Anything & Everything New York (PART 2) - [please search thread before posting]

Sammy_Dee

Hey guys

Quick question to all you NY boffs ...

I fly out on the 2nd of Feb (eeek!) with Hubby for 7 days, 6 nights

We hope to have

£440 spending money from me
£100 from hubby

and have $150 in pot that friends have given us.

We're not overly interested in shopping (this time around!) as it's our first visit and we want to concentrate on sight seeing

I'm concerned that this won't be enough cash though .....

Thoughts please?


I could probably raise another £50 and hubby could do the same giving a grand total of

£640 + $150


(I booked and paid for the trip as a surprise and have been saving away secretly .... )

phatbear

May be easier to start off by converting it all to $'s at the mo £540 will get you $854 + your $150 from the pot = $1000'ish

So $1000 divided by 7 = $142 per day, an average evening meal with a drink will set you back approx $80 to $100, but again if you are happy with fast food then this can be vastly reduced.

However there is a problem with your question, have you factored in transport to and from the airport in that money, what kind of food are you happy eating? when you say sight seeing are you happy looking or do you wanna do.

For instance if you are happy looking at esb rather than going up you will save cash, if your happy with the staten island ferry rather than landing on liberty island you'll save cash etc etc.

I love shopping and on the last trip i took about £1000, and the Mrs the same, spending money and myself and Mrs phatbear had £500 for food, for me her and 2 kids, and that was for 5 days 4 nights.

pcg2001

Hi, sammy_dee,

since you mention this budget, I can assume you really can't / don't want to go over that amount, so you are aiming for a moneysaving trip. So I will share some of the tips from our 10 night trip to NYC, which I tried to keep as cheap as possible, though I did not have a set budget. We had breakfast included and internet (I was able to print free in the hotel any coupons and vouchers I found while in NY), so this helped save a bit. There was coffee, tea and hot chocolate in the lobby so I often made iced tea or coffee to drink instead of buying water (yes, that's how stingy I am. The Mr can get a bit exasperated!) - we also had tea making facilities in the room.

Note I am just recycling tips other people shared in here with me!

phatbear is already pointing you in the right direction with the idea there are loads of stuff you can do for free:
- staten island ferry
- the Metropolitan museum and the natural history have a pay as you'd like policy and well as the Guggenheim (specific dates or everytime, depends).
- if you're interested in the financial district: the fed has a free tour (book on their website) including the gold vault.
- occasionally last minute availibity for tickets to the colbert report and the daily shows up on their website. I was a faithful visitor before securing tickets to both, and saw tickets for the same day or next day appear.
- the tour of the central libray is free and you just need to show up

and of course crossing the brooklyn bridge is free, central park, central station, etc

cheaper ideas:

- is one of you younger than 35? hiptix offers tickets for $20 to selected plays for one younger than 35 plus a companion. often I get emails with $10 offers.

- we often shared a sandwich or pizza in the hotel and got drinks from a convenience store. In Carnegie Deli and the stage deli you pay extra if you share, plus the tip off course. that way we saved some cash for the cheesecake slice we shared as well in the hotel. One of the best and cheapest meal I had in NY was the clam chowder soup in the Oyster bar BAR (not restaurant) at central station which was $6 plus tax and tip (each), but came with cold water, crackers, a biscuit (scone?) and butter, and a wonderful athmosphere!

Tax and tip do add up and meals really added up, so eating in fast food restaurants and taking out can save some cash after a week in NY. I actually found the burgers at wendy's similar to the shake shacks and cheap!

For other tips, as well as links to discounts, etc, have a look at my trip report at tripadvisor, which I mentioned a few pages back about someone's shopping questions (not for cod!): http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g60763-i5-k3024719-Trip_report_31_July_to_10_August-New_York_City_New_York.html I don't have time to find the links for the stuff I mention here, but they should be fairly easy to find. The purseblog and fatwallet forums were great for finding coupons and vouchers - a bit like MSE over there. That's how I found about the free travel mini at the Bath and body works, the 241 at Johnny Rockets, the free iced mocha at mcdonald's, the extra macy's discounts, etc.

Finally, if this is the first of many trips to NY you plan, do leave the expensive stuff for next time and that way you will be able to stay on budget. And plan. I think the key to saving money abroad is to plan ahead and be prepared.

phatbear

pcg2001 wrote: »

I actually found the burgers at wendy's similar to the shake shacks and cheap!

