New York New York, Day 1 - Travel Day, NY Public Library, Grand Central Station & Tony Di Napoli

[Ariel88]

Day 1 - Travel Day, NY Public Library, Grand Central Station & Tony’s Di Napoli

This morning I woke up at 3:30. Looked at the time on my phone and managed to sleep again for another 45 mins or so. This time had a browse on the internet and TheDibb as I knew I wouldn’t be able to get back off again this time around.

Got up and decided to take a shower and get myself dressed (in the dark!) as John was still asleep. The alarm finally went off at 6:30 and John got up.

Whilst he was showering I had a quick cup of tea and sorted out our bags.



This is one of the new suitcases we brought recently. For anyone interested it's available here

We checked out of the hotel around 7:30 and knew the next bus was at 7:36. We were getting the bus from the same stop we had gotten off at the day before but this time heading to Terminal 5. The bus was very quick and we were there within 10-15 mins.

We had already done online check in so just had to do bag drop once we arrived. There were no queues at all so we were straight through.



Security was also very quick and by around quarter past 8 we were being seated to a table at Plane Food!

John had a coffee and a full english breakfast whilst I opted for an apple juice and granola with vanilla yoghurt and summer berries. John said his was delicious especially the scrambled eggs which were made with cream.





The granola was yummy too and I liked how it was with vanilla yoghurt instead of the usual greek or natural sort which I don’t tend to like as much. The bill came to £22.67.

Now we did think about getting one of PlaneFood’s lunch boxes which look something like this. You have the choice of 4 starters, mains and desserts for £12.99 each. We decided not to do it in the end as we wanted to try out BA’s food which actually turned out to be a bad decision (more on that later).

After a quick look around duty free where neither of us brought anything, we sat down and waited at our gate.





It was a wet and miserable day when we left - so we were hoping for nice weather once we arrived State side.





Boarding started around 20 mins or so before our flight time. Our plane took off nearly 30 minutes late at 11:02 as there were a number of planes taking off before us. This was both of our first times flying from Heathrow so we found it quite an experience seeing planes taking off and landing every minute or so.

John started watching American Hustle as soon as we were in the air and I watched The Wolf of Wall Street. The drinks round came round and I opted for a tomato juice, John had an apple one. I don’t know what it is but I always drink tomato juice on a flight but never anywhere else!

Meals came round next and we had the choice of either roast chicken with roast potatoes or Asparagus risotto. John had the chicken and I had the risotto.







The risotto was okay - very creamy but was lacking a little in flavour. John said the chicken part of his dish was good but everything else was awful - the potatoes were undercooked and the gravy was really oily. Neither of us ate the potato salad as it was too vinegary. The chocolate mousse with caramel sauce was very good though. Next time we will just get food in the airport to bring on the plane as neither of us ate much and were actually quite hungry when we landed.

We finished our films (both were excellent by the way) and I played a few games on the iPad (whilst watching the flight map) and John played some music on his phone.





For the snack before landing we were given a chicken and mustard sandwich and a kit kat. The sandwich was actually pretty good - which just wished we had had more as we were both really hungry!



The flight went surprisingly quick and was very smooth with no turbulence. I get a little nervous when flying, especially if there's turbulence but I was very calm and relaxed all flight. We must have been on a slightly shorter flightpath as our flight got in on time at 13:15 even though we left late.

The plane doors opened very quickly and we were off walking down the tunnel with 5 minutes or so from landing. The Immigration hall was heaving - we had arrived just after 2 other International flights so it took us 2 and a half hours in total. We also picked the slowest line and had to wait an age why they sorted out one woman who seemed to be traveling on two passports.

Whilst in the queue John also mentioned to be that he thought the guy sat in the row in front of us looked like Emile Heskey (footballer who used to play for England for those who don’t know). I mentioned how I had heard they were all from Leicester which is where Heskey is from and he used to play for Leicester City. The man behind us had heard us talking and said that yes in fact it was him. We were both excited as it was the first celebrity (of a few) that we saw this trip.

By the time we had cleared immigration our cases were stacked up at the side of the baggage carousel. Another queue to hand in our customs forms and we were finally out of departures. We then looked for signs for the Airtrain but noticed they all said “Airtrain bypass bus”. The Airtrain is currently being renovated between Newark airport and New Jersey Penn station until June I believe. We brought our tickets from the machine $12.50 each one way and got on the bus. The bus took around 30 mins as we had to stop off at Terminal C first and wait for any passenger there.

Once we got to NJ Penn station we then had to take the train to NY Penn station (next to Madison Square Gardens). When we came out of the station we were right in the thick of it. I think both of our first words at this point was “wow”. I looked for the Empire State Building and we headed in that direction as I knew our hotel was located 1 block up.

Continued below...

