Everything & Anything New York City

johnnyroper

greenface wrote: »

sometimes but as most things the less you pay the less choice you have .Then dont shout about how bad it was .
Getting the balance right between where you want to go when you want to go and how much you want to pay is difficult .
IMO I find where i want to go then try my best to get it at the best price possible. If i cannot get it within my budget i walk away then try my next best choice . Chase bargains or sign up to emails from hotels or chains they often send out teasers (stay 3 pay for 2 etc)Go onto trip advisor list order by price first then scroll down until you find a hotel ranked say under #100 then reserch it. Good luck HTH

thanks for the advise,as i say no budget as such just want a decent/fair price in a clean comfortable hotel.

i will keep looking over the coming weeks/months and see what turns up.
once again thanks for the input by all who contributed.

Philippa36

I usually book a hotel 3 months before we travel, I've had excellent deals from Travelzoo, Hotels.com, hotelscomparison and moneysupermarket.

I do check on trip adviser though for the top 50 hotels and then see how much they work out at using their search engines. At least then I know that I'm not going to end up in the middle of nowhere in a 1 star hovel! You just need to use all resources available to you and then when you've picked one for the right price in the right area, book it and don't look back! (Unless you can cancel and you've found a much better deal - lots out there will let you cancel with no penalties up to 24 hours before check in.)

claire80

Lady_S wrote: »

We stopped in the Affinia Dumont and it was lovely. That is a little bit out of the hussle and bussle which I appreciated.

Alternatively, there is the Belleclaire which gets good reviews on Tripadvisor, and this has a queen room for £690 for 4 nights ( I have guessed 8th - 12th October as you haven't specified dates. ( this was through ebookers). It is up on the upper west side and surrounded more by residential than hotels.

Thank you i will check it out now , we are actually going on the 6th so not a bad guess !!

Aquarius1980 wrote: »

I visited in March with 2 friends, and we stayed at the Beacon Hotel in the Upper West side (74th & Broadway). Lovely hotel refurbished a couple of years ago (I think), 2 blocks from 72nd street subway station, 2 blocks from Central Park, and the rooms all have small kitchen areas with fridge/microwave/hob + untensils. There is an amazing market right across the street called Fareways that sells absolutely any kind of food you could imagine (not Asda price, but cheaper than eating out 3 times a day!). We easily saved ourselves a couple of hundred dollars each by not eating out all the time, and used the money to treat ourselves to pressies from Tiffany's

I've looked on Virgin and they're currently asking £708 total for 8th-12th October, but I'm sure you'd find it cheaper with a little hunting.

Will also check this out thanks , Im up for the treating myself to prezzies from tiffanys as the reason we are going is for my 30th so would be rude not to get something haha

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

You also want to be near enough that you can just crash briefly before going out for the evening, if needed. And for my money (and m4rkm's too) you can do a lot worse than the Cosmopolitan, which we booked through Hotel Conxions. It's in Tribeca, great area, excellent transport links.

We were there at the height of summer, and if I hadn't been able to go back and collapse before our evening meal, I'm not sure how I'd have coped ...

One of our best evenings was taking the Staten Island Ferry, very late at night, to see the lights. And we were close enough to walk back to the hotel afterwards.

Fair point , the better half might need a rest from carrying my bags hmm...

Thanks to all that helped , i will let you know where we end up

Aquarius1980

claire80 wrote: »

Will also check this out thanks , Im up for the treating myself to prezzies from tiffanys as the reason we are going is for my 30th so would be rude not to get something haha

We went for our 30th's too! I hadn't even considered buying something from Tiffany's, but we'd saved that much on not eating out I decided to have a look and found a necklace I liked.

FYI, we bought the NY city pass which also included 15% discount at Bloomingdales (you'd normally get 11% as a tourist - but neither discount fragrance or international brands). I got a gorgeous Michael Kors watch for $208 instead of $245

Stephb1986_2

Where do you get the ny city passes from?

Steph xx

Aquarius1980

We got our passes from Virgin Holidays as we booked the holiday as a package through them. I think the City Pass website is www. citypass.com (can't post links).
There's differring views on whether they are worthwhile or not - have a look and see if it offers what you want.

We were very happy with it as we could use the shorter queue for the SoL (saving us an extra 30-60mins queuing), the extra Bloomingdales discount, and we got a free ticket to the Hayden Planetarium space show at AMoNH which was amazing.

KK22_2

I never knew that you could get a bloomie's discount. I knew about Macy's but not Bloomingdales. How do you go about getting this then?

Philippa36

In all the hotels I've stayed, they've had stands full of small cards with discounts off everywhere, including Bloomingdales, Loehmanns, Daffy's and various tourist attractions and shows.

kelda_shelton

Hi all:

Going back to NY with my husband in Spetember for a week, can't wait! So on this thread for some inspration!

