Everything & Anything New York City

susanb84

M4RKM wrote: »

1 - Yes it is too early to book for May. Hotels probably have not sold out at all, but never actually released their inventory, so they'll show as unavailable. When it hits 6 months away, then you'll probably start seeing more availability.
2 - $200 is the bear minimum for Manhattan, May is when the prices start creeping up, as the weather is getting nicer, so $200 buys you in February, you'll need $300 in May. Memorial Day also adds on extra costs, as it's a holiday weekend!
3 - Long Island City is OK for a hotel base, but don't expect restaurants / bars / cafe's outside, as it is an industrial area that is being redeveloped.
4 - $150 is unrealistic for Manhattan, $200 may be pushing it too.

I'm speculating. I can't do any searches of my preferred sites or hotels, because you've not given exact dates. Hotels can change daily, depending on demand.

M

Thanks for answering all my questions

I did think that $150 to $200/night might be unrealistic for a hotel in Manhattan, so was thinking that Brooklyn or Long Island City might be more realistic areas to look for hotels at that sort of price range. I couldn't find many hotels in Brooklyn but found lots in Long Island City. The amount we would save by staying in Long Island City would allow us to have a fair bit more spending money while we are there, so having to take the subway to other areas for restaurants, bars, shops and tourist attractions wouldn't be all that bad (and even if we stayed in Manhattan I'm sure we'd still be doing a bit of travelling about anyway). The hotel that I was looking at in Long Island City (the Verve Hotel on 29th St) also includes breakfast, so that would remove the need to find a cafe nearby for coffee and something to eat first thing.

The dates we're going to be staying in New York are the 23rd to 27th May 2013.

Neil49

RachVG wrote: »

Can I just ask, is there a particular reason people recommend not getting the NY Pass? Obviously I understand if it's just that for a lot of people it ends up costing more than it saves. My mum and I are going for 4 nights (7-11 Nov) and over the last few months we've been planning out the things we'd like to do, and worked out the cost to do everything on our list - taking into account free nights and scheduling it all the best we can. Then we went onto the NY Pass website and checked how many of our activities are covered by the pass - it should save us $20-30 each in total if we get a 3 day pass and use it over our three full days in the city, doing free stuff the afternoon we arrive and the day we leave (we have an evening flight).

Granted not a massive saving, but for convenience sake (having it all paid for in advance) seems like a good idea to me. Yet I've seen a few posters saying it's not worth it. So I just wondered if I'm missing something, or if those warnings are more about making sure you don't overspend unnecessarily if you don't want to do enough of the activities that the pass covers?

Thanks!

We went to NY a couple of weeks ago and didn't bother with the NY Pass or the NY City Pass and are glad we didn't.

They say you skip the queues but we saw no evidence of that. For example, to go to the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island you queue up to get your ticket (which is fairly quick as no money is exchanged) and the queue for that was quite short - then you queue up with everyone else to go through the security check and get on the boat. When we were there on a Monday morning the queue was over 2 hours long (we stopped people and asked how long they had been waiting).

If you want to do that trip you can purchase tickets online in advance (the Liberty ticket I believe) and get a specific date and time to get on the boat - this is the only way to skip the queue. (You take a chance with the weather off course)

We went to the Empire State Building late at night and everyone had to queue up regardless of passes or cash. Same applied to the Top of the Rock where you are allocated a lift time when you turn up - in fact the queue when we were paying was a fraction of that for people with passes. For the last 2 there are discounts for children and those aged 62 and over.

The MoMa is free on Friday afternoons between 4pm and 8pm.

Basically you can spend a lot of time queueing which makes it difficult to do everything you hope to do and you are hard pushed to benefit from the pass.

Hope this helps.

M4RKM

Annie021063 wrote: »

marmara looks fab but a little worried about how far away iot is from central ny, we have dd who has ME so walking huge distances unecessarily is an issue, unsure about how easy it is to travel about using public transport etc?

The Mamara IS IN Central New York City. It's in Manhattan.

Tourist attractions are all over the place, and you're nearer Museums and great architecture, and that's a nice residential neighbourhood and you could easily walk through to Central Park.

You're 4 blocks away from the 6 Train to take you downtown, which is around a 10 minute walk at most.

M

curlygirl1971

Just got back from 5 nights in Manhattan.

