“Is it time to relax yet?” - New York February 2022 Pre/Travel Day

[Clarica]

Friday 18th February 2022 - Pre Travel Day

I woke up around 6.30am and headed out to work. I work in a school but thankfully today was a Teacher Training Day meaning I didn’t have to worry about being around lots of people on the day of my test!
Before I left school at 3pm, I did a LFT just to check I was negative before I turned up for my observed one!
Dan had the day off so he spent the day packing before meeting me.

Of the entire holiday, today was the most stressful day. We initially had tests booked at Lloyds pharmacy (a 5 minutes walk from my house) but were cancelled last minute due to them stopping the tests! After a mad rush of trying to find somewhere to do a last minute observed LFT, we booked Express Test in the Metro Centre. These cost £38 each and we were in and out in about 5 minutes. My tester said it would be about 40 minutes for the results to come through via email.

While waiting we went to Hotel Chocolat Cafe. I had a billionaires sundae and a hot chocolate (definitely had a sweet tooth today!)

Dan had a chai tea. I think the results came through after 30 minutes and both negative of course! 😀 filled in the information on the Verifly app about our negative tests, this didn’t get approved until after 10pm.
However, that wasn’t the end of the stress. We were right in the middle of Storm Eunice so we’d heard of hundreds of flights being cancelled and my colleagues warned me it could be cancelled. 😭 BA’s website was showing our flights were still going ahead. 🤞🏻
Uber home which got us home for 6pm. Finished off last minute bits and bobs of packing and eventually headed to bed at 11pm.

Saturday 19th February 2022 - Travel Day

Alarm went off at 3.30am, aiming to set off at 4am to the airport so we only had to shove some clothes on. I kept refreshing emails and the Newcastle Airport departures to make sure our flight was still going ahead as it was still very windy!
Uber cost £22.18 to Newcastle Airport at 3.55am.
Check in at the British Airways desk was incredibly smooth and was such an easy process! We showed our Verifly app and our passport. As we were World Traveller Plus, we were allowed 2 x 23kg each. Dan had never travelled with a ‘proper’ airline, just budget ones like Ryanair so couldn’t get over he could take a carry on case if he wanted too 😂 I also told him he’d get a complimentary meal and drinks (warning: before he ordered a drink, he’d ask how much it was/was it definitely free 😂 )

Back to the case situation, I took 2 cases 🙈 I needed both as I needed to replenish my stockpile of Bath and Bodyworks 😉 Dan insisted I only needed one case like him, he doesn’t understand 🙄

Security was quiet, no queues at all. Walked right through.

I had debated between a Greggs (typical Geordie girl) and a Burger King breakfast. I opted for Burger King as it was after security. I had a egg and cheese sandwich with hash browns. Dan had a sharer box with onion rings, chilli cheese bites and lots of fried things, even though it was only 5am 😂

After we went to Caffe Rizzo and I had Salted caramel latte with whipped cream. This was a little too sweet.

We boarded the flight on time to Heathrow (flight was completely full).

Very windy and a bit of turbulence due to Storm Eunice, to add to my stress already of being a nervous flyer. Both felt a bit sick so took some travel sickness tablets. The host gave us an antibacterial wipe each. I read Grazia magazine while Dan tried to sleep off his travel sickness. We were served a snack of a Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain Strawberry and a bottle of water.

The flight was pretty uneventful.

The plane flew over Manchester, Birmingham and central London. Couldn’t see anything until we hit London - saw The Shard, Wembley Stadium, London Eye, Regents Park, Kings Cross, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Arsenal football ground.

The plane disembarked a few rows at a time to avoid a crush and to ‘socially distance’ as much as possible.

Once inside, Heathrow Airport it was busy with it being end of holidays in a lot of the country but the start in other parts. I got a Veggie breakfast sandwich from Pret to eat before the plane but it wasn’t very nice.

We headed over to the gate around an hour before take off. We were late departing but also will be late landing because of the storms they are doing a different route by flying south and battling against the jet stream.

Dan was really impressed with WTP 👍🏻

Plenty of leg room with a foot rest (I’m just under 5 foot 9).

Flying at 36,000 feet. Flight time is 8 hours 13 mins, expecting to arrive at 1.36pm (was meant to land at 12.55pm).

The display time kept changing as this was before we departed.

Again, flight was very uneventful.

