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28 Mar 17, 07:41 AM |
#1
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Imagineer
Join Date: Feb 08
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NYC Without the Kids! Jan 2017 - Day Six
Friday 13th Jan 2017
We woke today at about 07:30. The stupid loud women from last night had been out again, but their inconsideration was at a much more considerate midnight, rather than 3am again. We packed up the rest of our stuff and literally only just managed to close the suitcases. They were jammed full! They had been quite full on the way out as Ele had bought 2 coats, but now with her buying another coat, and all the other stuff we had bought, meant we were in danger of not actually getting it all in. We just about managed. Luckily you get business class luggage allowance on both legs of your journey, even if you are Economy on the way back as otherwise we'd have been over I think! We left our luggage with the bellhop and went around the corner to our usual breakfast spot at the Times Square Diner. I had an omelette today and Ele had a bagel and some fruit and yoghurt. The place was packed again today. We decided to go to the Flat Iron district to see the Flat Iron building, so we walked off down 7th. We passed Madison Square Garden on the way: Flat Iron building: We saw the building and then sat in a little park there for a bit, and Face Timed Joe. He was pleased we were coming home! From here we decided to go and see the East Village. This is quite far down, and is a bit "trendy". By this I mean it's a little bit run-down, but full of hipster-type places. We stopped for a cup of coffee in a typically hipster coffee shop called Ost, which I guess means East in some language or another. Wasn't blown away by the East Village really. We decided to walk up the East River back to Midtown (Well, alongside it - we aren't Jesus). To get there we had to walk through a reasonably dodgy-looking part (like an American council estate), then cross a bridge over the FDR. The walk along the river was nice, despite the proximity of one of the busiest roads in Manhattan (at times, mere inches away). Like the High Line, it was much quicker than walking up the main roads, because there's no traffic lights. We saw some cool stuff on the way, like the Pepsi Cola sign: A helicopter coming into land: And a cannibalistic bird eating another dead bird: I realised we were going to come across the UN building, so we went to see that. It's a fairly impressive building: By now(14:00 or so) we were a bit peckish. We decided to try the Rockerfeller Centre. We went in past the skating rink. There were a few places in the underground area, but only one looked any good so we went in there. For some reason, rather than seat us at one of the myriad of available tables, they went off and cleared and set a different table, that was right by one of the tills that the servers put their order on. It literally was adjacent to it. This annoyed me. There were plenty of other tables so why put us there? Whilst we were looking at the menu, I actually had staff leaning over me to use the till. I got so annoyed with it that I made a big deal about standing up and moving us across to different table. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the waitress giving me evils for having dared do so. We couldn't see anything we really wanted on the menu, and nobody had even thought to offer us a drink (even water), so we got up and left. We decided to head to a diner called Apple Jacks that we'd been past a couple of times on Broadway, and then realised we were going to go past Ellen's Stardust Diner. We had tried here a few days before but it had been busy, but it was about 14:45 now so unlikely to be busy. Indeed, we were seated immediately. Ellen's is great. If you don't know about it, it's a place where all the wait staff are Broadway performers (either ex, or future), and they are literally all singing songs from musicals whilst they are serving. They are all very, very good. It was setup by Ellen (no, not THAT Ellen) to help them find their dream on Broadway. So every so often they send around a tip bucket - every cent that goes in there gets divided amongst the performers with the express rule that they have to use it for lessons to help them in their career. Plus, the food is great. I had a pulled chicken burrito and Ele had a grilled cheese. We each had milkshakes, too. We got back to our hotel at about 4pm. It was a bit early to go to the airport, but we had nothing else to do so we retrieved our luggage and called an Uber. There was quite a lot of traffic (Friday rush hour!), but we got there without incident. The cost was about $80, including some surge pricing. As we arrived at the airport Jess called to tell us that Benji (our elderly West Highland Terrier) had had another seizure. He's had a couple recently, and she said she thought he might have had a couple more during the week when she wasn't there. There's nothing you can do about this really, according to the vet. Whilst waiting in line for bag drop (which wasn't long), we started to have "the" discussion about Benji. We both felt that really it was probably his time. He was about 15 years old, blind, largely deaf, and could barely get up the stairs anymore. We enquired about how much an upgrade to Club World was. The answer - too much (£1500 for the 2 of us). An upgrade to World Traveller Plus was probably not out of the question (about £250 each), but we'd already spent loads of money this trip that we hadn't intended to, and we had exit-row seats anyway, so there wasn't any point. We went through security. This wasn't quite hassle-free. Ele's scarf got stuck in the rollers of the machine after going through the scanner and they had to shut the line down and climb in and get it! Also there is nowhere to put your shoes back on, which is a bit silly. No seating or anything, and a cramped little area. Anyway, we were through very quickly with no queues which was a relief, as I've heard some nightmare stories about the TSA and crazy queues