New York April 2012 Day 7

[MichelleB]

Our last day! Sunday 15 April

Central Park, War Horse and an Upgrade!

We did our packing and left the bags with the bellboys at the hotel before having a nice breakfast at Cafe Viand. The cafe was noticeably busier with locals but service was still good. It was really warm and sunny today so we decided to spend the morning in the park.

We walked through Central Park which was very busy. There had been a women's running race earlier. Again we saw a wedding party taking photographs. Lots of people kept plonking their deckchair down in that spot and being asked by the photographer to move! DH and the boys went to find a geocache and we explored parts of the park we hadn't got to yet. There were lots of cyclists on the perimeter road.

We came out of the park near Clumbus Circle and walked round to the Lincoln Center to collect our theatre tickets for War Horse that afternoon. (I had packed my confirmation in my luggage so had to rescue it after breakfast!) Tickets in hand we sat and admired the fountains before heading across to the David Rubinstein Atrium, which was right next to Rosa Mexicano where we had been last night. The Atrium is an additional public space run by the Lincoln Center, it had a cafe so we got sandwiches there. All the tables were being taken by laptopping New Yorkers and a group playing draughts, many of whom had no cups from the cafe, so that seemed a bit strange. New Yorkers seem very good at not catching your eye! Eventually we sat on a stone bench around a water feature to eat our lunch.

DH and DS2 went for a nose in the Apple Store while DS1 and I went back across the road to the Lincoln Center to sit by the fountains. We had a nice time people watching, lots of people meeting up before the show. My shoes had rubbed blisters on my heels, first time all week I had worn a skirt and shoes with no tights! At 2.45 we went into the Vivian Beaumont Theatre and took our seats for War Horse.
We really enjoyed the play and thought it was a fantastic production.

The play finished around 5.30pm so we then caught a subway up to our hotel and collected our bags. I had to do a quick change of shoes in the lobby! Then we went back on the subway with our luggage, which was OK as it wasn't too crowded, down to Penn Station. At the station we bought our LIRR and Airtrain tickets from a machine, it didn't like my credit card but it took cash OK. We then walked straight onto a waiting LIRR train which was very nice although we had to stand for a while. We enjoyed the views as we whizzed across a bridge and into Queens, where we got off at Jamaica.

We walked across the station to the AirTrain platform where we had a short wait for the train. It was very quiet, hardly any people on the train. The train went round all the terminals and we were terminal 7.
We got off the train and were checked in quickly and straight through security, all very fast and efficient. Our flight was at 10.55 so we had a few hours to kill.

We went to the BA lounge and they let us all in this time, always worth a try! We partook of various refreshments but there were no meals available. We then saw our flight was delayed by around 30 mins. Just as we were considering whether to leave the lounge in search of a restaurant we were paged and discovered that we had all been upgraded to Club! I had the biggest grin on my face! Considering that we were a family of 4 flying on reward tickets, it must have been a very busy flight! This meant we could go through to another part of the lounge where food was being served, so we had some salads and cheese, DH had some Chinese dumplings being made by a chef as you wait.

Eventually we were called to board and had our first Club experience (well apart from DH who often gets upgraded when he flies on business) DS1 had decided he was not going to sleep on the plane so he watched lots of films. We were served champagne, then drinks and dinner, which was very tasty but it was gone midnight so didn't really do it justice. We adjusted the seats to lie down and I got a few hours sleep which was great. Breakfast and coffee were served about 6 hours later, it was a very smooth flight and seemed to go by very quickly.

Landed in Heathrow around 10.30 Monday morning, got our bags and went to find our car which had been delivered to the short stay car park by the Purple Parking meet and greet. No queues at immigration that we saw.

So we had a great holiday in New York, the subway was very easy to use, museums and attractions all very good. Would love to go back!

[hross42877]

Great end to your trip, thanks for sharing!

[Hannikins]

Great report! I'm just catching up while I wait for my flight home ;p

[Guest]

Thanks for posting, really enjoyed your report

[Infinity Red]

Brilliant, and what a great ending being upgraded,thank you.

[DIBBadmin]

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