Here is what I did:

Watched:
Friends, 6th Season - Joey Loses His Insurance

Listened to:
Radio 1 Big Weekend (the year I went!)

Played:
Hangman (with Dan)
Bejeweled
Tetris
Uno (with Dan and we lost to a computer! Dan was furious for the rest of the trip)

Drank/ate:
Water x2
Orange juice
Rum & Coke x2

I preordered a veggie meal which was rigatoni with mushroom sauce - was tasty but pasta was overcooked and hard from the microwave. Dessert was a chocolate mousse cake with raspberry sauce. Dan chose the same.

Half a cucumber and mint sandwich
Kitkat

Dan slept for about an hour before food was served. He missed the drink service so I made sure to order him some drinks 😉 (four drinks for me 😄 )

I also read some magazines, did a giant sudoku (5 sudokus overlapping).

Immigration in terminal 7 at JFK was approximately an hour. Only our flight was in there as the terminal is dedicated for BA flights. Bags were ready as we got through which is always a winner.
Took the AirTrain to Jamaica and changed to the subway.

Initial subway we needed to get was off this weekend so we had a 14 block walk to the hotel. Picked up a Starbucks along the way, I had a Pistachio Latte, Dan had a chai tea latte. Both $5.99 each including tax.

Dan carried one of my suitcases for me 😄 Walk to hotel was great, walked past Bloomingdales down Lexington Avenue.

The wind was bitter and cold but amazing to have some fresh air on our faces.
We got ourselves checked in at The Benjamin and thankfully the room was ready when we arrived, approximately 5pm.

We booked a one bedroom king suite. I requested a high floor but ended up having a view over Lexington Avenue on the 6th floor.

We loved having a living room, kitchenette with a separate bedroom. Very spacious for a New York City hotel. The upgrade on BA from a standard room to the suite was well worth the £125 each. 👍🏻
Our bathroom had Elemis toiletries in which I loved!

Dan took a shower and I unpacked a little, got changed ready to face the hash New York winter.

Walked over to Olive Garden stopping at Rockefella Center to look at the ice rink, waited around 30 minutes for our table to be ready. But used this opportunity to wander around Times Square, take some pics and soak up the Big Apple atmosphere.
Just a little warning, New York is VERY strict on Covid passports. Every restaurant and museum we visited we needed to show our covid pass (double vaccination for over 12 years old) and some photo ID.

Service was ok at Olive Garden, Dan felt very underwhelmed with the service as he heard restaurant service in the USA was supposed to be amazing. We had to keep reminding server about our drinks so our meals came before our drinks.

We opted for breadsticks with salad.

I had five cheese marinara rigatoni and Dan had fettuccine alfredo. Both were ok. Salad was salty but meals filled a hole.

I had a raspberry lemonade and took one to go. Dan had a spiked strawberry lemonade ($7).

Walked back to hotel via Walgreens for breakfast snacks and went straight to sleep around 9pm. I woke up at 2am asking if it was time to go to IHOP yet 😄 but thankfully fell back to sleep after he gave me a stern no.

Step count: 12,163
5.5 miles

Sunday 20th February - Day 1

[Frankie & gang]

Great start to your trip report, I shall enjoy following as you add more.
We had 5 nights from 1 April in NY staying on Lexington Ave at The Shelburne by Affinia. Good hotel!

[anji]

Brilliant first day! Lovely room at your hotel. Glad the flight wasn't too rough for you with the diversion.

[Clarica]

Originally Posted by Frankie & gang

Great start to your trip report, I shall enjoy following as you add more.
We had 5 nights from 1 April in NY staying on Lexington Ave at The Shelburne by Affinia. Good hotel!

See more...

Thank you so much! ☺️
I’ve heard the Shelburne is a great hotel. I’ll definitely keep it in mind for when I eventually go back!

[Clarica]

Originally Posted by anji

Brilliant first day! Lovely room at your hotel. Glad the flight wasn't too rough for you with the diversion.

See more...

Thank you so much 🥰

[Ali23]

Nice travel day trippie, I enjoyed reading it, your hotel room looks fab.
Have you both been to NY before?
I’m going in Sept for the first time with my husband. I’m looking forward to reading more of your trip 😄

[NewtoOrlando]

Love a NYC trippy! Fab travel day, hotel looks great. That journey from Jamaica to he city on the air train is so easy isn't it? I keep looking at flights for this November but they're still too pricy for what I want to pay!

