Well we finally did it. We booked a trip to NYC and even decided to spend one night there.
It was little hectic as we drove down to New Haven, CT to catch a train (Metro-North) into the city during a week-day. I purchased the tickets ahead of time and recommend it in case it gets busy. I purchased off-peak tickets to save a bit with the whole family.
My goal was to get to see the Grand Central Station – as it’s been depicted in many movies: The Day After Tomorrow and most recently I AM LEGEND or at least the Times Square part was.
You can’t go to the city without at least taking in a Broadway play if you hadn’t seen one. We truly wanted to see WICKED but unfortunately it’s usually a sell out and I wasn’t able to obtain tickets for the booked day.
We took a family vote and the next best choice we saw was Phantom of the Opera.
As tourists we choose the All Classic New York Sightseeing choice by double-decker bus (open top). We could not have chose a better week in New York weather wise it was 70-75 both days and the evening was also perfect.
Lots of walking around Times Square day and night (especially was awesome) all lit up.
Places we actually stopped were: Battery Park, Liberty Island (we were too late and the crowd was incredible to reach Ellis Island), Ground Zero (under heavy construction), Strawberry Fields in Central Park, The Dakota Building and of course our Hotel the Beacon.
The bus ride took a large chunk of our time because it was a long loop and its supposed to be hop on and hop off, well the problem is the buses that come around every 30 minutes are also pretty full so good luck hopping on.
Aya was excited and tired all wrapped in one – I’ve never been to Tokyo but I can only imagine its similar or maybe more jam packed with people.
Key Points and opinions:
Train ride to NYC was about 1.2 hours- Grand Central was pretty open in the center and had some nice ceiling paintings, believe it to be Astrological.
Bus ride is only nice on the 2nd deck and if there is room.- Taxi rides were crazy and a disadvantage with 5 people as they can only take 4 (so double fare) two cabs.
- Lots of walking is tiring (no wonder New Yorkers are fairly thin)
- Time Square is awesome looking at night
- NYC Planet Hollywood restaurant isn’t all that (food and service poor)
- NYC Hard Rock Café food and service was really good, we enjoyed the singer/band item contributions displayed (have been to quite a few HR and this is one of the better ones)
- To see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Isle I would recommend going first thing, as we somehow with the slow buses didn’t make it in time, even though we pre-purchased our tickets. So we only got to see the Statue and even then you have to buy another ticket for the museum to get to go into the base (only) as now there are restrictions to entering the statue. Also the security check point prior to the ferry was annoying.
- Ground Zero was just a big hole with lots of construction, not sure what I expected but thought there would be more to it like a shrine. There is a tribute place but they were charging 10 bucks a head (that’s not fair)
- Strawberry Fields – was nice but smaller than I imagined
- The Dakota Building was nice: My wife is a big Beatles Fan and basically mourned at the site of where John was shot. Ironically we spoke of wanting to meet Yoko as we had heard she still lives there. Lo and behold she comes walking up the side walk and passed us! We didn’t realize it until it was too late – hat and dark sun-glasses. My wife was shocked and felt blessed to come close to someone that close to John Lennon.
- We missed our opportunity to go in the Ladies Shopping district along 5th Ave and Macy’s multi-floor store. (maybe lucky for me)
- The M&M Store was nice (the girls loved it)
- The Virgin Music store was 3 floors of cool music items and books.
- The Phantom of the Opera was amazing (I was surprised as I figured it to be an old outdated play and boring). Little hard to understand the Opera songs, though in English.
- Empire State Building: Long lines, security check points and long wait. (Will never try it again until I want to kill 2-3 hours) our problem was we tried to squeeze it in before the train home and was stuck with the clock ticking. Another series of unfortunate events was we opted to take the last 6 stories up to the deck because the elevator line was going to be delayed. [needless to say we are out of shape – we were completely out of breath] – it gave you an appreciation of what the NYC Firefighters had to do while entering the Trade Towers stairs for rescue.
- McDonald’s (world’s largest eat-in) was awesome in lighted marquee but reminded me of a Night Club because they played videos projected on every wall.
All-in-all it was a fun experience up to the very end, when we were offered a Limo ride to the train station which seemed to be normal. They too want to make money anyway they can and was better than grabbing two taxis to split up 5 people.
When all was said and done, we arrived home somewhere around 3 a.m. Woot!
