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17 Feb 18, 09:49 PM |
#1
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Imagineer
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It's Pints Kim, But Not As We Know It! NY - 11/02/18
Day 01 - Travel Day. Holiday Inn Terminal 5/The Watson Hotel NY
Index Pre-travel day So today dawned with an alarm call at 6.30am, ready to get to Heathrow Terminal 2. Our take off time with United was 12.35pm and our plan was to get to the airport, clear security and hopefully enjoy the airport lounge for an hour or so. We got ready and made our way downstairs for about 6.50am and headed to the free breakfast buffet. On the way I checked at reception and they said the Heathrow Hoppa only went to Terminal 5 so we'd have to get the free train to connect over to Terminal 2. She also told us that they left at quarter past and quarter to the hour. We planned on getting the 7.45 and settled down for breakfast. It was the usual breakfast buffet stuff - scrambled eggs, sausages, toasting machine, cereals, pastries and fruit. It was okay but nothing special. I got some eggs and bacon as well as a coffee. By 7.05pm I was done so I thought we might make the 7.15am Hoppa instead. I suggested I went up to the room and grabbed the suitcase and our hand luggage and met Phil back downstairs so he could finish his breakfast. I was back downstairs in five minutes as we'd pretty much packed everything up and Phil was ready to go too by the time I'd got back downstairs. I handed back the room keys to check out and literally at that point the Hoppa turned up - we'd got tickets included with our booking but you can buy them on the bus if you need to. We loaded ourselves on. It wasn't busy: The Hoppa made its way around two other airport hotels before turning back to Heathrow, but only one other passenger got on. It took a good 35 minutes before we got to the airport and we made our way into Terminal 5. It was not obvious how to transfer between terminals! Eventually we worked out that we had to get on the Heathrow Express, which is free to transfer between terminals 5 and terminals 2 and 3. We made our way down to the Heathrow Express train and there was one in the station waiting, so we found some seats. It's quite posh on there - all flat screen TVs and nice seats! I commented to Phil this was a bit different to his usual commute into London on Abellio Greater Anglia - they are known by a less flattering name to regular commuters that use them, but I can't post it on here without being modded! Terminal 2 & 3 have the same stop on the Heathrow Express, so after a short journey we arrived and went to get off. There were ticket inspectors by the doors already waiting to check those that were continuing their journey into London. We made our way out of the station and luckily the signage to Terminal 2 was clear and we made our way there, but it was quite a long walk! By the time we arrived it was 8.15am, so it had taken us an hour door to door and we were glad we'd got the earlier Hopper in the end. We arrived at departures and I used the automatic ticket booths to check us in, which were really easy to use, and I noted we had our the seats I'd selected - 31A and B. The only thing was that the machine didn't recognise our hotel so I had to type the address in manually, which we thought was a bit odd? (It all became clear when we arrived in New York though!) We dropped our suitcase off at bag drop and were asked the usual security questions by the person manning that and had our passports and boarding cards checked. Bags successfully dropped, we made our way upstairs to security. This wasn't too busy and, taking no chances, I took my iPad OUT and put it on the tray separately! I've been told to take to either take the iPad out or leave it in now at so many different airports now I think I'm doing some bizarre version of the iPad Hokey Kokey: "You put your iPad in You take your iPad out In, Out, Shake it all about!" Etc I thought if it was out in the tray they wouldn't complain and, unlike at Gatwick last August, I didn't get pulled over! Hurrah! However, I did set the metal detector off for some reason, which resulted in a pat down. Security successfully navigated, we made our way into Terminal 2 airside and down to WH Smiths to buy some magazines. I didn't see any that I liked, but Phil got one to read. I then realised that in our rush to leave for the airport I might have forgotten my hairbrush, so I went into Boots to buy one. We then made our way to the Plaza Premium lounge to see if we could get in. I have Dragonpass free access to airport lounges with my bank account and usually I pre-book the No. 1 Lounge for us at Gatwick. This is great value as for £5 you get premium security access and a guaranteed spot. I have to admit that Gatwick South terminal always seems like chaos to us and we usually travel at peak times when the lounge is fully booked, so it is a must to pre-book. However, Heathrow seemed a lot calmer and a lot emptier, probably being that it was February. I hadn't been able to pre-book lounge access but we were allowed in as they were nowhere near full. Unlike at Gatwick, there is no view of the runway but the lounge is lovely. We got some complementary drinks and sat down. I couldn't get the wifi to work, but I tethered my iPad