I have been before in Feb 2005 when I went solo.. here was what i did for anyone interested..

The unnusual/non touristy highlights were - the big apple greeter and Jaques Torres Choloate Shop in Brooklyn.

Monday – Late Afternoon/Evening Only

· Check In at Hostel at 3.30pm
· Times Square
· Got Broadway tickets at TKTS
· Rockefeller Centre & Radio City Hall (quick look at the outside of it and saw the skating rink etc)
· Walk along 5th Avenue/57th St
· Tiffany’s - quick browse
· FAO Schwarts
· Bloomingdales - quick browse
· Trump Tower (just went in the foyer an out the other side)
· Broadway Show

Tuesday

· Morning with Big Apple Greeter in Central Park and Upper West Side (including Hudson River Park, and Times Warner Shopping Centre)
· Subway to Brighton Beach and then walked from there to Coney Island
· Flushing – Queens
· Grand Central Station (Just went in for a look for about 15mins – amazing! They do a free tour at midday or 10am of Grand Central Station – my big apple greeter told me about this - DOES THIS STILL HAPPEN??? )

Wednesday

· General walk around Soho.
· Chinatown – Lunar New Year Celebrations
· General walk around Little Italy, Tribeca. (Late Lunch at Little Italy)
· Empire State Building (www.esbnyc.com for tickets, arrived for 3.30pm – so got daylight, dusk and evening viewing) (From here saw a lot of noteable buildings, Chrysler, UN Building etc etc – GET THE AUDIO TOUR!!)
· Macy’s, Herald Square – open until 8.30pm

Thursday

· Subway 2/3 to Clark Street, walk over to the Promenade, and head north to Fulton Landing under the Brooklyn Bridge.


· Jacques Torres cafe (66 Water Street) for a hot chocolate break before going up the Bridge (AMAZING!!! YOU GUYS HAVE TO GO!!)


· Make way to the Bridge staircase on Washington Street (ask a local).


· At the END of your Brooklyn Bridge footpath to Manhattan, you will come to the ornate Municipal Bldgon your right (which some people think is City Hall).


· Cross over Park Row to City Hall Park (w/ the Courthouse and City Hall) and walk south along the park (or walk thorough when you find the entrance). You will come to Broadway, and across Broadway is St. Paul's Chapel, where Washington worshipped, and where there is an exhibit about its function during the WTC disaster. This made me cry – but well worth going to see for half an hour


· Continue South on Broadway a few blocks, and you will come to Trinity Church, an early Gothic Episcopal Church where Alexander Hamilton is buried. Across the Street, Wall Street begins. The New York Stock Exchange is a few blocks east from here. You will also bump into the early Federal Hall, w/ the giant statue of Washington in front.


· Head back west up the hill the same way you came on Wall Street, crossing Broadway, then walking alongside Trinity Cemetary, and you will come to Trinity Place. The World Trade Center site is just a few blocks north from here. Across from the WTC site is Century 21. Liberty Street intersects Trinty Place, and you can walk down this way and up the stairs for better views overlooking the WTC site. If you continue south and west after this excursion, you will hit Battery Park.


· If you head south through Battery Park and then along the water, you will eventually come to the Ferry Terminal for Ellis Island. Tickets for Ellis Island are purchased at Castle Clinton (another historic landmark there). If you continue on you will come to the Staten Island Ferry Terminal (where you can get FREE TRANSPORT to Staten island – you can just get the ferry there and back without leaving the ferry terminal but it gives you a good view of the Statute of Liberty). I didn’t actually go up the Statue of Liberty as I’d heard the view wasn’t that great from the top and that the real awe is actually seeing the statue from the sea. But people say Ellis Island is worth going to. But I didn’t do that, I did the east Side Tenement Museum instead)


· Lower East Side (Subway F to Delancey St, J,M,Z to Essex Street

o Lower East Side Tenement Museum
o Walk down Orchard Street

· Roosevelt Island Tram – at approx 6pm. This will take you like 15mins to do and is the cost of 2 subway tickets, but I another nice view of the city.


· Walk along 2nd Avenue/Times Square Area.

Friday

· Walk around Harlem
· Central Park
· Museum of the City of New York
· MTV Recording of TRL (applied for tickets a few weeks before) But you have to be under 26 to get in!
· Walk around Times Square Area

Saturday – until 5.30pm

· General walk around Greenwich Village, Noho, Alphabet City, West and East Village, Meat Packing District (Spent an hour or so in Art Galleries), Chelsea.
· Flatorian Building and Flatorian District
· Gramercy Park
· Central Park
· Guggenheim Museum (Just to see inside for spirals and the look from the outside not to actually pay to see Museum)
· Upper East Side
· Times Square
· Left NY at 5.30pm from Chinatown

Savvy_Sue

No-one told ME about a chocolate shop in NYC! I've just complained about this to DH and he says we'll have to go back one day. :rotfl: