Everything & Anything New York City

M4RKM

Kurtcat wrote: »

Hi all,
Going to New York in early december on honeymoon for 5nights, 9.30 am flight from LHR on the Saturday, return 10.30pm from JFK on the Thurs.
We've paid for flights, hotel and have bought NYC passes (they were on offer).
Have we gone a bit over on spending money though (or perhaps not), our budget for the two of us is about $4000, we have about $3,600 on Caxton Currency Cards and $400 cash. It is our honeymoon and neither one of us has had a proper holiday for about 7-8years now, so would rather be over the top than under.

We're planning on going for one nice meal on the Saturday evening at 'Waters Edge Restaurant' (we're staying in Queens/Long Island City), other than that just looking to stay away from touristy eats.

Considering Radio City Xmas show also.

COUNTING THE DAYS!!

Depends how much you drink. I go to NYC for a relaxing holiday, bar hopping, and a bit of sightseeing. I like to eat well, and not worry about money.

I take $2000 spending with me, and after spending a bit here and there and bring a few things back with me, I'm normally good. I think your splash out budget is perfectly acceptable, and you'll have a great time.

P.S - NYPasses are ALWAYS on offer.

shorelines

If anyone has a head for heights and wants to hang out with Christopher Columbus in his living room for a bit, book your tickets!

http://www.publicartfund.org/view/exhibitions/5495_discovering_columbus

It's on until November 18th and best of all...it's free! :j

I should say it's an art installation (a living room) built around the 75 ft tall statue of Christopher Columbus at Columbus Circle.

Blade26

Hi

We are in NY for thanksgiving and have tickets for the NY Giants on the Sunday, kick off 8pm (ish), hubby is keen to get there early to experience the tailgating.

I am trying to sort out the rest of the stuff we want to do, and wondered whether anyone has an experience of getting on the Statue Cruise at Battery Park, visiting the SOL and Ellis Island and then disembarking at Liberty State Park; there are currently crown tickets available for 1.00pm on the Sunday and I was thinking if it was easy to get from New Jersey to MetLife my plan would work - in theory on paper it looks do-able, but I would appreciate the advice of those in the know!

Thanks in advance

blade26 (Rachel)

mahoney

Between 2 weeks from now and Christmas, when would the cheapest airfares and hotels to NYC be?

THANK YOU!!!!!!

Neil49

Blade26 wrote: »

Hi

We are in NY for thanksgiving and have tickets for the NY Giants on the Sunday, kick off 8pm (ish), hubby is keen to get there early to experience the tailgating.

I am trying to sort out the rest of the stuff we want to do, and wondered whether anyone has an experience of getting on the Statue Cruise at Battery Park, visiting the SOL and Ellis Island and then disembarking at Liberty State Park; there are currently crown tickets available for 1.00pm on the Sunday and I was thinking if it was easy to get from New Jersey to MetLife my plan would work - in theory on paper it looks do-able, but I would appreciate the advice of those in the know!

Thanks in advance

blade26 (Rachel)

We were there last week and had intended to go to the SOL and Ellis Island until we saw the queue for the boat. We stopped and asked some people how long they had been in the queue and they replied 'an hour and a half' - and they were some way down the line. I would guess the queue from the end would have been at least 2 hours. That was on a Monday morning at about 11 am. If you are short on time then a Crown ticket is the only way you can get priority access

Also be aware that the weather is now changeable and when we left on Saturday evening they were saying that was the last of the good days for some time. Even when we were there we had to postpone our trip on the Staten Island ferry due to fog.

We waited for a good day and went up the Top of the Rock with little or no queuing at 9.15 and the Empire State building at 10 pm with about a 30 minute queue.

Kurtcat

bb69 wrote: »

Sounds great! Congrats in advance :j What hotel are you staying in?

Hi all,
Thanks for the replies!!!