at JFK. We got a drink, bought some sweets and sat down for a bit. There was nothing to do really. We looked around the main duty free store, and at the other couple of shops, but there was nothing really to do apart from sit and wait. And we were quite early. The terminal is very small. There was no seating at our gate so we sat at another one, and when they announced they were starting boarding the rich important people in First and Club World (which sadly no longer included us), we went over. They did the rest of the plane in rows. As soon as our row was called (last, because we were at the very front of Economy) we were the first people down the ramp. One woman got inbetween me and Ele (I had the carry-on with me), and of course she put her bag into the locker above our seat, because the one on her side (she was middle-row next to us) was already full with someone who had somehow got on before all of us. So I had to put ours above the seat behind us. There was only just about room. Before we took off I got up to get our headphones out. In doing so, I dropped the bag that Ele's headphones come in onto the head of the woman sitting below. I apologised profusely. Our exit-row seats had acres of space, of course. I could stretch my legs fully out. Annoyingly we could see Club World which just made us sad we weren't sitting there! We had the food (chicken curry) which was ok but not great, and then settled back to try and get some sleep. With the legroom and my noise-cancelling headphones I did actually manage to snooze quite well for a change and the time flew by (see what I did there?! Word-play magic). Soon enough it was time to start descending, so I got up to put everything away. I put the bottle of water I had bought at JFK into the side pocket of my rucksack and put it back in the overhead. As I did so, the bottle - which was basically full - slid out (it was a very smooth bottle - one of those tall Smart Water ones) and whacked the woman sitting below on the head. Yes, the same woman on whose head had already dropped a bag earlier. I made more apologies. I expect she went home and told her family all about the idiot on the plane that kept dropping things on her and nearly gave her a concussion. FML. There was loads of traffic at Heathrow or something, so we had to circle for a while. Eventually we landed and then we had to wait for a parking space as well as it was full, or something. Finally one pilot finished his shopping, came back to his plane, pulled out and drove his plane away. He gave our pilot his pay and display ticket though, which was nice. Immigration was super-quick through the gates (something you can't do with kids, so another benefit of leaving them behind!). Our bags came off really quickly, and went through to meet my mum and dad who had just got there. Re-reading that sentence it sounds like the bags went off to meet my mum and dad by themselves, but let me assure you that they did not and they waited for us to push them along, lazy 4-wheeled sods that they are. The bags, not my parents. I was medically needing a coffee by this point, so we grabbed one from the Costa that is conveniently placed in Arrivals, and then went home. We called Jess on the way and she drove over to Ele's mum to pick up Joe. We got back about 10 minutes before she did. POST-TRIP: We loved our child-free holiday! We both love New York, and having a few days of just the 2 of us was amazing. We've never really been able to do that, as when we got married Ele already had Jess, so we never had that pre-kids time in our lives that most people get. I must say, I'm looking forward to doing more of it! It had always been Ele's dream to spend her 40th in NYC so I'm really pleased she was able to do it. Joe was a good boy at Ele's mum. I'm glad we made the (very last-minute) decision to send him there rather than leaving him with Jess. It meant he had his cousin to play with, and I'm sure Grandma spoiled him a lot more than Big Sister would have! Sadly the day we got back Benji our Westie had another seizure. It was obviously time for him to go, so I booked him in at the vets the next day. We were all really sad, but it really was the best thing to do. Everyone else was too upset to go so I had to shoulder the burden alone. On a cheerier note, we have our next Canada / USA road-trip to look forward to in July. We did one last year and loved it, so we are doing another one this year! Again, just the 3 of us - Jess is not coming. This year we are flying to Montreal, then going to Long Island, then Philadelphia, then Washington, then Niagara Falls (US side), then the Blue Mountains outside Toronto, then Toronto itself, then home. It's mostly booked. I'll do a Pre-Trip soon for it. Jess is going to New York for her 21st in August with her boyfriend. We had been planning to pay for her and her boyfriend to go to Paris, but instead gave her the option that we would pay for a hotel in NYC if she paid for the flights. This was not an option before as her boyfriend didn't have a proper job and couldn't afford it. Now he does, and she is ridiculously excited as it's been her dream for years to spend her 21st there! Beyond that, it will be my turn to turn 40 in 2018. Originally I had thought about doing a no-kids trip to Vegas, but I've had a change of heart on that. My birthday is only 10 days or so before the kids break up from school, and frankly I'd rather go to Florida than Vegas, so we're looking at doing a full 2 weeks in Orlando just after my birthday instead, with Joe. I've got enough Avios and a 2-4-1 voucher to take 2 of us Business Class, and then I could just buy 1 single Business Class ticket for the 3rd person. That's if I can get school-holiday availability on Avios though. I think the flights might become available whilst we're on our summer holiday so that might not work out. If it comes to it we'll just buy economy (3x Economy tickets is roughly the same as 2 lots of taxes + 1 business class ticket). Obviously I'd rather go the posh way though! Anyway, this is all months still until I have to book that. Thanks for reading!