It was our 4th visit and these are some of the things we did this time:-

Met Museum $25....again and for the last time - I've seen it all now
MoMA $25 - never considered myself a Modern Art fan but was pleasantly surprised and really enjoyed the paintings
United Nations Building Tour $16
Morgan Library & Museum $15 - not everyone's cup of tea. If you like the Frick then it might float your boat. I loved it but was naffed off to find half of it closed whilst they're setting up an exhibition (still charged full price and no notification on-line or before I paid)
WTC Memorial - $0 with an opportunity to make a donation.
'Grace' a fairly new play on Broadway. Some critics haven't been very kind but we really enjoyed it. Thought Paul Rudd was very good.
'Mary Poppins' - we got tickets for this at the TKTS booth in Brooklyn at 3pm. No queuing. 50% off. 8 rows from the front, orchestra side - brilliant.

My OH booked a 1:1 Photography Workshop. It was $200 for 4 hours. The guy took him to Brooklyn one evening, and some of the pictures he took with the coaching are brilliant - I think we'll have some printed and framed. He does have some good equipment though so it would probably only be worthwhile if you were into Photography AND had decent equipment. We thought $200 was a bargain!

Where we ate:-
Ruby Tuesdays, Times Square. We've been to other RT's and they've been fine / nice meals for what they are but that was the 3rd time we've been to the one in TSq - we've ended up there because it happens to be dinner time and we're ravenous when we are just outside - so it's convenient. But I think they're a bit on the lousy side and over-priced. So we've promised ourselves that if we're lucky enough to go back to NYC, we will be avoiding RT's in future.
Rosie O'Grady's - again this was mainly for convenience as we needed something quick before the play. The ambience was good. Service was a bit amiss - couldn't find a waiter when I wanted one but everytime I took a sip of water my glass was refilled. $93 for 2 steaks, side of veg, one soft drink and one glass of wine + tip. I just think that with a bit of effort we could have got somewhere a bit better for less.
Five Napkin Burger - there are a couple of these about. We went to the one on 9th & 45th....twice . First time I had a burger and it was everything a burger should be. The service wasn't great but we still oved the experience. The second time I was trying to be 'good' and I had a Turkey patty on a Salad and I have to say it actually out-performed the burger which I didn't think would ever be possible. DE-LISH. The service was great on the second trip. This seemed to be the cheapest place we ate for an evening meal and we both thought it was the best, we'd definitely go back. Menus are online - from memory I think the burgers are $15.
Eisenberg's Deli, on 5th just near to the Flatiron- It's a close thing but I prefer their Pastrami to Katz's and a couple of other place's. The portions aren't as huge but you still get a stacked sandwich (for $10) and they don't charge as much (Katz is about $15?). We also had cheesecake there ($3.50 which is the cheapest we'd seen) and that was scrummy. My BF prefers the Brisket at Katz's though.
Pershing Square - we ended up going here twice. Once for lunch $50 incl tip and then back for Brekkie $45 incl tip. Both meals were good and the service was great. Really enjoyed Eggs Benedict with Salmon there. The first time there was a queue but we got seated at the front straight away whilst other people wanted to wait for the back tables. When we went for Brekkie at about 10am there was no queue and we got a seat at the back - it is nicer.
Ice Cream Factory, Brooklyn. $4.5 for 1 scoop in a waffle cone. Unless you want different flavours you only really need 1 scoop - huge porition, and that's coming from someone that is really rather greedy

We flew with United Airlines from Manchester to Newark. I found them generally better than American Airlines although they seemed to have fewer stewards in Economy. We find Newark really easy to get to/from. $12.50 each EWR>NY Penn.

On the flight back we'd paid for seats in Economy Plus which had better leg room. $109 extra each and I was furious to realise that mine didn't recline (as a lot in that section don't). Not figured out if it was me that didn't spot this upon booking or whether it wasn't specified properly as I had noticed it when consdering other seats.

curlygirl1971

RachVG wrote: »

Can I just ask, is there a particular reason people recommend not getting the NY Pass? Obviously I understand if it's just that for a lot of people it ends up costing more than it saves. My mum and I are going for 4 nights (7-11 Nov) and over the last few months we've been planning out the things we'd like to do, and worked out the cost to do everything on our list - taking into account free nights and scheduling it all the best we can. Then we went onto the NY Pass website and checked how many of our activities are covered by the pass - it should save us $20-30 each in total if we get a 3 day pass and use it over our three full days in the city, doing free stuff the afternoon we arrive and the day we leave (we have an evening flight).

Granted not a massive saving, but for convenience sake (having it all paid for in advance) seems like a good idea to me. Yet I've seen a few posters saying it's not worth it. So I just wondered if I'm missing something, or if those warnings are more about making sure you don't overspend unnecessarily if you don't want to do enough of the activities that the pass covers?

