There's a Disney here right? - NY & DC - May 2012

[Hannikins]

Index
This pre trippy has been getting a little long so I've put together a handy index to help navigate!

Intro
Shhhh it's a surprise
Flights
Hotels - New York
Hotels - Washington
New York - Initial Ideas
Washington - Initial Ideas
New York DIY Food Tour - Part 1
New York DIY Food Tour - Part 2
New York DIY Food Tour - Part 3
Washington Restaurant Reservations
New York Restaurant Reservations
Update 1 - Jimmy Fallon
Update 2 - Wicked Tickets
Update 3 - EMP
Update 4 - Smithonian Zoofari Charity Event
THE 'Final' Plan
Update 5 - Transport, Tickets & Nick Cannon

Intro
I've been getting rather excited about this trip in the last week, with only 90 DAYS to go! I can't believe it's gone so quickly! this time I'm feeling very unprepared!

Florida in 2009 was planned to PRECISION, DLP planned itself, our honeymoon slightly less so... but this time? EEK! So I thought I'd put together a little pre trippy to help gather my thoughts and share our plans with you all

I'm no stranger to the Dibb trip report so I'm not going to start with a big introduction but here's a brief intro...

Me - Hannikins (26)
DH- Adam (30)



short wasn't it?

Anyway After getting engaged in WDW in 2009, taking a break to DLP in 2010 AND honeymooning in Disneyland in 2011 we were ready for a little break from the mouse and wanted to try something new... well Adam thought this, I was all up for florida again, after three years on the trot I'm already suffering withdrawal

As it happens Adam is celebrating a big birthday milestone this year which he tells me is a very depressing feeling so to cheer him up he's getting first dibbs on where we go, he chose NY!

He's always wanted to visit and should have been on a years work experience on his business degree in 2001 but he didn't go and ever since then he's wanted to go. Decision made I started a plan of action

[Hannikins]

Shhhh it's a surprise...

This trip was always supposed to be a surprise, not the fact we were going, I would NEVER be able to keep that quiet! but everything from the point of getting on a plane was supposed to be a surprise. Unfortunately Adam has too many ideas of what he wants to do and I'm so terrified I'll forget one of them it hasn't quite worked out that way. Instead I have a 'surprise' budget to spend on little extras and excursions that he knows nothing about... which after he's named every top tourist attraction in Manhattan is a little difficult to find!

If anyone thinks of any quirky little extras I might have missed that a man in his thirties (harhar) might enjoy do let me know!

ANYWAY, back to the planning

[Hannikins]

Flights

We made a decision early on that we would buy the flights early and then sort out hotels afterwards since we knew a hotel was never going to be in short supply in NY.

I started by checking out sky scanner and netflights first to get a general idea and worked out that april-may was a good time to go. Not exactly peak and still a good chance of ok weather

Initial reaserch in hand we headed to the travel agents, our last three trips have all been booked through thomas cook and all been cheaper than DIY so I thought it worth a shot.

They started by giving us the cheapest and we chopped and changed it to better, slightly more expensive flight times before Adam came up with a new plan..

"What if we went to washington as well?"

Interesting... I hadn't thought of that, but as we are 'in the area' why not!

We lookes again at the options and we worked out the following plan

manchester - new york
new york - washington
washinton - new york
new york - manchester

Quite a trek! all in these flights worked out at approx £1,600 but as I hadn't even been pricing up washington on my own we decided to do a bit more research first.

Back on sky scanner and netflights I tried lots of combinations and could never beat it (single flights were almost as expensive as returns!) I gave up and in that time the prices had gone up a little more too

I had to wait until the weekend to revisit thomas cook but I remembered that we had booked our DLP trip through Adam's work as they had an incentive for an extra 8% off with Thomas Cook so I gave them a call just in case. I gave them all my ideas and the loveley Barbara said she'd call back, true to her word she did and she had a new plan

manchester - new york
new york - washington
washington - manchester

yep no return to new york involved, BETTER flight times AND £400 cheaper!

I have no idea how she did it as buying the same flights myself, same flight numbers, was almost double that. Bargain found we booked it.

We were now going to new york and washington on the 9th - 18th May 2012 5 nights in New York and 4 nights in Washington

[Hannikins]

Hotels - New York

As soon as the flights were booked I started looking at hotels, and I was amazed at the price, everything was so much more expensive than I thought it would be.

I started looking at 3* - 4* and narrowed our search down to the Distrikt and the pearl, but both of those were £1,000 for 5 nights

Distrikt


The Pearl


That seemed ALOT to me so just to give me a comparision I looked at some 5* hotels just to see what the price difference was. and then I found the London NYC, an all suite hotel for £1,300





Adam had always wanted to stay at the london in LA on our honeymoon but I didn't like the location, however I planned on taking him here for a nice meal as a surprise so I thought it would be a great idea to book this as a surprise too!

I price watched this hotel for WEEKS and lowcostusa always came out the cheapest. I was sooo close to booking it until one night I spotted an offer on travelzoo

5 nights, room upgrade, free breakfast and drinks on arrival at Hotel MELA.



The hotel didn't have the best reviews on tripadvisor but it was 4 stars and the main complaint seemed to be the size of the standard rooms but as we were getting upgraded I didn't see an issue with this so I check the price... £700 I booked it straight away, I'd rather have the extra £600 to spend on new york delights than a swanky 5* hotel room thank you very much!

So we had a new york hotel room...Washington next!

[SammyScotland]

I recommend a visit to the Intrepid. We went last year and it was one of the highlights of our trip. We paid a bit extra and did one of the official tours - well worth the extra as our tour guide was excellent.

[llamala]

We stayed in the Dupont circle area, walkable to The White house etc handy for the metro and the hop on hop off tourist busses and walkable to Georgetown, it also felt safe to walk around in the evening with nice bistro resteraunts

[MacUK]

We are going back in Dec and recommend the Intrepid, very interesting, you can pre-book tickets also. Top of the Rock and Empire, Statue and Ellis (pre book again and get first boat across). How about a tour, say Radio City.

We did a Circle Line boat tour and an escorted bus tour which took us to some great places including Katz Deli where they filmed that scene in When Harry Met Sally.

Have a look at our pics from 2006
gallery.me/markjjohnson/100691

[Hannikins]

Originally Posted by SammyScotland

I recommend a visit to the Intrepid. We went last year and it was one of the highlights of our trip. We paid a bit extra and did one of the official tours - well worth the extra as our tour guide was excellent.

See more...

I'll have to look into that, it's really not something that really appeals but I have heard good things!

[Hannikins]

Originally Posted by llamala

We stayed in the Dupont circle area, walkable to The White house etc handy for the metro and the hop on hop off tourist busses and walkable to Georgetown, it also felt safe to walk around in the evening with nice bistro resteraunts

See more...

Thanks for the advice. That was my preferred area but I've struggled with budgets and couldn't afford anything after leaving it to late on some good deals I saw.

I'll get sorted in the end, thinking of going slightly east of the circle

[Hannikins]

Originally Posted by MacUK

We are going back in Dec and recommend the Intrepid, very interesting, you can pre-book tickets also. Top of the Rock and Empire, Statue and Ellis (pre book again and get first boat across). How about a tour, say Radio City.

We did a Circle Line boat tour and an escorted bus tour which took us to some great places including Katz Deli where they filmed that scene in When Harry Met Sally.

Have a look at our pics from 2006
gallery.me/markjjohnson/100691

See more...

great photos! bit giddy from looking at them all now ;P