Everything & Anything New York City

duchy

Vikki_74 wrote: »

Would definately consider Priceline if it works well for New York - used it for a couple of stops on our California trip last year so I'm familiar with the process. We're not too fussed about which area we stay in so could be a good option.

I used Hotwire a bit last year too - how does that usually fare for New York hotels, any good deals to be had? I've already had a quick look on there for various dates around that time but nothing great is coming up, may be more on there closer to the time though.



This does sound tempting I must say! Normally I'm all about saving money on hotel rooms and wouldn't care too much where we stayed (in LA for example, we stopped in Pasadena rather than anywhere in downtown LA/Hollywood/Beverly Hills etc itself as it was loads cheaper and only a 15-20 minute drive to most of the places we wanted to visit), but I'm just a bit concerned that being more out of the way in NYC might mean missing some of the atmosphere of the city itself.

It sounds like one way or another we should be able to afford something though which is the main thing! I can continue with my planning and getting excited thing now :j

Oh good I'm glad you "get" the priceline thing. I find people either get it or are totally freaked by it :rotfl: Works very well in New York as the bidding areas are quite small. I used PL twice in LA for Anaheim -got the same hotel a year apart -and the staff remembered us. I've honestly never had a bad 3 or 4 star hotel from them in the US (did get an iffy 2 star once but serves me right for going too cheap LOL) Obviously keep an eye on betterbidding and bidding fortravel to see what bids people are getting . There's a new tool someone is the US is currently beta testing which does the free bid areas for you-He's using flyertalk users as beta testers if you want to hop over there and have a look.

I understand what you mean about losing the big city buzz -there is nothing near the East Rutherford hotel except a reasonable resturant opposite (who did takeout too-handy when exhausted). To be honest though it was nice to return somewhere slightly sane and recharge before re entering the manicness of manhattan again the next day.......Oh and shopping in NJ is a bargain as they don't have the higher taxes of NY.

I flew into Newark and I used the Meadowlands shuttle direct to the hotel for $10 or $15 (Oh yes if you want to catch a game the Meadowlands stadium is very close) but it's easy enough from JFK some of my friends came in that way. Hotel we stayed at was the Residence Inn which is owned by Marriott -so great standard -lovely beds and you could even hold a cancellable reservation there whilst waiting to see if any Manhattan deals appear !

Hotwire is always a bit higher than priceline prices -but still usually a good deal but as you say -sometimes they just don't seem to have the availability til quite late on.

*pinkie*

phatbear wrote: »

On the yankees front i found the best place for tickets is stub hub.

However some words of warning:

Baseball is the most boring dragged out game known to man, add to that theres no real atmosphere, unlike football, rugby etc.
It can be uber expensive if you buy anything at yankee stadium
If you want a beer dont forget your i.d as regardless of how old you look you will be carded.

Saying that its an experience and the yankees are the man utd of the baseball world

I have to disagree i find football more boring! I went to see a Yankee game a few years ago and i thought there was a great atmosphere! I bought my tickets over the internet at ticket master and picked them up at the stadium. Think me and my friend paid about £30 each but there are various prices depending on where you sit.

Judderman_2

Apologies haven't been online for the last couple of days, but to those that asked, it was £940 per person for 7 nights (Flights with BA from Newcastle to Heathrow to NYC - Return; staying at The Carlton Hotel) with Expedia between the dates of 31st May and 7th June. Tried doing it all separately, but rooms at the Carlton were nearly the same price as the entire Expedia price, so gathered it was a decent deal.

Makes a big difference from the last time I was in New York, staying at the Hostelling International New York.

SirAlfonso

Vikki_74 wrote: »

Evening everyone!

After what seems like days of reading I've finally reached the end of this thread - haven't tackled the previous instalments yet as I think my head may explode with all the information on here!

We are in the very early stages of planning this year's holiday - looking at about 2 weeks in total, definately in the US somewhere and hopefully including New York for at least a few days, but when I've been trying to roughly price things up I'm completely shocked at the prices. I know NY is notoriously expensive and don't think I'm completely out of touch with hefty city hotel prices having visited San Francisco and LA last year but :eek: Ideally we'd be looking at a budget of about £100 a night, could stretch to more like £120-£130 if I budget a bit carefully elsewhere but this just doesn't seem to be possible from what I've seen so far.

Our dates aren't confirmed yet but we're looking at sometime in mid to late September - is this a really expensive time to visit or is something going on in the city around that time that anyone is aware of? Has anyone been at this time of year and can advise roughly what you would expect to pay for a mid-range kind of hotel room? We stayed in a combination of various chain places in California - Holiday Inn, Embassy Suites, Best Western - as well as a few nice independent places so not looking for anything really fancy.

