Family Weekend in Winterpeg

Back in December, we decided to book a trip to Winnipeg on impulse since we wanted to see most of Canada before we leave. We were debating on Newfoundland & Labrador versus Winnipeg but we decided on the latter because we had friends there to couch surf with and it's been almost 5 years since we saw each other last. 

And it turned out for the best because we had so much fun!

So I'm sharing our 3-day winter itinerary in case anyone wants to do the same:

Day 1: February 14, 2026

8:05am - Flight from YYZ to YWG via Air Canada

9:49am (local time) - Should've arrived in Winnipeg but we had to be diverted since it was too foggy to do a safe landing and we were running out of fuel. Unfortunately the nearest airport was in Minnesota so technically we landed on US soil even if we didn't deplane. Because of this, we had to go through immigration upon landing despite being on a domestic flight. 

Over all it was a 4-hour delay so everybody was hungry, cranky and scrambling to update family and their reservations - which was difficult since we had no data.

2:00pm - Tims stop of course

2:30pm - Maze in a Corn! We did the Snowmaze, tubing, saw ice sculptures and watched a stand up slash fire-eating number. 

7:00pm - Valentine's night (adults only) at The Leaf

Day 2: February 15, 2026

11:30am - Cheerleaders at my godson's Filipino basketball league practice

1:00pm - Human Rights Museum

3:00pm - Snacked on pizzas and coffee at The Forks Market. I tried their Black Forest Cappuccino and it didn't disappoint!

5:00pm - Ice skated and ice cycled at The Forks' River trail! Now that was hella funnnnnn! I fell down once and my Aritzia long puffer made it hard to move but we had so much fun playing there.

Ice skate rentals were $8 a pair and you have to leave an ID. Ice bicycles were rented out by the hour.

7:50pm - We took a leisure walk towards the Esplanade Riel Bridge and took our pictures by the Winnipeg sign. There was also a skating trail there but it was much smaller than the one on the frozen river.

8:30pm - Valentine's slash Anniversary slash Family Day dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory

Day 3: February 16, 2026

12:00pm - We went to the Assiniboine Zoo to gawk at bisons, muskox, elk and most especially, the polar bears! The enclosure felt a little bit like Jurassic Park with the electric fencing at the top. 

4:30pm - Headed back to YWG to do an early check in. Air Canada's doing credit card holds now if you do online check in without carry ons - which sucks btw - but I read online you can avoid this by doing the check-in in person. First it was the charging extra for carry ons, now it's additional holds for assuming you're bringing bags bigger than a personal item *grrrr* I'll be avoiding air travel for now until I find a better alternative.

7:20pm - Flight back to YYZ