What we learned in New York - Thurs 15th June 2017 - Travel day

[Fuellady]

What we learned in New York – Travel day

Thursday 15th June 2017

Introductions

In the absence of a pre-trip report, I’ll do a brief introduction here along with a summary of how the holiday came about.

So, we are me, Lynda, age 44 and my husband Neil, 51 when we travel, turns 52 while we are away. Which kind of brings me to the reason for this trip. We have said for years that we both wanted to visit New York but every time it comes to booking a holiday we invariably end up booking Orlando after discussing where else we could go. We just can’t help ourselves!

So this Christmas past I decided to take matters into my own hands and give Neil a trip to New York for his Christmas present, but planned to go over his birthday, so kind of combining the 2 really. And so here we are, it has come round really quickly and we are ready to go!

The report is called “What we learned in New York” because every day here we learned something new. We felt a bit apprehensive about going on this holiday because it is so different to what we usually do and we felt a bit clueless so every day was a school day!

We looked at the various New York passes we could buy and after putting a plan together with the things we most wanted to do, we decided that the 7 attraction Explorer Pass would be the best one for us. We ordered it directly from the Go City website, I think we paid $180 each. We also pre booked tickets for the Crown of the Statue of Liberty when they became available at 6 months out as this was one of the things Neil really wanted to do on his birthday.

So, here we are, travel day… We left the house around 7.50am to travel to Aberdeen Airport. We said goodbye to our girls who were both in the house. Eilidh had school today as normal and Shannon was home from Edinburgh for their Dad’s wedding which was the next day so after school today their Dad was picking them up and they would spend the next few days with him.

We got to Aberdeen with no issues, and as always when we fly from Aberdeen we parked the car at our work depot near the airport. I say near the airport, but unfortunately it wasn’t as close as I had been led to believe! Normally, Neil drops me at the airport then goes and drops the car off and walks back to the airport himself. However, today he said we should both drop off the car and walk round together. Never again! Trailing our cases, it took about half an hour, up and down kerbs, across busy roads… I was exhausted by the time we reached the airport, that didn’t bode well for our very busy holiday coming up!

We still had plenty of time, but decided to queue at the BA desk straight away. We had heard on the radio coming through, that there was a problem with baggage at Heathrow and passengers were being advised to put all essentials in their hand luggage. We asked at the BA desk when it was our turn but the girl there didn’t know much about it. I switched my spare contact lenses into my hand luggage just in case. Everything else I could replace if I had to. We went straight through security then had some breakfast at The Globe cafe. We both had a bacon roll and coffee, sorry no photo of the bacon roll, I was too hungry! Total £14.40.

We boarded a while later, but were about 20 minutes late taking off. Neil was sitting by the window so I was leaning across to have a nosy as well. As we approached Heathrow, we saw Buckingham Palace and also the Grenfell flats that had been on fire a couple of days before. What a terrible tragedy that was, let’s hope something is done to prevent anything similar happening again.

We arrived on time, with a tail wind helping and went straight to get the bus to connect us to Terminal 3 from Terminal 5 where we had landed. By the time we had done this we didn’t have much time so went straight through passport control without hanging about. We asked the girl at passport control if she know anything about the baggage situation and she thought our bags would go through all right because as far as she knew it was only flights that left between 5am and 8am that were affected. Even our first flight from Aberdeen to Heathrow had left at 11.05 so we were well clear of those times. The flight was boarding so we went straight on. It was an American Airlines plane, code sharing with British Airways who we had booked our flights with direct.

We had our first drinks round about half an hour into the flight, apple juice and water for me, Coke zero and water for Neil. About an hour later, lunch was Meatballs with rice which we both had. It was nice enough. The other choice was pasta.

A while later there was another drinks round, then ice cream. For dinner, about one hour before landing we had a folded pizza (roasted veg & cheese) and a red velvet cake. I enjoyed this, I thought it was really nice but Neil didn’t like it and felt a bit queasy after eating it.

