Everything & Anything New York City

bb69

Annie021063 wrote: »

Hi all
We are off to NY on xmas day for 6 days, we have done a rough itinary and wondered, as it is our first trip, whether you lovely people would cast your eyes over it and see whether it is do-able
arrive 10.40 pm - JFK - taxi to hotel - sleep!!
boxing day ---grand central station (to have a look) rockerfeller centre, top of the rock, planet hollywood (dinner?), m&m store, few shops (not necessarily in that order)
27th ---statue of liberty, ellis island, boat cruise (we are aware it is currently closed but hoping it will be open by the time we get there, will check before we go and if not make other plans for this day)
28th ---intrepid boat museum, cake boss shop
29th ----empire state building, NY public library, central park (ZOO?? Ice skating??) metroplitan museum of art
30th Battery park, 9/11 memorial and museum
31st ---- not planned yet,
1st fly to LHR very early!

also planning on going to theatre and possibly night football. hockey/ basketball game
what do I need to book ahead for? is it worth getting the NY passes? have we missed anything iconic??
Thanks very much for taking a look

I would be tempted to group all as many of the down town activities together or on one of the days stop of in soho and Greenwich village afterwards for some more shopping!

Personally I do not like planet Hollywood. Was very disappointed with breakfast there. I have been to Hard Rock Cafe twice (yes I know very similar) but have found it to be nicer. If you are going they try and sell you an all access pass to get in quicker - I bought one and the price you pay gets taken off the bill so works out fine.

At the weekend I do recommend going to Union Square they usually have a great food market (I think on Sunday)

I also recommend the museum of natural history. I liked it there.

Any more ideas what you are doing for NYE?

M4RKM

Planet Hollywood for dinner? No, you can do much better than that, there are around 20k restaurants in NYC, and plenty of small non chains that give you 20 times better quality food, for half the price...

Also, Looking at your list, you will NOT benefit getting an NY Pass. The only pass you may get some benefit from is the Go Select Pass, and add on ESB/TOTR/Intrepid and Museums.

curlygirl1971

bb69 wrote: »

Personally I do not like planet Hollywood. Was very disappointed with breakfast there. I have been to Hard Rock Cafe twice (yes I know very similar) but have found it to be nicer

Agree. We went to PH the first time we were ther. Zero atmosphere and mediocre food. HR much better. But as others have said there are some great places to eat. We recently had fantastic burgers at Five Napkin Burger.

curlygirl1971

Annie021063 wrote: »

Hi all
We are off to NY on xmas day for 6 days, we have done a rough itinary and wondered, as it is our first trip, whether you lovely people would cast your eyes over it and see whether it is do-able
arrive 10.40 pm - JFK - taxi to hotel - sleep!!
boxing day ---grand central station (to have a look) rockerfeller centre, top of the rock, planet hollywood (dinner?), m&m store, few shops (not necessarily in that order)
27th ---statue of liberty, ellis island, boat cruise (we are aware it is currently closed but hoping it will be open by the time we get there, will check before we go and if not make other plans for this day)
28th ---intrepid boat museum, cake boss shop
29th ----empire state building, NY public library, central park (ZOO?? Ice skating??) metroplitan museum of art
30th Battery park, 9/11 memorial and museum
31st ---- not planned yet,
1st fly to LHR very early!

also planning on going to theatre and possibly night football. hockey/ basketball game
what do I need to book ahead for? is it worth getting the NY passes? have we missed anything iconic??
Thanks very much for taking a look

You can do battery park before you get on the boat for Ellis Island, just get there 30 mins before you'd planned to.

If you are going to the 9/11 memorial you should look at booking a timed ticket before your trip.

guineapig

If you are planning on squeezing in a lot of activities in one day, I suggest that you get to the ticket office/start que-ing at about 8 oclock ish am.

We went to Ellis Island and by the time we got back at about noon ( orjust before) the que was about a mile long and I reckon those not in the first 100 or so people would have had a long wait of about 2 to 3 hours, by which time it would have ended up as just a "tick box" destination!! ( because of the time limits coming back).
I was very dissapointed with Ellis Island, it wasn't what I expected and there was a nasty "jobsworth" woman who prevented us sitting in on one of the talks ( said it was full, but there were only me and hubby at the door at the time and I could SEE the empty seats!!!!!!)
We got all the views we wanted of Liberty from the boat and I would rather not crane my neck to look up ( why?) it can't have been that much fun because the people on the boat next to us who got off at Liberty Island got on the next boat to Ellis Island, so didn't spend more than 30 mins there?
The Police Museum and the Fire Museum were much more interesting ( in my view).

M4RKM

guineapig wrote: »

If you are planning on squeezing in a lot of activities in one day, I suggest that you get to the ticket office/start que-ing at about 8 oclock ish am.
.

Or you can do what I did, and saunter up, pre booked, ticket in hand for the 9am ferry at 8:50am, really hungover, and with a large coffee in hand...

Walked straight through security, with no problems, as I had PRE BOOKED, which you can't do with any passes etc. Only statue-cruises.com you can prebook a time, and you're on that ferry.

M

Annie021063

please tell me that the £47 each I have paid for visas is normal or could I have just paid $9, fuming that I have poss paid far too much

phatbear

Dunno where you're getting $9 from but an esta is $14 each anymore than that then you've paid someone to do the work for you

Annie021063

Oh poo, I didn't realise I could get them form more than one place, just googles it and went from there, any chance of me getting them refunded?

Also need a good reputable airport parking co for heathrow any ideas recommendations??

phatbear

If you bought a packet of crisps for 50p from your local shop then discovered they were cheaper at tesco would you expect to get the difference back? You have accepted their t&c's and the price so you've got zero chance.

And parking i always use purple parking