[Clarica]

Originally Posted by Ali23

Nice travel day trippie, I enjoyed reading it, your hotel room looks fab.
Have you both been to NY before?
I’m going in Sept for the first time with my husband. I’m looking forward to reading more of your trip 😄

See more...

Thank you so much! ☺️
This was my 4th time to the Big Apple but my boyfriend’s first time (and to the USA). He absolutely loved it so need to try him with another US city

[Clarica]

Originally Posted by NewtoOrlando

Love a NYC trippy! Fab travel day, hotel looks great. That journey from Jamaica to he city on the air train is so easy isn't it? I keep looking at flights for this November but they're still too pricy for what I want to pay!

See more...

The air train is fantastic!

Ah no! What a pain, I think the flights to the US this year are so expensive! We pushed our Florida summer holiday back until next year for that very reason. Fingers crossed you can get yourself a good deal! Have you tried looking for a package with BA? For New York and my upcoming Washington DC holiday cheaper than getting flights and hotel separately. Good luck! 🤞🏻

[WIGGYSMUM]

Originally Posted by Clarica

Friday 18th February 2022 - Pre Travel Day

I woke up around 6.30am and headed out to work. I work in a school but thankfully today was a Teacher Training Day meaning I didn’t have to worry about being around lots of people on the day of my test!
Before I left school at 3pm, I did a LFT just to check I was negative before I turned up for my observed one!
Dan had the day off so he spent the day packing before meeting me.

Of the entire holiday, today was the most stressful day. We initially had tests booked at Lloyds pharmacy (a 5 minutes walk from my house) but were cancelled last minute due to them stopping the tests! After a mad rush of trying to find somewhere to do a last minute observed LFT, we booked Express Test in the Metro Centre. These cost £38 each and we were in and out in about 5 minutes. My tester said it would be about 40 minutes for the results to come through via email.

While waiting we went to Hotel Chocolat Cafe. I had a billionaires sundae and a hot chocolate (definitely had a sweet tooth today!)

Dan had a chai tea. I think the results came through after 30 minutes and both negative of course! 😀 filled in the information on the Verifly app about our negative tests, this didn’t get approved until after 10pm.
However, that wasn’t the end of the stress. We were right in the middle of Storm Eunice so we’d heard of hundreds of flights being cancelled and my colleagues warned me it could be cancelled. 😭 BA’s website was showing our flights were still going ahead. 🤞🏻
Uber home which got us home for 6pm. Finished off last minute bits and bobs of packing and eventually headed to bed at 11pm.

Saturday 19th February 2022 - Travel Day

Alarm went off at 3.30am, aiming to set off at 4am to the airport so we only had to shove some clothes on. I kept refreshing emails and the Newcastle Airport departures to make sure our flight was still going ahead as it was still very windy!
Uber cost £22.18 to Newcastle Airport at 3.55am.
Check in at the British Airways desk was incredibly smooth and was such an easy process! We showed our Verifly app and our passport. As we were World Traveller Plus, we were allowed 2 x 23kg each. Dan had never travelled with a ‘proper’ airline, just budget ones like Ryanair so couldn’t get over he could take a carry on case if he wanted too 😂 I also told him he’d get a complimentary meal and drinks (warning: before he ordered a drink, he’d ask how much it was/was it definitely free 😂 )

Back to the case situation, I took 2 cases 🙈 I needed both as I needed to replenish my stockpile of Bath and Bodyworks 😉 Dan insisted I only needed one case like him, he doesn’t understand 🙄

Security was quiet, no queues at all. Walked right through.

I had debated between a Greggs (typical Geordie girl) and a Burger King breakfast. I opted for Burger King as it was after security. I had a egg and cheese sandwich with hash browns. Dan had a sharer box with onion rings, chilli cheese bites and lots of fried things, even though it was only 5am 😂

After we went to Caffe Rizzo and I had Salted caramel latte with whipped cream. This was a little too sweet.

We boarded the flight on time to Heathrow (flight was completely full).

Very windy and a bit of turbulence due to Storm Eunice, to add to my stress already of being a nervous flyer. Both felt a bit sick so took some travel sickness tablets. The host gave us an antibacterial wipe each. I read Grazia magazine while Dan tried to sleep off his travel sickness. We were served a snack of a Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain Strawberry and a bottle of water.

