Everything & Anything New York City

Matt2389

M4RKM wrote: »

I'd only just landed in NYC and couldn't sleep. My excuse for this reply, is that I've only just woken up, and about the jump in the shower, and admire the view of the brooklyn bridge (yes, at the same time!) http://t.co/JEGZogk http://twitpic.com/474zps

and before you ask about the hotel, this has to be one of the most comfortable beds I've ever slept on thanks to being a proper Tempur Mattress. I have sofa in the room, plus a soaking tub along with the shower. A balcony, floor to ceiling windows, great view of downtown manhattan, cookies on turndown service, the most amazing and crazy mini bar known to man, ipod/iphone dock (pumping out the tunes as I type).

Not bad for $200 a night ($125)

M

What hotel is this M?

Georgy

phatbear wrote: »

Thats a nice compact little cluster and all easily walkable too.

Am I right in thinking get the subway to Brooklyn High Street (is it called the AC line?!) and then find a footpath to the bridge?

greenface

brooklyn bridge is walkable from the cosmo.if you fancy it .

Areta

just got back from 6 days / 5 nights little write up on what we did, hope its of use to some of you!

Flew into Newark from Man with Continental - first time with Continental and well impressed, no hassle, decent leg room and the IFE was brilliant, loads of movies, tv programmes, games etc and music albums, even had kings speech and black swan movies showing

Newark's not bad, be careful when getting your return flight if your cabbing it, we gave it 3 hours (flight back was 10.15pm) and we left the hotel at 6.15pm) and we only made it by 5 mins, it was gridlock although our cabbie was a complete !!!!! and i nearly decked him, went lincoln tunnel, changed his mind, went holland tunnel changed his mind, and !!!!!!! ended up going over the Geroge Washington bridge!!!!

Stayed in the W in Times Sq, great location and surprisingly quiet considering where it was - Times Sq is as expected a tourist trap and you get hounded by Comedy Store and wannabe rappers - just tell em to do one

A great place for cheap quality food is Whole Foods, its a supermaket but with buffet areas where you pay by the amount you take and they have seating area's the food is immense, we went the one at Columbus Circle (in time warner building) and in Union Sq

If you do go by Columbus Circle defo go for a drink in the Mandarian Oriental Hotel Bar, its on the 35th floor and got belter views on Central Park

I knew it was still in previews but really wanted to see Spiderman the musical - and its unreal! the first half is basically the story of Spiderman and in my opinion the 2nd half story is poor (they have prob changed it again by now) but the music and the way the Spidermans fly all over the place has got to be witnessed, its jaw dropping, we sat in the dress circle slightly to the left and Spiderman kept coming up by us and jumping over the balcony into the air so there decent seats

food wise, Dallas BBQ is ace for something big cheap and quick near times sq
shulas steakhouse is lovely but pricey
da nico is little italy is lovely
and I have got to tell you about the best burger joint around, all the rappers rap about it and its pretty under the radar - its in le parker meridian, down a little side section behind a curtain and just a neon burger sign outside, its tiny but the burgers are the best I have ever had, burger and drink portions are UK size but you get LOADS of gorgeous fries too, if you like burgers you have to go

other highlights
seeing the view from the brooklyn point (by grimaldis)
exploring soho, greenwich & meat packing (my fave areas)
having a good look around Central Park - worth a long walk around!

Also google PDT NYC - please don't tell - check it out !!!

greenface

Google Please dont tell !!!!! SSSccchhhuuusssshhh . I have banged on about New York Speakeasys for a good 2 years . If you are a fan of New York bars and history through the ages and prohibition laws . Look up either on line or better still enjoy the mystery of Speakeasys (I managed to have a decent night out while others went to madame tussades and had the choice of finding NYC LFC Bar which i still have to tick that box or enjoy the speakeasys of NYC . Found one called the Back Room or Backroom enjoyed a few beers and got talking to a Irish bloke who told me of another by our hotel Hyatt GCS didnt find that so just hit a few bars around Grand Central Station Before bed. Speakeasys are a grown up version of a good treasure hunt

M4RKM

please don't tell is just a tourist trap these days, it isn't a secret any more, the good places are where the locals drink, and don't need to have a "scene" around them.

georgy, yeah, the best thing to do is hop on the subway through to BK, and head back into Manhattan. I can see the Bridge from my window right now..

what hotel am i staying at i hear you ask Matt - well, it is the Hotel on Rivington, and rather spiffing and grand it is. I'll get some photos taken of the room, Just been onto my balcony and got some of the view..

edit, just had a knock on the door.. yay.. chocolate chip cookies today...

M

Matt2389

Thanks Mark..let me take a look

ess0two

Georgy wrote: »

Am I right in thinking get the subway to Brooklyn High Street (is it called the AC line?!) and then find a footpath to the bridge?

Exit subway at High street,cross the road,take the path through a small park? which leads to the access steps to the bridge.

Alwaysthinking_2

UPDATE.

Just to follow on from M4RKM and Greenface's advice, here is a brief of what we did etc etc on our AMAZING trip to NYC (my new favourite place to be!).

First of all I massively underestimated what time we'd have to cover the area as we wanted! I can only appologise to M4RKM but we didn't get the opportunity to cover any of the epic pub crawl at all. I don't really mind as it's on the list for our second visit. We have just GOT to go again.