Thanks!

Will it be your first time in NYC? If so then I think it's very easy to over-estimate what you can achieve in one day. I've been 4 times with a plan........and the plan always has to be altered, you never get places the time you think, you always spend more time at attractions than you think you will, you don't allow enough time for travelling/meals etc. So you may plan to do 3 things a day but only get to do 2....and this will effect the cost effectiveness of the pass.

Neil49

curlygirl1971 wrote: »

Just got back from 5 nights in Manhattan.

It was our 4th visit and these are some of the things we did this time:-

Met Museum $25....again and for the last time - I've seen it all now
MoMA $25 - never considered myself a Modern Art fan but was pleasantly surprised and really enjoyed the paintings
United Nations Building Tour $16
Morgan Library & Museum $15 - not everyone's cup of tea. If you like the Frick then it might float your boat. I loved it but was naffed off to find half of it closed whilst they're setting up an exhibition (still charged full price and no notification on-line or before I paid)
WTC Memorial - $0 with an opportunity to make a donation.
'Grace' a fairly new play on Broadway. Some critics haven't been very kind but we really enjoyed it. Thought Paul Rudd was very good.
'Mary Poppins' - we got tickets for this at the TKTS booth in Brooklyn at 3pm. No queuing. 50% off. 8 rows from the front, orchestra side - brilliant.

My OH booked a 1:1 Photography Workshop. It was $200 for 4 hours. The guy took him to Brooklyn one evening, and some of the pictures he took with the coaching are brilliant - I think we'll have some printed and framed. He does have some good equipment though so it would probably only be worthwhile if you were into Photography AND had decent equipment. We thought $200 was a bargain!

Where we ate:-
Ruby Tuesdays, Times Square. We've been to other RT's and they've been fine / nice meals for what they are but that was the 3rd time we've been to the one in TSq - we've ended up there because it happens to be dinner time and we're ravenous when we are just outside - so it's convenient. But I think they're a bit on the lousy side and over-priced. So we've promised ourselves that if we're lucky enough to go back to NYC, we will be avoiding RT's in future.
Rosie O'Grady's - again this was mainly for convenience as we needed something quick before the play. The ambience was good. Service was a bit amiss - couldn't find a waiter when I wanted one but everytime I took a sip of water my glass was refilled. $93 for 2 steaks, side of veg, one soft drink and one glass of wine + tip. I just think that with a bit of effort we could have got somewhere a bit better for less.
Five Napkin Burger - there are a couple of these about. We went to the one on 9th & 45th....twice . First time I had a burger and it was everything a burger should be. The service wasn't great but we still oved the experience. The second time I was trying to be 'good' and I had a Turkey patty on a Salad and I have to say it actually out-performed the burger which I didn't think would ever be possible. DE-LISH. The service was great on the second trip. This seemed to be the cheapest place we ate for an evening meal and we both thought it was the best, we'd definitely go back. Menus are online - from memory I think the burgers are $15.
Eisenberg's Deli, on 5th just near to the Flatiron- It's a close thing but I prefer their Pastrami to Katz's and a couple of other place's. The portions aren't as huge but you still get a stacked sandwich (for $10) and they don't charge as much (Katz is about $15?). We also had cheesecake there ($3.50 which is the cheapest we'd seen) and that was scrummy. My BF prefers the Brisket at Katz's though.
Pershing Square - we ended up going here twice. Once for lunch $50 incl tip and then back for Brekkie $45 incl tip. Both meals were good and the service was great. Really enjoyed Eggs Benedict with Salmon there. The first time there was a queue but we got seated at the front straight away whilst other people wanted to wait for the back tables. When we went for Brekkie at about 10am there was no queue and we got a seat at the back - it is nicer.
Ice Cream Factory, Brooklyn. $4.5 for 1 scoop in a waffle cone. Unless you want different flavours you only really need 1 scoop - huge porition, and that's coming from someone that is really rather greedy

We flew with United Airlines from Manchester to Newark. I found them generally better than American Airlines although they seemed to have fewer stewards in Economy. We find Newark really easy to get to/from. $12.50 each EWR>NY Penn.

On the flight back we'd paid for seats in Economy Plus which had better leg room. $109 extra each and I was furious to realise that mine didn't recline (as a lot in that section don't). Not figured out if it was me that didn't spot this upon booking or whether it wasn't specified properly as I had noticed it when consdering other seats.