Just to give you an idea (I've been using 26/09 to 01/10 as our rough dates for comparison), having looked at some of the hotels mentioned here, the New Yorker is coming out at $374.25 a night, the Cosmopoliitan is $279.00 for a king room (no way we will both sleep squeezed into a cheaper double), the Pod Hotel is $309.00 and nyma is $299.24. And these are all prices before taxes etc are added!

I'm not looking to book anything right now and am more than happy to keep trawling the net for deals closer to the time (did that until a couple of weeks before we left last year trying to get better and better offers!) if it's likely something will come up more within our budget, but don't want to get to the stage of booking flights etc and getting all excited about going to NYC if there's no way we'd be able to afford it!

Any input from the experts on here would be much appreciated

P.S. I have looked into the option of staying out of Manhattan, in New Jersey etc, but as it would be our first trip I'd prefer to stay properly in the city if we can - also think I'd find it a pain not being able to nip back to the hotel easily of an afternoon and so on.

Hi Vikki,

You may be interested in the friends and family discount for the IHG group:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1535105

The best deal for your dates seems to be the Holiday Inn Express by Madison Square Garden. $159 plus tax a night for a king bed with whirlpool tub. The free breakfast might come in handy too.

Vikki_74

M4RKM wrote: »

Vicky - are you sure about that quote for the Cosmopolitan. I've not known them to have any King beds in the rooms, and all the ones i've stayed in have only had a standard double bed. There are rooms with 2 double beds, however, they could have changed the config. Other hotels to price up might be things like the Gem Hotel (there are 3 throughout Manhattan), or you could go with more boutique offerings, especially if there some deals on. The POD hotel at $309 a night? no chance. I stayed in NYC that kinda time in September 2010, and got a room (albeit at the Hotel Le Jolie in Brooklyn, one stop out of Manhattan) for about $190 a night. looking on quikbook, Distrikt hotel is $275 a night, The Hotel on Rivington (a gorgeous boutique hotel in the LES) is $311 a night.

These are standard rack rates, but it's always recommended to find something you like, book it as long as it is cancellable, and keep an eye out for bargains!

For the Cosmo, there are a number of room options with double beds then a king room which is $40 extra per night...this is the right place isn't it?

http://www.cosmohotel.com/

duchy wrote: »

...you could even hold a cancellable reservation there whilst waiting to see if any Manhattan deals appear!

That's not a bad idea actually - at least then we'd know for sure we had somewhere decent to stop, even if it is out of the city, in case no bargain prices come up.

SirAlfonso wrote: »

Hi Vikki,

You may be interested in the friends and family discount for the IHG group:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1535105

The best deal for your dates seems to be the Holiday Inn Express by Madison Square Garden. $159 plus tax a night for a king bed with whirlpool tub. The free breakfast might come in handy too.

Ooh thanks, I'd forgotten about the F&F offer - $159 sounds really good especially for a HI Express, think their free brekkie is great.

Sounds like we may have options for finding something decently priced after all - yey :j

My_Fathers_Daughter

duchy wrote: »

Wow how long are you planning to take driving down -a thousand miles is one heck of a trip with kids <are we there yet????> -have you got particular stops in mind ?

We reckon 7 days should just about cover it but we are open to anything. MIL's villa is just there when we want it so we can stay there a week or just a couple of nights, it doesn't matter. I am not particularly interested in any of the parks in Florida (although Hubby and DSS are!) so we will prob only do 1, 2 at most (DSS is going back to Florida in August with his mum lucky thing, so we want to leave some stuff for her to do with him).

We want to see Washington (well the White House) and the National Zoo for the Giant Pandas, and Kitty Hawk. Other than that we are easy!!

We reckon no more than 200 miles per day, timed to mostly coincide with the toddlers naptimes (he likes 2 or 3 hours still!) and a willingness to stop at a moments notice (the fewer interstates the better!) and we will have loads of fun!

Vikki_74 wrote: »

I can't help out with the New York aspect as I'm yet to go myself, but was wondering whether there's any particular reason why you wanted to drive down to Florida? Is there something you wanted to see or places you wanted to stop on the way? If not, JetBlue have some pretty good fares (around $100 pp each way - not sure if children are cheaper) for internal flights to various airports in Florida from New York. There's also an Amtrak route http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?c=AM_Route_C&pagename=am%2FLayout&cid=1237608339450 but the trip is 20+ hours - would let you see some of the scenery on the way down but not sure I fancy this with two children in tow!

