Just back from Easter week in New York
Apr 13th, 2004, 05:07 PM
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Just back from Easter week in New York
A quick trip report. Just returned from Easter Break in New York. Fodor's was so helpful to me. Our trip went perfectly. Some warmer weather would have been nice but at least it
did not rain too much so won't complain. I may not be too good at checking back on the forum now that vacation is over and I need to concentrate on work but here we go with a short overview and a few tips.
San Jose, CA Airport long term parking - De La Cruz (408-988-3403) - $8.00 per day. Very convenient.
American Airlines - nonstop SJC-JFK-SJC - ontime and pretty good service. Surprised that they don't charge for movies and you can use your own headphones or buy and keeps theirs for $2.00. Wine and Beer are now $5.00!
Enterprise Car Rental - picked up JFK airport and dropped Midtown Manhattan. We have NEVER encountered such friendly car rental staff. The guys came out from behind the desk and shook our hands! They were so nice and helpful. We would definitely use Enterprise again. Driving into Manhattan was not fun but we did go to our hotel first, checkin, drop our luggage and then drop the car and walk back. This worked very well.
Itinerary: we spent first 4 nights in Hudson Valley and last 4 nights in Manhattan. This was perfect for us. We were happy with all of our hotels and towns:
Tarrytown : Hilton (booked through Priceline)
Rhinebeck : Beekman Arms (had a room in the rear - glad we were not in the main old building)
Saratoga Springs : Prime Hotel (very nice and great location) Dinner at Old Bryan Inn (fun)
West Point: Thayer Hotel - our room overlooked the river and rate included great buffet breakfast. Be sure to take tour of West point.
Manhattan:
Hotel : Red Roof Inn (32nd Street near Broadway, close to Macy's, Empire State Building and 34th Street Subway). We really liked the location. Our rate for 3 was $129.00 per night (by the time taxes were added it was $149.00). Included continental breakfast from 7am-10am. Our room was very comfortable (not fancy but we were happy).
Other hotels on the same street were La Quinta and Holiday Inn.
Subway : what a deal! Flat fee of $2.00 for a single ride no matter how far you go. Several times we bought the day pass for $7.00. Easy to use and very convenient.
Broadway Theater: HAIRSPRAY!!!!!!! The best! Am listening to the CD while I write. Our 13 year old daughter thoroughly enjoyed it too. Tons of singing and great dancing.
Restaurants: It definitely helps to have some restaurants in mind when you go out in the evening. We are a family that does not like fancy or expensive. We loved Greenwich Village.
Used a couple of recommendations from this forum. We were very satisfied all 4 nights.
Virgils BBQ ( on 44th between 6th and Broadway.) I thought the ribs were a little dry but the side dishes are outstanding!
Arturos (Greenwich Village) - lively, entertainment, good pizza
Bella Napoli (near our hotel - Madison and 30th - great Italian
Sapore ( Greenwich Village) - very small, cash only, very reasonable, great Italian
Sights:
Brooklyn Bridge : probably the highlight. Took subway over to Brooklyn Heights, had lunch
and then walked the Bridge back towards Manhattan.
Staten Island Ferry: free and a fun way to sail by the Statue of Liberty and see a great view of Manhattan.
Empire State Building - DEFINITELY BUY YOUR TICKETS ONLINE BEFORE YOU GO! I think it saved us 1-1/2 hours but still took us 1-1/2 hours. We don?t like really touristy things and this was the least favorite thing we did.
Central Park - walked from our hotel up to Central Park and leisurely enjoyed that area.
Easter: We tried to get into St. Patrick?s Cathedral for Easter Mass but they closed the door on us saying they already had 3000 inside! Walked down the street to the 5th Ave Presbyterian Church and enjoyed a beautiful service there. Hung around afterward waiting for the "Easter Parade" which was more of a big group "mingle." Maybe the cold rainy weather affected the festivities.
Manhattan to JFK - because we like to travel on the "cheap" and there were 3 of us and the hotel was quoting $50.00 for a transfer we took the "A" subway and AirTrain. Took maybe 1-1/2 hours. We had a fair amount of luggage but managed okay. The crazy thing is that it costs only $2.00 to get all the way out to Howard Beach and then $5.00 for a VERY SHORT transfer on the AirTrain. What's the reasoning on that? But total cost is $7.00 per person. We would do it again definitely.
Hope this helps! Enjoy. And thanks to all of you who helped us!
did not rain too much so won't complain. I may not be too good at checking back on the forum now that vacation is over and I need to concentrate on work but here we go with a short overview and a few tips.
San Jose, CA Airport long term parking - De La Cruz (408-988-3403) - $8.00 per day. Very convenient.
American Airlines - nonstop SJC-JFK-SJC - ontime and pretty good service. Surprised that they don't charge for movies and you can use your own headphones or buy and keeps theirs for $2.00. Wine and Beer are now $5.00!