Some useful info there.

Just to add that Rosie O;Gradys (on corner of 7th Av and 52nd St) do an excellent fixed price lunch at around $25 with choices for all 3 courses. The courses included a large salad or deep fried calamari as a starter, steak as a main course (plus other options) and NY cheesecake as a pudding (didn't bother looking at what else was on offer!)

We found a lot of restaurants did very good value 3 course lunches which we took advantage of and then used bars with snacks in the evenings. As we were going to some shows it also meant we weren't as rushed in the evening.

Cocorico123

RachVG wrote: »

Can I just ask, is there a particular reason people recommend not getting the NY Pass? Obviously I understand if it's just that for a lot of people it ends up costing more than it saves. My mum and I are going for 4 nights (7-11 Nov) and over the last few months we've been planning out the things we'd like to do, and worked out the cost to do everything on our list - taking into account free nights and scheduling it all the best we can. Then we went onto the NY Pass website and checked how many of our activities are covered by the pass - it should save us $20-30 each in total if we get a 3 day pass and use it over our three full days in the city, doing free stuff the afternoon we arrive and the day we leave (we have an evening flight).

Granted not a massive saving, but for convenience sake (having it all paid for in advance) seems like a good idea to me. Yet I've seen a few posters saying it's not worth it. So I just wondered if I'm missing something, or if those warnings are more about making sure you don't overspend unnecessarily if you don't want to do enough of the activities that the pass covers?

Thanks!

We just got back from a six night trip to NY where we bought and used one of the 3 day NY passes. I can see why people might say that they aren't good value, but we found them easy and convenient to use. We planned our 3 days carefully and tried to do 3 activities covered by the NY pass on each of the days. I worked out that the activities we did would have cost in the region of $200 whereas the pass cost $140.

M4RKM

Cocorico123 wrote: »

We just got back from a six night trip to NY where we bought and used one of the 3 day NY passes. I can see why people might say that they aren't good value, but we found them easy and convenient to use. We planned our 3 days carefully and tried to do 3 activities covered by the NY pass on each of the days. I worked out that the activities we did would have cost in the region of $200 whereas the pass cost $140.

This is exactly what I mean by being a "slave to the pass" You specifically did three tourist attractions to get value from the pass.

If you didn't have the pass, would you still have done those tourist attractions, or would you have considered alternatives, such as visiting during free hours, or a different way to view something specific?

Did you miss seeing NYC, and just went from attraction to attraction, again, because you had the pass.

Yes, I'm sure that you will have wanted to see at least 6 items on the list of 9 that you did, but were the remaining three only there because you had the pass.

I think it works well for people who don't want to have to research, find the discount coupons, or the multi entry (such as TOTR and MOMA joint ticket).

M

Babymumbles

Hi Guys, I hope some one can help me. I have tried reading through the thread, but cannot get through 250 pages :embarasse

I won a competition and I am going to New York for this NYE :j. I have been trying to look for where to spend NYE. Ive tried looking on forums, read peoples tips and tried looking for events but I was hoping some one on here might be able to help me as I couldnt really find what I was looking for.

I really would like to see the ball drop in times sq, however I really don't want to spend the whole evening waiting outside for it to drop. I have never been to NY before so I have no idea what it is like.

Does anyone know of any restaurants or any events that are taking place actually in times sq where we will be able to go outside and see the ball drop. I am not really having much luck at the moment looking. I've heard there are places with terraces etc that you can go but where they are, that I dont know.

Any help or tips would be great

Thanks

Cocorico123

M4RKM wrote: »

This is exactly what I mean by being a "slave to the pass" You specifically did three tourist attractions to get value from the pass.

If you didn't have the pass, would you still have done those tourist attractions, or would you have considered alternatives, such as visiting during free hours, or a different way to view something specific?

Did you miss seeing NYC, and just went from attraction to attraction, again, because you had the pass.

Yes, I'm sure that you will have wanted to see at least 6 items on the list of 9 that you did, but were the remaining three only there because you had the pass.

I think it works well for people who don't want to have to research, find the discount coupons, or the multi entry (such as TOTR and MOMA joint ticket).

M

We were most definitely not 'slaves to the pass'! We simply allocated those three days to doing what I class as the 'touristy stuff' and mooched around seeing the 'real New York' on the other days. This was my fifth visit to the city, but my friend's first, so we were always going to have to do the main attractions like ToTR, Empire State, Ellis Island etc.

As I said before, it worked for us.