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My Previous Trip Reports Edited at 07:45 AM. |
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28 Mar 17, 12:47 PM |
#2
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Earning My Ears
Join Date: May 15
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A great read - very funny! Thanks for sharing!
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28 Mar 17, 12:52 PM |
#3
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Imagineer
Join Date: Jan 10
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Thoroughly enjoyed your trip report thanks for sharing - I shall look forward to the next one.
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28 Mar 17, 08:32 PM |
#4
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Imagineer
Join Date: Jul 09
Location: Llandudno
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Loved reading your trip report,brought back great memories & made me excited,for a return trip in oct.
Dropping things on that womans head,did make me laugh though,something you'd see in a comedy. Great read! Tracy x
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29 Mar 17, 07:44 AM |
#5
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Thread Starter
Imagineer
Join Date: Feb 08
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Thanks everyone!
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30 Mar 17, 10:29 PM |
#6
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Imagineer
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another good report
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Sue June 1996 & 1998 - DLP Camp Davy Crockett August 2000, Oct 2002, Sept 2008 & Sept 2016- DLP Offsite June 2001, August 2003,2007 &Sept 2010 - WDW Offsite June 2005 - DLP Davy Crockett Ranch |
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31 Mar 17, 07:35 AM |
#7
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Thread Starter
Imagineer
Join Date: Feb 08
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4 Apr 17, 06:57 PM |
#8
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I am not a shopaholic
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A great last day - if such a thing is possible. Love the very " NYC" pics, so atmospheric and esp the Flatiron as we stayed near there so brings back memories of our hols.
I think the loud laydees that disturbed us in Washington were in your hotel ! Poor woman getting the stuf dropped on her head - oops! So sorry to read about your dog - I remember you posting when we lost our boxer around the same time. Your future plans look great ... lots of planning ahead
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2022 Dom Republic /2019 New Orleans, Jekyll, Hilton Head, Charleston, Savannah, Palm Coast, Clearwater/2019 DLP /2018 Dubai /Miami,New Orleans, Orlando, Largo/2017 Dallas,New Orleans,Little Rock,Eureka Springs,Memphis,Nashville,Orlando/Mar 2017 Orlando, Clearwater, Largo /2016 NYC,Washington, Orlando /2015 Windsor Palms / 2014 Our Wedding Trip - Portofino Bay & Yacht Club / 2013 FantasyWorld Resort/ 2012 East & West Coast. Double Disney. |
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5 Apr 17, 07:52 AM |
#9
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Thread Starter
Imagineer
Join Date: Feb 08
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7 Apr 17, 08:21 PM |
#10
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Imagineer
Join Date: Oct 11
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Really enjoyed your trip report, thanks for sharing it.
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West Coast July - August 2014, Howdy Texas! August 2015, Rocking in the Rockies July - August 2016, Bier, Bratwurst und Bahnsteige: Berlin 2017, Touring Tennessee 2017, Expedition East Coast 2018, Hola! Madrid 2019, Great Lakes Grooving 2019, It's Czech, Mate, Prague 2022, Veni, Vidi, Edi, Bibi Italy 2022 |
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