The flight was around 8 hours, so plenty of time to take advantage of the in-flight entertainment. I watched Hidden Figures, which I had seen before and loved so I decided to watch it again. It’s one of the best films I’ve seen in a long time… if you haven’t seen it, then do! Next I watched La La Land, mainly to see what all the hype was about. I didn’t enjoy it at first, it seemed a bit flimsy, not much of a story, but as it went on I started to enjoy it more and quite enjoyed it in the end. Finally, I watched Moana, again I had seen this before and really liked it so I wanted to see it again. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite make it to the end, I think I was about 20 minutes from the end of the film when we landed. Neil watched Manchester by the Sea, which he said was quite sad, John Wick 2 and Monster Trucks which he said was rubbish!

We landed half an hour early, but couldn’t get our slot at the gate so we had to wait until our proper landing time before we could start to disembark. We easily used the machines at immigration, then a quick check of our passports by an officer and we were straight to baggage reclaim, hoping that our bags had made the journey with us. It did take a while and there were a lot of bags that we saw going round and round before finally one of ours made an appearance. A few minutes later the second one appeared and so, relieved, we were good to go. One last check of our passports and the slip from the machine and we could finally head out to Ground Transportation.

We had booked Go Airlink shared transport through Attraction Tickets Direct before we left home for our transfer from the airport to our hotel. It seemed like a good deal at £17 per person. We had a print out of the confirmation email and 2 vouchers but when we got to the Ground Transportation desk the woman there kept asking who we had booked with and kept looking at our vouchers like she hadn’t seen ones like them before. She made a phone call and eventually said that the driver would be with us in no more than half an hour. We waited to the side of the desk and after only about 10 minutes the driver arrived. There was another couple waiting as well who were on his bus so we all followed him out and got in. I’ve no idea what he was doing, but he was ages faffing about outside and we waited about 20 minutes for him to get into the van. When he finally got in, he explained that we would have 2 more stops at other terminals. It took a while to get everyone picked up and then when we finally thought we were getting going, the driver announced that he had to stop for fuel as he didn’t have enough to get us to our hotels! He asked to look at our paperwork again, and eventually took the 2 vouchers from us, saying he thought those were the ones he needed. Finally, we were on the road although it was slow going as it was rush hour traffic. It was mad as well, cars cutting each other up and tooting all the time. Our own driver was getting the bus into spaces I was sure didn’t exist!

There was just one drop before ours and as we approached our stop the driver asked if we would mind getting off on 8th Avenue and walking down the street to our hotel. He explained that it was a one way system and he could drive to the next street and go down it, along the bottom and back up our street but with the current traffic that would take about 20 minutes. There was another man getting off at our stop, staying in the hotel next to ours and we all agreed that we were happy to walk the little bit. We got our bags from the back of the van and feeling excited now, started walking down 40th Street to the Distrikt Hotel where we would be staying for the next 5 nights. The journey from the airport had taken about 1 ¾ hours in total.

We liked the hotel as soon as we walked in. The staff were friendly and helpful and quickly gave us the keys to our room on the 26th floor. We had originally booked a room on one of the lower floors, but yesterday we had received an email offering us an upgrade for $25 per night. We had replied saying that we would like to do that, we thought it was a good deal. Unfortunately, the view from our room, despite being high up wasn’t that great. We could see some of the bright lights on 8th Avenue looking right, and a sliver of the Hudson river through the buildings if we looked left, but directly in front of us looking down was a rooftop carpark.

The room was fairly spacious, with plenty of storage and a nice bathroom. It had 2 queen size beds with a cabinet between them. We unpacked and headed up to 8th Avenue to see if we could find somewhere to eat. We soon found Smiths Bar just along the street. It was a warm night, and they had all of their front windows open and although there were plenty of customers in, we could see that there were plenty of free tables as well. I had a pulled pork sandwich with fries and a Diet Coke, Neil had a Classic burger with fries and a Bud Lite (draft). His Bud was flat and warm, so next he ordered a Miller Lite in a bottle which was nice and cold.

It was kind of surreal sitting there having this meal, so late for our body clocks, around 2am. We couldn’t quite believe we were in New York! Both meals were really nice, a good food start to our trip. Once we had finished we walked the short distance back to the Distrikt, then collapsed into bed. It was just after 10pm (local time).

What we learned today: Not to use shared transportation from the airport, we really didn’t enjoy the journey.