Stop it!!!! thats like comparing a bentley turbo with a ford mondeo shake shack rocks, and their concretes are close to perfection. Not a huge fan of wendys, sure its cheap but pah! not for me.

We would normally have fast food or subway etc for lunch and grab bottles of water on the hoof to keep the spending down, then spent extra on dinner, however saying that some of the best dinners have been cheap slices of pizza

bb69

wept wrote: »

Don't trust everything you read on Tripadvisor - we ate there and it was brilliant!

Went there for my 30th and actually was lovely! nice food (not spectacular , but tasty) , great cocktails and amazing desserts!!

The only downside was that it was a foggy day so couldnt see much apart from the W hotel oh and the odd wall :rotfl:

Would defo go there again

bb69

thatsfabulous wrote: »

Heres a link for some of the most popular midtown hotels:
http://www.newyorkcitytravels.com/maps/nyc-midtown-hotels-map.html

If you want to see the distance from any hotels to say times sqaure, if you go onto google map and type in the two addresses they will give you directions and how long it will take to walk. This was a god send to me on my last trip when i wanted to go to non tourist shops/places so I printed off the directions before hand and followed them when i was there.


I am the BIGGEST sex and the city fan ever, however I have never done the tour. I have heared its good heres the link off the HBO website i'd go with this one as its come direct from HBO:
http://www.screentours.com/tour.php/satc/

My resasons for never doing it is that its 3 1/2 hours long and I have just never had the spare time in my itenerary to do it plus I think alot of the places you can go to yourself without paying $44 for someone to show you. The amount of places you stumble across and recognise is unbelieveable.
For example New york public Libary- from the movie and also breakfast at tiffany along with many other movies its such a beautiful building which you will probably go into anyway, Magnolia Bakery- theres one midtown now right near Radio City no need to go to soho to see it although I have seen soho one too, cupcakes are just as good in either. Jimmy Choo, Dior, Tiffany etc All in midtown you will go past them. Staten Island Ferry- "Where there's smoke" the girls went on it when carrie was judging the fireman calendar contest.
Then theres wall street which was the first episode back after carrie had her baby and shes running to open the stock exchange, when in wall street you can see the subway she got off at and the NY stock exchange.

Soo many places so if you dont have time you will get to see many places on your own.

Edit: Ohh also theres a HBO shop too right near the new york public libary which sells all sex and the city & other HBO programs merchandise.

I agree and I also found Carrie's apartment - Perry Street suprisingly small street.

bb69

Sammy_Dee wrote: »

Hey guys

Quick question to all you NY boffs ...

I fly out on the 2nd of Feb (eeek!) with Hubby for 7 days, 6 nights

We hope to have

£440 spending money from me
£100 from hubby

and have $150 in pot that friends have given us.

We're not overly interested in shopping (this time around!) as it's our first visit and we want to concentrate on sight seeing

I'm concerned that this won't be enough cash though .....

Thoughts please?


I could probably raise another £50 and hubby could do the same giving a grand total of

£640 + $150


(I booked and paid for the trip as a surprise and have been saving away secretly .... )

Whereabouts are you staying?

Sammy_Dee

Thanks for the tips so far guys!
You're right, we can't really go over budget, some unexpected emergencies cropped up and restricted our spending power! (Boo)

We're staying at the Hotel Belleclaire,

We were lucky in the respect that our good friend bought us tickets to see Phantom of the Opera on Broadway as our Christmas pressie - so we have 1 thing under our belt!

Our "must see" list consists of

Natural history museum
Central Park Zoo
Empire State Building
Statue of Liberty
NY police museum
Times Square
Tiffany's


We can eat fast food no probs! Hotel is room only though ....

Sammy_Dee

Our hotel transfers are sorted too

pcg2001

phatbear wrote: »

Stop it!!!! thats like comparing a bentley turbo with a ford mondeo shake shack rocks, and their concretes are close to perfection. Not a huge fan of wendys, sure its cheap but pah! not for me.

Yes, the concretes were wonderful, the curly fries as well, but I did not find our burger or hotdog that special, good but they did not match my expectation. Maybe because it was over so quick since we were starving and they are quite small. The concrete was divine and made up for it. As for Wendy's I was surprised they used a similar type of bun (brioche) for their burgers and I found them quite tasty. (But for me the best burgers are the ones I make at home ) Of course this has to do with expectations: over-the-top expectations for Shake Shack and low expectations for Wendy's!! Having said that, I'll be back to shake shack next time every chance I get!!