Friday, September 12, 2014

The City That Never Sleeps

There is only one city I can think of where I can be in the M&M store at 11:30 p.m. and the store clerks are monitoring the number of people going up the escalator to the 2nd floor. It was that crowded. That would be New York City (maybe Vegas too).

On August 6th, my daughter Natalie and I flew to Newark, New Jersey. From there we spent three nights in midtown Manhattan and two nights at my friend's home in Middletown, New York.

For this post I'm going to keep it simple with some helpful tips and facts about the trip.

When: August 6 - August 11th. The weather was perfect that week. We were lucky.

How: Flew Alaska Airlines nonstop from Seattle to Newark, New Jersey. We used my companion fare. It's a good perk of having an Alaska Airlines credit card. From Newark we had a prearranged shuttle bus that took us into Manhattan from the airport. I would highly recommend it. There are other airports but we picked this one for convenience.

Hotel: Club Quarters Midtown Manhattan. We found the hotel through Alaska Airlines webpage. I believe it goes through Orbitz. It was a great location. We were literally on the back side of Radio City Music Hall. No matter where we went it was easy to find out hotel coming back.

Discount Tickets: New York Pass. We bought a 3 day pass online in advance, and discounted. And we had the booklet mailed to us. Great maps, great way to organize what you want to do.

Transportation: 1) my two feet - wear socks and good walking shoes, by day 2 I had blisters; 2) Subway - buy a metro card from the machine; 3) taxi - convenient; 4) train - Grand Central Station to go out of the city; 5) New York Water Taxi - very fun and discounted in New York Pass; 6) bus - we didn't do this option but it looks like a good idea around town. A coworker told me today that when he goes there they do they Subway for north and south and the bus for east and west travel. You can also rent bicycles, (maybe in Central Park but I would not ride them around the city). And there are Pedi cabs but they look to be quite expensive.

I observed a pecking order in traffic. Starting with who has the most power to the least power on the streets. This is my observation: tour bus, city bus, emergency vehicles, town cars, taxi's, personal vehicles, Pedi cabs, bicycles, and pedestrians.

Broadway: We bought our discounted tickets (courtesy of New York Pass) from the box office on Thursday for the Saturday matinee. We wanted a particular show. Otherwise (and next time I go) you can go to Times Square in the morning and get half price, same day tickets for many shows. The people sitting next to us on the 6th row had bought their tickets that morning. We saw a show called Once. It was very good, a really fun time.

Times Square

No comments:

July Already and Only My 2nd Post this Year!

I have to say this year, 2023 has been a huge year of firsts for me. In January I went on my very first cruise. My friend Chris and I flew t...