As regards hotels we're staying at the Hotel Vetiver (sorry cant post link as newbie) Long Island City, we booked in February through Booking.Com, the five nights worked out to be about £520 for the Penthouse room (think it just means at the top) but with balcony and view of Manhattan. Trust me even though it'll be December the balcony will be used:cool:

The flights were another matter though, we booked with Virgin Atlantic at the start of March and decided to fly 'Premium Economy' there and back. Its been annoying to find over the last couple of months the fares have REDUCED by about £300 per person. SO MUCH FOR BOOKING EARLY:mad: , Virgins reply to my moan:

"Thank you for your email and I apologise greatly for the delay in my response.

Please be advised that I acknowledge receipt of your additional email dated 13th September and would again like to apologise in the delay in replying to you. Please also be advised that any promotional emails that are sent to you, are automated, and therefore we are not ensuring that we offer promotions as a priority to responding to our customers emails.

I am sorry to hear of your dissatisfaction when finding that your flights have reduced in price. Commonly, booking in advance is the best thing to do and ensures low price tickets are available. However, it may be necessary to reduce the price of our tickets nearer the time of departure, to ensure we remain competitive with other airlines and any sale fares that they may release. This is common practice and all airlines operate in the same way.

We may also release a last minute sale offer, of which cannot be advised in advance, as we do not know until the day, or day before, that one will be released. This again ensures that competitiveness is kept.

Therefore, we are correct in saying ''Our first promise is to offer you, at the time you make your booking directly with us via our contact centre, website or airport ticket desks, the lowest possible fare available for the time, date and class of service you wish to travel in'', as this is what we do on the day that you choose to book. We cannot however, promise that the fares will never fall any lower than what you book, as this would be a false promise.

I understand your disappointment, however I do hope that the above information is somewhat helpful and better explains the situation.

I hope that you have a great trip and Honeymoon. Congratulations and we look forward to welcoming you onboard.

Kind Regards

Jack Michael
Customer Relations"

I my original email i did make the point i was not expecting a refund or upgrade, i just wanted to say that i was upset.

Ah well we live and learn and i will not let anything put a dampner our honeymoon.:j

M4RKM

mahoney wrote: »

Between 2 weeks from now and Christmas, when would the cheapest airfares and hotels to NYC be?

THANK YOU!!!!!!

Hotels - The week before Christmas, most probably.
Flights - 6 weeks away from now.

M4RKM

Blade26 wrote: »

I am trying to sort out the rest of the stuff we want to do, and wondered whether anyone has an experience of getting on the Statue Cruise at Battery Park, visiting the SOL and Ellis Island and then disembarking at Liberty State Park; there are currently crown tickets available for 1.00pm on the Sunday and I was thinking if it was easy to get from New Jersey to MetLife my plan would work - in theory on paper it looks do-able, but I would appreciate the advice of those in the know!

If you're going to do the Statue, you want the first ferry of the day. If it is a booked ferry, you're alright, and you'll avoid that long queue that has already been mentioned, but a 1pm ferry for the Crown means you'll end up back in Manhattan around 5pm.

I did a 9am ferry, didn't do the crown, just the pedestal, and was back in Manhattan for midday.

M

ajdj

shorelines wrote: »

If anyone has a head for heights and wants to hang out with Christopher Columbus in his living room for a bit, book your tickets!

http://www.publicartfund.org/view/exhibitions/5495_discovering_columbus

It's on until November 18th and best of all...it's free! :j

I should say it's an art installation (a living room) built around the 75 ft tall statue of Christopher Columbus at Columbus Circle.

Thank you! I didn't read your post properly and just clicked on the link. Took me a few minutes to figure out what I was actually looking at (busy day, fried brain!). Off on 2nd November, will add this onto my itinerary, always fun to do 'different' things.

Last year my partner was a bit bemused as we waited at 72nd St. subway and allowed 2 trains to pass through before this arrived http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/01/emboardwalk-empireem-brin_n_945691.html

Now33

We are thinking of going to New York for 5 days (2 adults and 2 kids aged 14/9). I am trying to work out how much spending money we would need with a limited budget. I would like to think we would have enough with £1000 to cover transport, eating out and other trip tickets. (£500 food? and £500 trips? etc). Can this be achieved? We would probably eat at places like mcdonalds etc for breakfast/lunch and a nice meal in the evening. Thx