LOL - the fun is in the travelling, I wouldn't even be flying back to NY if we had more time! Having said that we have good kids so I wouldn't want to do it if I had

I did Amtrak from NY to Boston last time we were there and would HIGHLY recommend it! We did Business Class for about £40 each! But I wouldn't do it with kids! Especially for 20+ hours - eep!!!



I have lost the reply about it being expensive to hire cars from the airport - inital 'off the top of my head' quote was £600 for a fortnight for a big car with sat nav, baby seat and drop off in Florida. I thought that was okay - although I know it can be beaten - that is my next challenge!

I will be checking out public transport to somewhere near JFK to hire a car though (possibly to spend our first night) to see how much difference it make so thanks for the tip.

And I will definitely check out the Mave - thanks Johnny

M4RKM

Vikki_74 wrote: »

For the Cosmo, there are a number of room options with double beds then a king room which is $40 extra per night...this is the right place isn't it?

http://www.cosmohotel.com/

Yup.. right website. I've just never booked through them directly, as a standard bed did the trick for me, as it was cheaper to book through hotelconxions.com

For the money, I think you can do better, and personally, I wouldn't prepay anything.

M4RKM

My_Fathers_Daughter wrote: »

I have lost the reply about it being expensive to hire cars from the airport - inital 'off the top of my head' quote was £600 for a fortnight for a big car with sat nav, baby seat and drop off in Florida. I thought that was okay - although I know it can be beaten - that is my next challenge!

I will be checking out public transport to somewhere near JFK to hire a car though (possibly to spend our first night) to see how much difference it make so thanks for the tip.

It is much cheaper if you leave the city. Thing is, where most people recommend, is the wrong direction, White Plains (on the Metro North) line is one of the recommendations.

I'd have a look at a map of the NJ Transit System, and maybe consider flying into Newark, renting a car somewhere in NJ, as it makes more sense geographically, as you're going to start driving south straight away. Maybe somewhere like Perth Amboy, as it is a NJ Transit train route, and also reasonably near the I-95 for heading south. See if that makes your figures work out better.

I would also ditch the idea of renting a sat nav. for that length of time, you'll probably find it cheaper to buy one, add on East Coast USA Maps, and you'll still save money..

M

My_Fathers_Daughter

M4RKM wrote: »

It is much cheaper if you leave the city. Thing is, where most people recommend, is the wrong direction, White Plains (on the Metro North) line is one of the recommendations.

I'd have a look at a map of the NJ Transit System, and maybe consider flying into Newark, renting a car somewhere in NJ, as it makes more sense geographically, as you're going to start driving south straight away. Maybe somewhere like Perth Amboy, as it is a NJ Transit train route, and also reasonably near the I-95 for heading south. See if that makes your figures work out better.

I would also ditch the idea of renting a sat nav. for that length of time, you'll probably find it cheaper to buy one, add on East Coast USA Maps, and you'll still save money..

M

Are you sure about that? The difference in price was about $40 dollars for 2 weeks last time we rented one....

Flights are already booked into JFK so I will be heading from there....but probably not on the I-95 if we can help it!



Edit - just checked 1 company and it is an additional £70 for 2 weeks...might look into borrowing a satnav and paying to upgrade maps to take with us but I don't think buying will be an option if we hire from the airport...(it is only looking marginally cheaper (less than £100 even with the top spec car) so we have to balance the simplicity with the cost - definitely need to investigate more!)

Savvy_Sue

My_Fathers_Daughter wrote: »

I have lost the reply about it being expensive to hire cars from the airport - inital 'off the top of my head' quote was £600 for a fortnight for a big car with sat nav, baby seat and drop off in Florida. I thought that was okay - although I know it can be beaten - that is my next challenge!

I will be checking out public transport to somewhere near JFK to hire a car though (possibly to spend our first night) to see how much difference it make so thanks for the tip.

M4RKM wrote: »

It is much cheaper if you leave the city. Thing is, where most people recommend, is the wrong direction, White Plains (on the Metro North) line is one of the recommendations.

and there are two reasons I'd suggest you balance against it being in the wrong direction:

1. the Hertz depot is closer to the station than the taxi rank at just about any UK rail station I've ever used, so INCREDIBLY easy to find and get to with luggage
2. the traffic is really quiet and easy: US driving for beginners ... much easier than driving away from JFK! there are probably many other places that applies to, but I know about that one!