to my iPhone and did a bit of Dibbing/browsing to pass the time. The excitement was too much for Phil: Although we'd had breakfast already, the food here looked loads better than at the Holiday Inn and I helped myself to some meat and cheese: Later I went back for some Bircher Muesli and a coffee: All in all, we loved the lounge and we had a very pleasant couple of hours there. We left at just gone 11am as I wanted to get a bottle of water. We stopped in WH Smiths again and I saw a book by author of mine who was a favourite 10/15 years ago - Lisa Jewell. She now writes crime/thrillers, which I had no idea about, and her book, 'Then She Was Gone', was in the bestsellers display, so I picked up a copy out of curiosity. We made our way to the gate and sat down to wait. Boarding commenced only 5 minutes later than they stated and we were soon in on the plane and getting ready to depart. We were near(ish) the front of the back section of economy in the pairs. We both commented that there was a decent amount of legroom for economy and the IFE screens were big and looked very modern. Having heard nightmare stories about United, we were not quite sure what to expect, but this was a great start! We took off only ten minutes late and were soon climbing into the skies above England. I watched out of the window for a while and read my book. We got to above Ireland and I noticed they still had snow on the ground: Presently, snacks and drinks were brought round: Beer, wine and soft drinks were all free. Phil got to grips with the IFE, which had a great selection of newly released films, including Dunkirk and Victoria and Abdul. I prefer to watch stuff on my iPad and I'd got a couple of seasons of Peep Show to get going with, so we settled down for a few hours. The meal service came round and I went for the aubergine cannelloni and Phil had the chicken. I'm really not a fussy eater, but I couldn't finish mine as it was so dry - airplane food is never usually great (apart from the one meal we had when we were lucky to fly Club World with BA a few years ago!) but this really was the worst I'd had! To be honest, after all the snacking I'd done earlier in the Plaza premium lounge, I wasn't very hungry anyway! After the meal service we had a very uneventful couple of hours until we finally started our descent into Newark Airport. It was pouring down with rain and the pilot warned we might have some turbulence, but in reality the landing was fine. The total flight time was just over 8h 30, so it was now just gone 4pm local time and we were off the plane relatively quickly and made our way to immigration. There was a lovely view of lower Manhattan as we made our way there! When we got to immigration there was a little queue, but we were directed into a new lane so there were only four people in front of us. We were only asked the purpose of our visit and how long we were staying before we got shiny stamps in our brand new, shiny passports and we were officially in! We made our way to baggage reclaim and after a short while our bag arrived and we were free to make our way out to the US! Hurrah! We easily found our way to the taxi rank and were soon in a cab, speeding our way to the Lincoln tunnel. We had some great views of the city as we wound our way there - it was so lovely to be back There seemed to be a huge queue to get into the tunnel but somehow our taxi driver managed to avoid it (I think he took a toll road one instead?) and we were soon in Manhattan itself. He didn't seem to know our hotel but we gave him the street address. On the way we drove past Times Square and lots of examples of what Terry Pratchett calls 'The New York Second' “The shortest unit of time in the multiverse is the New York Second, defined as the period of time between the traffic lights turning green and the cab behind you honking.” When we got to the street our hotel on our cab driver wasn't quite sure where he was going but I spotted our hotel and he then said he understood now - it used to be a Holiday Inn! He dropped us off and the taxi fare was an eye watering $100 with tip! This is definitely more than from JFK, but $85 is the standard fare from Newark apparently. We made our way into the hotel and I checked us in. We were allocated room 912 and we made our way to the elevators. I was a bit alarmed because they were 1) Very small (I am quite claustrophobic) and 2) a bit squeaky! This wasn't helped by us arriving on the floor and not being able to find our room! after walking up and down the corridor we made our way back down to the ground floor to ask at reception. It turned out we'd got in the wrong elevator, all the even rooms are on one side of the hotel and all the odd ones on another side?! Riiiight ... (it made even more sense after a nearly 9 hour flight and it was now about 1am to us in the morning ) We found our room after getting in the 'even side' lift (!) and it was absolutely fine. I didn't take a picture but here's one I 'borrowed' from google We dumped our stuff and made our way down to the bar for a few drinks. Phil was pleased to see a range of new beers for him to try and made good use of the beer notepad: By 8pm I was absolutely shattered and left Phil in the bar before making my way up to our room. Coming soon - Day 2: A busy day! TOTR/Central Park Zoo/9/11 Memorial/Times Square.