Day 2 is HERE

[Goldia]

How exciting to read your trippie just before we head off to New York. We're going to catch a yellow taxi from the airport instead of booking a transfer. I was a bit apprehensive about this as we've always sorted out a transfer on previous holidays...perhaps we can learn along with you...looking forward to the next instalment. 😀

[Col&Ali]

Great start Lynda! What a long day though ... I thought the flight to New York was quicker than that for some reason. Really looking forward to reading more about your trip

[Fuellady]

Originally Posted by Goldia

How exciting to read your trippie just before we head off to New York. We're going to catch a yellow taxi from the airport instead of booking a transfer. I was a bit apprehensive about this as we've always sorted out a transfer on previous holidays...perhaps we can learn along with you...looking forward to the next instalment. 😀

See more...

Ooh, you go really soon. I'm sure you will have an amazing time. Unfortunately we didn't experience a yellow taxi, a really New York thing to do, I'm sure it will be great. I must admit our transfer wasn't great, our driver was absolutely mad!

Thanks for reading

Originally Posted by Col&Ali

Great start Lynda! What a long day though ... I thought the flight to New York was quicker than that for some reason. Really looking forward to reading more about your trip

See more...

Hey Ali, thanks for reading The flight was only 6 hours on the way home, but 8 hours on the way out... we must have taken a different route

[Mortimer Mouse]

Yes, I've not heard good things about the shared transport from the airport. I think Carmel or DIAL7 are recommended if you want to pre book, or just use the yellow taxis outside.

[Jane71]

So glad to find this trip report. Im thinking of taking my 2 sons next year around the same time and havent decided yet as Im thinking it may be too hot especially for my youngest. But I will not be getting shared transport now as Id previously considered it. I know what you mean about the surreal feeling I felt like that on our first trip to Orlando. Id wanted to go to Orlando for years and never had the courage. I actually cried when we got there as I was so happy we'd made the trip. I know it sounds silly. Both my sons have special needs and my youngest is a wheelchair user so even a trip to the supermarket has to planned and timed like a military exercise. So next year is hopefully NYC and WDC and I cant wait to see all those familiar places Ive seen over the years on TV, movies, etc. The Distrikt is one of the hotels on my list. It seems to get good reviews. So glad your luggage appeared.

[Fuellady]

Originally Posted by Mortimer Mouse

Yes, I've not heard good things about the shared transport from the airport. I think Carmel or DIAL7 are recommended if you want to pre book, or just use the yellow taxis outside.

See more...

I haven't heard of either of those transport options, I'll look them up next time. We were seriously thinking of getting out of the bus and hopping into a yellow cab as our driver was faffing about so much before getting going. Thanks for reading

Originally Posted by Jane71

So glad to find this trip report. Im thinking of taking my 2 sons next year around the same time and havent decided yet as Im thinking it may be too hot especially for my youngest. But I will not be getting shared transport now as Id previously considered it. I know what you mean about the surreal feeling I felt like that on our first trip to Orlando. Id wanted to go to Orlando for years and never had the courage. I actually cried when we got there as I was so happy we'd made the trip. I know it sounds silly. Both my sons have special needs and my youngest is a wheelchair user so even a trip to the supermarket has to planned and timed like a military exercise. So next year is hopefully NYC and WDC and I cant wait to see all those familiar places Ive seen over the years on TV, movies, etc. The Distrikt is one of the hotels on my list. It seems to get good reviews. So glad your luggage appeared.

See more...

It's not silly at all, I cried on our first trip to Orlando. Still do when leaving MK for the last time each trip Oh, I really hope you make it to NYC next year... it really is an amazing place. Even on the hot days there, we didn't find it too bad. It wasn't as humid as Orlando. Thanks for reading

[i love jack]

And another one excited to find an NY trippie just before we go I'm feeling like you described! A bit apprehensive about going, so I'm looking forward to reading

[Fuellady]

Originally Posted by i love jack

And another one excited to find an NY trippie just before we go I'm feeling like you described! A bit apprehensive about going, so I'm looking forward to reading

See more...

Thanks for reading I'm sure you'll have a great time... it's not as scary as it seems!

[disney owl]

good travel day apart from your transfer from airport