'We had plans and then we changed them' Natural History Museum and Home ~ Orlando and NYC

[DisneyDaffodil]

Index

This morning started by all of us packing ready to leave later that day. We agreed that it had been a great holiday and were determined to make the most of our last day. Excuse the mess, as we were packing, but here's some last photos of our room.

At 10:30, we left our luggage at guest services and met up with Justin and Emily. It was duller today but still quite hot. The weather had been absolutely wonderful in NYC. We went to the Subway station at 57th Street and caught the uptown train to 81st Street to use our last Explorer Pass at the Natural History Museum.

We queues up at the Subway entrance to the Natural History Museum. We later felt this might have been a mistake as the queue was really long and we took around an hour to get into the museum. As it was around midday now, we decided to head to the food court and have food before exploring the museum. There was a massive choice of food at the food court and the prices were very good. However, it was rather hectic and we therefore picked lots of different foods that didn't actually make a meal here's some examples of the tasty but odd meals we ate. It cost $53 for our three meals with drinks, so it was certainly good value as we even had cake.

After lunch, we began to look around the museum. We were excited to look around here, as we all enjoy the Night In the Museum film. I must say, we were disappointed with the museum. Some parts were very interesting (such as the dinosaurs and extinct animals) but we soon became bored wandering around. Maybe we were tired at this part of the holiday or maybe we expected it to be more like the film but for us it was somewhere we wouldn't return to. We possibly should have left and visited somewhere else, as we felt it was bit of a waste of our last day. Here's some photos anyway.

We used the balance on our Subway cards to return to 57th Street. Georgia's batteries had died on her camera by this point and we had no way to charge them, so we haven't got many photos from here on, only the ones taken on Georgia's phone. This is a mosaic on the wall of the subway station outside the Natural History Museum.

When we left the Subway, we went into Starbucks and all had frappuccino or iced coffees to cool down. We sat outside of Central park for half an hour, watching the people and dogs walking into the park. We then went and picked up our luggage and ordered two Ubers to JFK airport. The Ubers came very quickly to take us to the airport. The traffic was really heavy and it took us just over an hour to get to the airport. We got there fifteen minutes before Justin and Emily, even though they'd set off a few minutes before us. JFK was busy again and we were early, so our check in desks weren't open yet. We stood in the queue and quickly checked in when it opened around ten minutes later. Once we'd got through security (which didn't take long and we spent most of the time looking at a cute dog going through security with his owners ), we looked for somewhere to eat.
We decided we wanted to eat at Shake Shack again, after we'd enjoyed it so much in NYC. Justin led us in what he believed was the right direction which turned out to be the opposite direction, as Georgia had tried telling him when he started walking that way (he gets his sense of direction from me ) We then turned around and walked to the Shake Shack closest to us but there was no seating here so Justin decided he wanted to go to one further away in the airport, hoping there was seating there. So, we all plodded after him, moaning about the extra walking and our poor feet. Tempers were fraying now (mostly mine and Rob's) so we were very relieved to find there were seat at this Shake Shack. We ordered Chick'n Shack burgers and cheesy fries. Justin and Emily had chocolate milkshake, Rob and I had the lemonade and Georgia had water. We really liked the food here and it was all hot and filling. We didn't take any photos so here's one I 'borrowed' from the internet.

We waited in the airport for our flight to board. We boarded the plane for our 10 pm flight but we were in a queue of planes on the runway. We took off at 10:30 and we were on our way home, sadly.

We have no pictures of the food on the plane, but it wasn't very nice. We had mozzarella and tomato sandwiches and for breakfast before we landed, a plastic-tasting omelette and yoghurt. None of us ate much of the food. The flight was fine, we dozed and watched films. I watched Moana and Logan (both of which I've seen before which was good as I slept through some parts), Georgia watched the new Beauty and the Beast and Logan and I'm not sure what anyone else watched.
We landed at Manchester airport at 10am and began our long journey home to Wales. We dropped Justin and Emily off at their house and then picked Rolo up from the dog sitters, where he'd had a great holiday but was very happy to see us. We were exhausted when we arrived at our home at 6:30 that evening. We ate Chinese takeaway and went to bed This is Rolo, very happy we were taking him home at last.

The holiday had been amazing and it had been especially nice to spend time with Justin and Emily.
Step Count: 17,000 (mainly looking for Shake Shack at the airport )

[mrsdjh]

Ha ha - love your comment re your step count!

Shame you didn't enjoy the museum. Did you think the Explorer Pass was a good thing to get?

Ive enjoyed reading about your trip, thanks for taking the time to write it x

[DisneyDaffodil]

Thank you for reading, I am glad you enjoyed it, it took us ages to finish it but we enjoy reading back over the holiday, great memories 😊

We may have been just too tired for the museum but we just didn't feel the love for it 😀

I do think the Exploror Pass was good value for a first time visitor to NYC. It does save money on paying on the door. Plus with Exploror Pass there is a huge choice so you decide on which attractions you want and it is flexible enough let you change your mind. I would buy a 3 attraction one next time as I don't think we would need a 5 one for a second trip

[Fuellady]

What a shame you didn't enjoy the museum. Unfortunately we didn't make it there despite us also enjoying the Night at the Museum films. It's hard to know what to do on the last day, always being aware of timekeeping for getting to the airport.

Thank you for sharing your holiday, I've really enjoyed reading about it. It was nice for me to re-live some of our New York memories through your report

[DisneyDaffodil]

Originally Posted by Fuellady

What a shame you didn't enjoy the museum. Unfortunately we didn't make it there despite us also enjoying the Night at the Museum films. It's hard to know what to do on the last day, always being aware of timekeeping for getting to the airport.

Thank you for sharing your holiday, I've really enjoyed reading about it. It was nice for me to re-live some of our New York memories through your report

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Glad you enjoyed it, I love writing the reports as it brings back so many memories too.
I also enjoy reading your trip reports, you did so well to write a live report last time. It takes me ages to finish ours when we get home 😀