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17 Feb 18, 11:11 PM |
#2
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Apprentice Imagineer
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Oh great you’ve started your trip report! Really looking forward to this I enjoy your Florida reports but as we are off to NY in July I am interested to know what you got up to... thanks for taking the time
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Julie |
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18 Feb 18, 12:14 AM |
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Imagineer
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Can't wait for day two as it looks very similar to one of our days in June!
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John |
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18 Feb 18, 08:50 AM |
#4
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VIP Dibber
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Apart from a lost hairbrush it was a nice smooth travel day.
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Abby New pre trip report - Summer 2024 Link to all my completed trip reports 2017: NYC and Orlando. Salzburg. Boston. 2018: Orlando. Berlin. 2019: DLP. Orlando. Washington DC. 2020: DLP. 2021: Jamaica. Rome. 2022: Orlando. 2023: Orlando. Niagara and Toronto. |
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22 Feb 18, 02:29 PM |
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VIP Dibber
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Great travel day
Joan
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25 Feb 18, 07:32 PM |
#6
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Thread Starter
Imagineer
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Thank you. I need to get cracking on my Florida pre-trip as well!
Thank you for reading Thank you for reading Turned out the hairbrush was in my suitcase after all! Ah well Thanks for reading Thanks for reading
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5 Mar 18, 02:37 PM |
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Imagineer
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Wow, that's an expensive taxi! Annoying that there's not a flat rate like there is from JFK!
Flight sounds good apart from your dreadful food!
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1990 - Sheraton Lakeside, Kissimmee 1992 & 1995 - Hyatt Orlando, Kissimmee 1997 - Radisson Parkway, Kissimmee 2015 - Disneymoon! Caribbean Beach Resort & Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress 2017 - Yacht Club & Disney Dream |
22 Mar 18, 10:50 PM |
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VIP Dibber
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Sounds like a great start. Love the odd/even lifts, that's bizarre! (Although if you want to talk small lifts, you should have seen the one in our hotel in Paris the other week - it took one of us and a suitcase, and even that was a squeeze!)
I've never taken a taxi in New York yet, we did the subway from JFK - which was fine, except we didn't know about express trains, and instead of getting out near our hotel, we had to walk 9 blocks. In the snow. With luggage!
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DLP: day trips 2000, 2003; Cheyenne Sep 2009, Feb 2011, Nov 2018; Sequoia Lodge June 2008, May 2012; Elysee May 2012, Jan 2013, Sep 2013; Disneyland Hotel Mar 2015, Santa Fe Nov 2016; Newport Bay Sep 2017, Ibis Sep 2019, Hotel NY Art of Marvel Nov 2021
WDW: Port Orleans Riverside Dec 10; SSR Nov 14 |
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24 Mar 18, 08:52 PM |
#9
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Thread Starter
Imagineer
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Ah the express and local trains! I was lucky as during my first visit I went with a friend who'd been before and she explained how they worked to me.
I don't think I would've liked that lift in Paris very much!
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24 Mar 18, 08:53 PM |
#10
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Thread Starter
Imagineer
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Yeah, that was not great airplane food, I have to admit!
Apart from that I'd definitely give United a go again, I'd probably just take a load of snacks with me and skip the meal
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