Sat - Arrived JFK 20:05, ended up just queuing for taxi to hotel, (Affinia Dumont, 150E 34th St). Instantly upgraded to 1 bedroom suite upon check in as our orignial booking for junior suite was overbooked and that the check in lady said she wanted to make our first visit a good one! how good is that???? The room was MASSIVE to say the least and we'll definitely stay there next time. Dumped our bags and headed out to checkout the locality for half and hour. Found a small pizza place near esb on 33rd, Big Georges Pizza which was great. Took Pizza back to room and crashed!

Sun - Up and breakfast in the Barking Dog (part of hotel - joined but next door) which was very nice food, very filling and the perfect start to our LONG day. Free coffe refils helped a lot. Got tube from 33rd street after buying a $10 ticket (4 trips - as our itinerary didn't need any more that this) to get down to Battery park. Bit of a !!!! up as we got off at Brooklyn Bridge station (train announcement said it terminated here!) and walked West to the sea! (my thinking was that the ferry dock to SOL was this way - typical bloke!) ended up walking for about an hour to find the boat, luckily passed the building site for the twin towers (not much to see to be honest), and then got straight through security, onto boat and accross to Liberty island. We'd prebooked tickets for the audio tour and pedestal pass. Audio tour had a comical monent that bought us straight to to the uk with a thump! It was playing peoples voices from all over the world telling us about thier experiences on the island and in came a womans voice from 'S!!!!harpe' - strong accent - brilliant - made us chuckle. Pedestal and audio tour were worthwhile, and then over to Ellis island, which was also good. We wanted to have the tour around there with one of the rangers, but as we didn't get there until after 3pm and the last ranger tour was at 3! You can search for a / or your name on the free database bit for fun, apparently I passed through US imigration in 1912! Back onto dry land and found the correct tube station at Battery Park (kicked our selves!). Wanted to head back to the hotel, ie get off at 33rd, but the train didn't stop there - don't really understand why - but luckily the next stop was 42nd st, which also happened to be Grand Central station - great! Was on the list to vist later, but did it by mistake. Walked back to our hotel, and both fell fast asleep for an hour on the sofa in our room - flight / late night / sea breeze etc. Woke up and decided to do esb that night, to avoid the valentines day rush the day after! we were advised to pay extra for the express pass to avoid all the queuing, that was a bit of a mistake, there were no queues whatsoever, I think we fell lucky! As we'd paid for that, the chaps at the check in bit let us have a memorabilia map and an audio tour for just $5. May have been kidding us, but seemed a good deal?? esb was fantastic, and the audio tour was very informative, to help understand what you're looking at. After that we ended up back at our pizza place again and off to bed!

Mon - Up and breakfast at the barking dog again, another good setup for the day! Got tube from 33rd upto 110th for central park top. I wouldn't reccomend this route as we ended up in the middle of Harlem and didn't feel too comfortable here! Central park was incredible, perfect clear blue skies, loads of folk walking / cycling / skating / SKIING (cross country) ?? Found a nice spot just after the zoo, at the very lower eastern point exit of the park to enjoy a waffle and a sit and people watch for an hour or so. Went to FAO schwarz to see the big piano, then wandered through the posh shops etc, down towards the ice skating rink at Rockerfeller. Went to the top of the rock and then skated for an hour or so (one of the wives wants for the trip) which was very good. I prefered the top of the rock to the esb as you get a good view for photographs of the esb to the south and central park to the north. Headed back to the hotel (walking - quite a walk!) to get ready for the Lion King on Times Sq that night, left in good time to collect our tickets from the 'will call' as we prebooked via ticketmaster in advacne. then took in the atmosphere of TS for an hour before the show. Lion King was the best show I've ever seen, and well worth the cost.

Tues - another huge breakfast from the barking dog again (we only snacked through the day following the breakfasts!) and then Macys / Disney shop and Toys R Us in Times Square to get the gifts for our kids etc and see the ferris wheel and dinosaur. Shopping wise we found Macys to be similar cost to home (but don't forget to take your passport to customer services for a visitor 10% discount voucher), where as in San Fran 5 years go Macys was extremely cheap compared to home????? Disney was much cheaper than home though. Wanted to get lunch in Virgils after this but wasn't that hungry and had blown our remaining cash on gifts! so ended up with MORE pizza at the airport later on. Our hotel concierge arranged our airport transfer for us, it was $10 more than a cab but the car and driver were great, happy to chat, took us a scenic route to get good views of the city as we left which was nice.

All in all, a long-winded (a bit too detailed) brief of our trip, but it has bought the memories flooding back! What an amazing place? We hope to make this an annual trip in the future, we loved NYC and can't wait to return!!

DaveG247

phatbear wrote: »

Nope no need to carry docs around with you, however if you are going to ge out of towners discount cards in certain shops you will need proof of citizenship.

Sales tax has changed in the last few months and seeing as you dont say when you are going have a look at this:

"Effective October 1, 2010 and lasting through March 31, 2011, statewide sales and use tax exemption for clothing and footwear sold for less than $110 will be eliminated. For New York City, this means article of clothing costing less than $110 will now be charged 4.375% tax. A state sales tax exemption for clothing and footwear under $55 will be reinstated from April 1, 2011 through March 31, 2012. The original ($110) exemption will be reinstated after March 31, 2012"

Cheers phatbear,

Sorry should have mentioned we are going this Saturday. Thanks for the advice.