An oldie but a goodie! - New York - Sep 2014 - Travel day 2

[AJ86]

So my partner wakes up really early at 5am as I said she could open the next part of her book once she wakes up, I tell her no and try and make her go back to sleep.

Eventually a decent hour comes along and I allow her to open up next part of the book, I basically tell her its all been a lie and we are not staying much longer in Brighton and that she will be allowed to open the next bit of the book after breakfast.

I have never seen a woman get ready so quickly (I might try this tactic when we go out next!) Down to breakfast and we enjoy a nice full English breakfast over looking the Marina and watch some of the boats come and go. I sit there for a while trying to waste time but it looked like she had ants in her pants and was about to explode, so I put her out of her misery and we go back to the room where she opens up the next part of the book.

I wish I had recorded her reaction when she flicked the page and found out where we were heading to, but to sum it up there was lots of OMG’s and No way’s and tears oh happiness, definitely a moment I won’t be forgetting any time soon. I then let her read the rest of the book to see what was in store for the week and what shows we were going to etc.

Brighton is only around 30 minutes away from Gatwick Airport and our flight was not until 1700 so we had most of the day to enjoy in Brighton. This also gave my partner a chance to buy any last minute things I might have forgotten and a chance to walk around the shops again.

Today also was the Brighton Stage of the Tour of Britain cycle race so we got a chance to see a bit of this before heading to the Airport. The day was full of excitement for both of us, for me this was the end result of around 9-10 months planning and for my partner this was the start of a wonderful holiday, what girl wouldn’t want to be whisked away to New York!

We headed off to the Airport with plenty of time to spare and boarded our flight to New York. I had read many horror stories around flying with Norwegian with them not having the correct permits to fly, stories of 48hour delays, and flights operated by 3rd party carriers.

I had no reason to worry at all, the flight departed on time, on one of their new Dreamliners. The way of working is very modern and if you haven’t pre-booked a meal you don’t really have any interaction with the cabin crew. All snacks and drinks are ordered through your TV screen and brought to your seat. I had pre booked the package of a meal, pre bookable seat and baggage, and was glad of it as the flight was nearly full so got to pre book a window seat near to the front so we could head to immigration quickly.

Food was good and you are given a choice and you get a drink to go along with the meal. We landed into JFK on time however for some reason we stopped short of the gate for around 10 minutes while we waited for a tug to pull the plane the last 10 meters.

Anyway we managed to get off the plane quickly and headed to Immigration. The queues were not too bad and moved quickly, we were quite lucky and got moved over to the side for US nationals and into a much shorter queue.

The whole process was nice and easy and from leaving the plane to picking up our luggage was around 45 minutes.

I like to try and take the cheapest option for things where possible so we headed out to the Air Train, the signage in Terminal 1 wasn’t the clearest, but we asked someone who kindly pointed us in the correct direction, anyone wondering just head up and you can’t go wrong, unless you were very tired like us!

I had worked out from our itinerary that we were not going to use the subway that much so decided against an unlimited Metro card and instead paid for a $19.05 card to make the most of the bonus they give you.

Getting to Manhattan couldn’t have been easier and took the E line to Port Authority Bus Terminal. I managed to get to take the wrong exit out of the Subway but thanks to using Google Street view before I came I recognised some of the buildings and headed to W40th Street and checked into our hotel the Distrikt.

The street didn’t look the best with a couple of adult stores and the parole office, but there were always plenty of people around going to and from hotels and bars so never worried one bit.

The Hotel was fantastic and the staff could not have been friendlier. Room size was good I thought considering I stayed at the Pod 51 hotel last time I came. You could pay for a city view but to be honest I’m not sure if this will be worth it as there was a new structure being built which perfectly obscures the view of the Empire State Building and all we could see from the 20th floor was the top of its antenna. Not sure if this would be different from a higher floor but I doubt it. We got to the hotel around 2330 so around 4 am back in the UK so we headed to bed ready for tomorrow!

Stock images of the hotel

Day 1 in New York