New York - Planning

Matt-_2

Hi All,

Not sure if i have posted this in the right section, so apologies if not.
I am due to go to new york in 2 weeks :j
We are stopping at East 31st Street and are hoping to view all the sights. We have 5 days to visit all the big tourist places.

Can anyone give me any idea as to where to visit first, what order to do things or useful sites. I am terrible at maps and things.

Thanks

Idiophreak

There's a New York Pass you can buy that gets you into a good number of the sites for free.

I did 5 days last year and managed:
Top of the rock
Empire State (at night)
Times Square
Shopping (Macy's, Bloomingdales...)
Helicopter ride (nice way to see the city!)
MOMA
Natural History Museum
Chicago (on broadway)
Central park (inc carriage ride)
Wall street / financial district
Nice meal out (at Daniel)
Grand Central
Katz Deli (amazing sandwich!)
Harry Potter exhibition (was at Times Square)
Plus we managed quite a few cocktail bars, restaurants and a trip to my company's NYC office, too. We had an incredibly busy time there, but there was still so much we didn't get to do.

The trick is to prioritise all the things you want to see and then map them out - try and do things close together on each day to minimise travel time. Also, get plenty of information up-front about how long the queues are likely to be for things. We'd hoped to do Liberty Island on the same day as our helicopter ride - but there was a 2.5hour queue for the ferry - and it was HOT, so we decided to give it a miss...could have saved some walking if we knew that in advance.

Hope you enjoy, whatever you get up to!

ETA: We bought most of our tickets in advance from
http://www.attraction-tickets-direct.co.uk/new-york.htm

Mk14:37

Read the sticky - Everything & Anything New York City

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2230655

Missy_Moo_2

We did New York couple years ago, we actually got stuck there for 12 days instead of the planned 4 thanks to the volcano!

I would plan as much as you can to ensure you get to see what you want too as there is so MUCH!

I would recommend:

Peir 17 - Amazing place to eat, shop (the christmas shop here is AMAZING) & relax. https://www.southstreetseaport.com
Chrysler Building - Loved the lift ride up to the top!
World Trade Center Site
Central Park - We visited the Zoo there and Ice Rink, you could easily spend days in here as its huge!
Statue of Liberty
Times Sqaure - Maybe book to see a show?
Tour of Madison Square Gardens (Basketball & Theatre take place here) - Really Interesting
Some time to shop and visit the department stores! Bloomingdales/Macys
Brooklyn Bridge
Wall Street & Trinity Church
Natural History Museum - Only go if you have never been to antyhing like this as its simular to others.
Even a trip to the Grand Central Terminal, or the Trump Building, China Town, Rockerfella is worth doing.

I recommend getting a subway ticket for the week, its quick, cheap and pretty painless

Have a fab time

Matt-_2

Thanks all for your advice, appreciate it!

cabbage

Hi

we've just come back from 2 nights/3 days and there were not enough hours in the day to fit everything in.

We did the hop on/hop off bus tour. The Yellow/Blue bus was $54 and included an uptown, downtown, night tour and a river tour. Its valid for 48 hours. There is also a red bus tour and a greyhound tour bus but they tend to charge the same. I'm not sure if the red bus included the boat trip.

The inside of the statue of liberty is closed for maintenance work but you can still look around the outside.

We skipped most of the tourist attractions as I had spent six months there in 1982. We visited ground zero. Its free but you need to book your visit. I did this online and printed off my pass.

Have a look at trip adviser as its got the top tourist attractions listed.

Enjoy and have fun (I'm envious)