision and most importantly kept us within our budget. We lucked out by getting the Atrium on a cancellation nine months before our wedding and we could not have been more happier with the way everything turned out. We met with Joel, one of the catering managers, who went over what we had wanted food wise for our reception and then made some very good suggestions. The food was great.we did the barbecue option.and the wait staff just as amazing. They were very attentive and made sure to speak to my husband and I to ensure that everything was going well. I would highly recommend going with ENI Productions as your DJ and ask for Wil. Not only do you receive a discount with them by going through RBG but you will get great music. Wil met with us about a week before the wedding and went over every little thing. I mean every little detail he did not miss a thing. He played the music we wanted and was respectful to the music we did not want. Wil kept the dance floor going all night long and when my step-daughter wanted a Katy Perry song played before she left for the evening he made sure it happened. Now that is a man who loves what he does. The bartenders were fantastic and on point.even stopped some wedding crashers from ordering drinks and had them removed from our space. Our guests were also given free admission to the grounds before the reception started and many were very appreciative of that gesture. It was a beautiful day and it helped our guests fill some time between the wedding ceremony and reception. As you can see, I would highly recommend the RBG for your wedding and/or reception.they will help make all your wedding/reception visions come to life!

World-class gardens. Been a member for 2 years now, and there's always something new to see or do. Great gift shop and charming teahouse. Perfect place to take out of town visitors.

Didn't respond to three inquiries of interest to volunteer, which dragged on for six weeks. Person who finally contacted me sounded listless. The only thing available at the time was to make donation calls, but they offered to pass my interest to a different department. That department didn't contact me (maybe there was nothing available?), and when I followed that up by email (to that department), I didn't hear back.

I like to stop here when I'm out driving g through the west Burlington area, its quiet and serene. Perfect to decompress after a long day driving. Always lots of parking. Hidden gem.

While I enjoyed my visit to the RBG in the past, their events registration is beyond awful. I was looking forward to going to their Great Pumpkin Walk they hold every year. The first time tickets were posted online I spent the better part of an hour beyond frustrated at their system that took more than 5 minutes to load pages, did not properly account for what was being bought, and found myself kicked out to an error page 3 consecutive times upon reaching the payment stage. Their site posted an apology and put up more tickets at a later date, assuring the public the problem would be resolved. When they went back up today absolutely nothing was resolved. Incredibly slow system, was kicked out again several times when at the payment stage, listing system error. While the idea of a pumpkin walk seemed like fun for the whole family, this stressful and ineffective form of ticketing is not worth it whatsoever. They should never use their third party ticket provider again. Truly disappointed.

Short of being on the wilderness trails of Algonquin Park, The Royal Botonical Gardens and the surrounding attractions, wilderness areas, and trails are a wonderful place for all ages. Although it is a wilderness area surrounded by an urban environment it is pleasure to observe nature in all its glory and to discover all the year round expositions and activities as programmed by its staff. If you are planning a visit it is definately worth visiting the website and downloading the guide as there are to many attractions and activities to describe in this review. It is worth getting the yearly membership especially if you like nature. We visit the place 4-5 times a year with our children and grandchildren.

Beautiful grounds, great variety of plants, shrubs, flowers and trees. It's wonderful system of parks to use as inspiration for your own landscaping projects.

My wife had our baby shower here, the venue was beautiful but the service was lacking. After expressing our experience they invited us back for a complimentary lunch at one of their cafes which was nice. The service issue at the shower could've been a one off but nonetheless the shower went well.

Beautiful spring exhibit with flowering hydrangeas. Some seasonal flowers were blooming outdoors. I would recommend going in the early summer for more plant variety.

An excellent place to enjoy the gardens and scenery! A very nice restaurant is available in the garden centre. Great food and wonderful staff.
The gardens and garden centre are very nice, and well worth the price of admission.
Take the time to go to the Rock Gardens just a short drive away!

A lovely weekend experience to view some extraordinary flowers. 18$ for an adult to experience and visualize some of the flowers and foliage they have on display. Although sightly expensive it is still a good experience.

This is one of our favourite Sunday destinations. Every time we go we discover new areas and we find so much inspiration. The main building is full of great activities m, including a kids play area and a Mediterranean greenhouse, but if you venture beyond the main building there is so much to see and do. They also frequently run kids programs that are very well thought out and planned. A great place, even in winter.

Went for music but not my genre. Very nice setting in the outdoor canopy. Food cart is way too expensive and well as the drinks. Would sell much more if take off at least 40% of the prices. And still make decent profit.

The grounds of the RBG are truly a treasure. It's a very beautiful natural place to walk around. The marshlands are very extensive, and fascinating, full of tall bullrush-like vegetation, and scores of highly interesting creatures like ducks. You should go!