The flight was pretty uneventful.

The plane flew over Manchester, Birmingham and central London. Couldn’t see anything until we hit London - saw The Shard, Wembley Stadium, London Eye, Regents Park, Kings Cross, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Arsenal football ground.

The plane disembarked a few rows at a time to avoid a crush and to ‘socially distance’ as much as possible.

Once inside, Heathrow Airport it was busy with it being end of holidays in a lot of the country but the start in other parts. I got a Veggie breakfast sandwich from Pret to eat before the plane but it wasn’t very nice.

We headed over to the gate around an hour before take off. We were late departing but also will be late landing because of the storms they are doing a different route by flying south and battling against the jet stream.

Dan was really impressed with WTP 👍🏻

Plenty of leg room with a foot rest (I’m just under 5 foot 9).

Flying at 36,000 feet. Flight time is 8 hours 13 mins, expecting to arrive at 1.36pm (was meant to land at 12.55pm).

The display time kept changing as this was before we departed.

Again, flight was very uneventful.

Here is what I did:

Watched:
Friends, 6th Season - Joey Loses His Insurance

Listened to:
Radio 1 Big Weekend (the year I went!)

Played:
Hangman (with Dan)
Bejeweled
Tetris
Uno (with Dan and we lost to a computer! Dan was furious for the rest of the trip)

Drank/ate:
Water x2
Orange juice
Rum & Coke x2

I preordered a veggie meal which was rigatoni with mushroom sauce - was tasty but pasta was overcooked and hard from the microwave. Dessert was a chocolate mousse cake with raspberry sauce. Dan chose the same.

Half a cucumber and mint sandwich
Kitkat

Dan slept for about an hour before food was served. He missed the drink service so I made sure to order him some drinks 😉 (four drinks for me 😄 )

I also read some magazines, did a giant sudoku (5 sudokus overlapping).

Immigration in terminal 7 at JFK was approximately an hour. Only our flight was in there as the terminal is dedicated for BA flights. Bags were ready as we got through which is always a winner.
Took the AirTrain to Jamaica and changed to the subway.

Initial subway we needed to get was off this weekend so we had a 14 block walk to the hotel. Picked up a Starbucks along the way, I had a Pistachio Latte, Dan had a chai tea latte. Both $5.99 each including tax.

Dan carried one of my suitcases for me 😄 Walk to hotel was great, walked past Bloomingdales down Lexington Avenue.

The wind was bitter and cold but amazing to have some fresh air on our faces.
We got ourselves checked in at The Benjamin and thankfully the room was ready when we arrived, approximately 5pm.

We booked a one bedroom king suite. I requested a high floor but ended up having a view over Lexington Avenue on the 6th floor.

We loved having a living room, kitchenette with a separate bedroom. Very spacious for a New York City hotel. The upgrade on BA from a standard room to the suite was well worth the £125 each. 👍🏻
Our bathroom had Elemis toiletries in which I loved!

Dan took a shower and I unpacked a little, got changed ready to face the hash New York winter.

Walked over to Olive Garden stopping at Rockefella Center to look at the ice rink, waited around 30 minutes for our table to be ready. But used this opportunity to wander around Times Square, take some pics and soak up the Big Apple atmosphere.
Just a little warning, New York is VERY strict on Covid passports. Every restaurant and museum we visited we needed to show our covid pass (double vaccination for over 12 years old) and some photo ID.

Service was ok at Olive Garden, Dan felt very underwhelmed with the service as he heard restaurant service in the USA was supposed to be amazing. We had to keep reminding server about our drinks so our meals came before our drinks.

We opted for breadsticks with salad.

I had five cheese marinara rigatoni and Dan had fettuccine alfredo. Both were ok. Salad was salty but meals filled a hole.

I had a raspberry lemonade and took one to go. Dan had a spiked strawberry lemonade ($7).

Walked back to hotel via Walgreens for breakfast snacks and went straight to sleep around 9pm. I woke up at 2am asking if it was time to go to IHOP yet 😄 but thankfully fell back to sleep after he gave me a stern no.

Step count: 12,163
5.5 miles

Sunday 20th February - Day 1

See more...

You did amazing for travel day !
We have stayed just off Lexington on 49th a few times and of course the fact there’s a BBW on Lexington had nothing to do with your choice
Your suite looks lovely 😊