[Ariel88]

We finally arrived at our hotel around 4:30. Check in was quick, we just had to hand in our ID and credit card (which was pre-authorised an amount of $150). We were told our room had been upgraded to a Superior King (we had booked a Superior Queen) and were on the 12th floor. When we got into the lift we noticed the 12th floor was the top floor of the hotel. We got into our room which was very nice and bigger than we were expecting (as we had heard hotel rooms in NYC are on the smaller size).



The bathroom was really nice too and it had three different shower heads for you to choose from.



I started unpacking and then John shouted for me to look out the window - we had a direct view of the ESB! It was very overcast when we arrived and you couldn’t even see the top of it (we do have a better picture from later on in the holiday).



After I had unpacked we rang our Big Apple Greeter Bob to confirm we had arrived and were looking forward to seeing him on Monday. We then also rang the River Cafe (!) to confirm our reservation on Saturday. We were looking forward to this meal in particular and it didn’t disappoint!

After a quick change we then headed out to explore.

Our first stop was the New York Public Library. I especially wanted to see the Reading Room as I remember it so vividly from the Ghostbusters film as a kid. I loved the grand staircase and when we arrived there were two lots of Wedding parties taking pictures on the opposite side.









We then headed towards Grand Central station and took a picture of the Chysler Building before heading into the station (we went inside the Chysler later in the holiday).





Again you can see how overcast it was today as we couldn't get any pics of the tops of the buildings which was a huge shame.

We loved the hustle and bustle of Grand Central. We walked towards the Oyster bar which is where the Whispering Walls are located. I hadn’t told John about this so when I asked him to say something to me facing the opposite direction and I could hear him he was very impressed.





We didn't have long left before our reservation at Tony’s di Napoli at 6:30 so we had to leave at this point (after taking a few more photos first though!)



We arrived just in time for our reservation and were shown promptly to our table. I'm glad I made a reservation here as it was absolutely heaving! When I went to the toilet later on there's also a downstairs which was just as busy too.

Our server was Lewis who was excellent and really friendly. We were brought out some sourdough bread to start which was delicious (unfortunately no photos).

Then I opted for the Frozen Bellini and John had the Sparkling Pear Limonata which contained Pear Grey Goose. We had fogotten how strong American cocktails were and both felt a little woozy after (although we also think the jetlag didn’t help).



We had the chicken parmigiana with roasted potatoes and mushrooms. Unfortunately the photo came out a little too dark here.



We knew their portions were huge and were told by Lewis that they were for 2-3 people. Well they were bigger than we even expected and we didn’t even make half a dint in them. We were asked if we wanted to take the remainder away but we knew we wouldn't have finished it off at the hotel either.

The total came to $78.39 (including tax).

By this time we were knackered so we made our way back to the hotel. We stopped by Bryant Park on the walk back and took a few pics.





Back to the hotel and in bed by around 9:30. I'm surprised we lasted that long having been up for around 20-22 hours!

[silverfox46]

We are also flying BA to JFK in Sept , so will be following with interest. Interesting to see food options and comments so may be paying Boots or similar places before hand

Do they have a full bar service like Virgin or only at meal times .

[jocat]

A great start. I'm looking forward to reading about the rest of your trip.

[Guest]

Another good day. The fog reminds me of San Francisco!

[jane2211]

Wondeful start 😃

[Ariel88]

Originally Posted by Gepetto

Happy Memories for us from only last week! I will post my photos soon.

Nice start!

G

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Thanks for reading. Will be good to see your photos. What dates were you there again?

Originally Posted by silverfox46

We are also flying BA to JFK in Sept , so will be following with interest. Interesting to see food options and comments so may be paying Boots or similar places before hand

Do they have a full bar service like Virgin or only at meal times .

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Are you flying from Heathrow? Yes they do have a full bar service which comes round before the meal. You can also request drinks at any time throughout the flight.

Originally Posted by jocat

A great start. I'm looking forward to reading about the rest of your trip.

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Thanks for reading

Originally Posted by princess_chazy

Another good day. The fog reminds me of San Francisco!

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Thanks for reading. That's the one thing that's put me off visiting San Fran. Luckily the fog only lasted a day or so.

Originally Posted by jane2211

Wondeful start 😃

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Thanks for reading

[Guest]

Don't let it put you off, it's such a beautiful place!

[Ariel88]

Originally Posted by princess_chazy

Don't let it put you off, it's such a beautiful place!

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I won't. We were hoping to do the West Coast next year but as John's brother is planning on getting married in Vegas June 2016 we'll be doing our trip then.

[Ariel88]

Originally Posted by Gepetto

We flew out on the same day as you but returned on the following Monday night.
G

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Least you got some of the good weather too.

Do you think 4 nights was enough? When we visit again we'd like to only do 4 nights and then 4 or 5 nights in either Washington DC or Boston.