Enterprise Car Rental - picked up JFK airport and dropped Midtown Manhattan. We have NEVER encountered such friendly car rental staff. The guys came out from behind the desk and shook our hands! They were so nice and helpful. We would definitely use Enterprise again. Driving into Manhattan was not fun but we did go to our hotel first, checkin, drop our luggage and then drop the car and walk back. This worked very well.
Itinerary: we spent first 4 nights in Hudson Valley and last 4 nights in Manhattan. This was perfect for us. We were happy with all of our hotels and towns:
Tarrytown : Hilton (booked through Priceline)
Rhinebeck : Beekman Arms (had a room in the rear - glad we were not in the main old building)
Saratoga Springs : Prime Hotel (very nice and great location) Dinner at Old Bryan Inn (fun)
West Point: Thayer Hotel - our room overlooked the river and rate included great buffet breakfast. Be sure to take tour of West point.
Manhattan:
Hotel : Red Roof Inn (32nd Street near Broadway, close to Macy's, Empire State Building and 34th Street Subway). We really liked the location. Our rate for 3 was $129.00 per night (by the time taxes were added it was $149.00). Included continental breakfast from 7am-10am. Our room was very comfortable (not fancy but we were happy).
Other hotels on the same street were La Quinta and Holiday Inn.
Subway : what a deal! Flat fee of $2.00 for a single ride no matter how far you go. Several times we bought the day pass for $7.00. Easy to use and very convenient.
Broadway Theater: HAIRSPRAY!!!!!!! The best! Am listening to the CD while I write. Our 13 year old daughter thoroughly enjoyed it too. Tons of singing and great dancing.
Restaurants: It definitely helps to have some restaurants in mind when you go out in the evening. We are a family that does not like fancy or expensive. We loved Greenwich Village.
Used a couple of recommendations from this forum. We were very satisfied all 4 nights.
Virgils BBQ ( on 44th between 6th and Broadway.) I thought the ribs were a little dry but the side dishes are outstanding!
Arturos (Greenwich Village) - lively, entertainment, good pizza
Bella Napoli (near our hotel - Madison and 30th - great Italian
Sapore ( Greenwich Village) - very small, cash only, very reasonable, great Italian
Sights:
Brooklyn Bridge : probably the highlight. Took subway over to Brooklyn Heights, had lunch
and then walked the Bridge back towards Manhattan.
Staten Island Ferry: free and a fun way to sail by the Statue of Liberty and see a great view of Manhattan.
Empire State Building - DEFINITELY BUY YOUR TICKETS ONLINE BEFORE YOU GO! I think it saved us 1-1/2 hours but still took us 1-1/2 hours. We don?t like really touristy things and this was the least favorite thing we did.
Central Park - walked from our hotel up to Central Park and leisurely enjoyed that area.
Easter: We tried to get into St. Patrick?s Cathedral for Easter Mass but they closed the door on us saying they already had 3000 inside! Walked down the street to the 5th Ave Presbyterian Church and enjoyed a beautiful service there. Hung around afterward waiting for the "Easter Parade" which was more of a big group "mingle." Maybe the cold rainy weather affected the festivities.
Manhattan to JFK - because we like to travel on the "cheap" and there were 3 of us and the hotel was quoting $50.00 for a transfer we took the "A" subway and AirTrain. Took maybe 1-1/2 hours. We had a fair amount of luggage but managed okay. The crazy thing is that it costs only $2.00 to get all the way out to Howard Beach and then $5.00 for a VERY SHORT transfer on the AirTrain. What's the reasoning on that? But total cost is $7.00 per person. We would do it again definitely.
Hope this helps! Enjoy. And thanks to all of you who helped us!
Apr 14th, 2004, 03:26 PM
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lovetotravel2:
Great report.
Looking forward to visiting and eating in Greenwich Village during our next visit. Noted your suggestions.
About how long did it take you to walk the Brooklyn Bridge? Looking forward to that experience as well.
Sandy
Great report.
Looking forward to visiting and eating in Greenwich Village during our next visit. Noted your suggestions.
About how long did it take you to walk the Brooklyn Bridge? Looking forward to that experience as well.
Sandy
Apr 14th, 2004, 04:09 PM
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No the Easter Parade you saw is it - a gigantic group mingle of people and their pets wearing fun and outlandish outfits in celebration of Spring. My favorite was the woman with a large hat with her pet iguana sitting on it. The iguana was dressed in a complete black leather biker outift. Tres New York!
Apr 14th, 2004, 08:07 PM
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Sandy, re the Brooklyn Bridge walk, it was so enjoyable that we did not even look at our watches and we even had a 13 year old with us! Maybe 20 minutes and that was with stops for photos.
Re Easter "mingle/parade" - yes, we saw the lady with the two lizard/iguanas on her hat. That was pretty exciting!
Re Easter "mingle/parade" - yes, we saw the lady with the two lizard/iguanas on her hat. That was pretty exciting!
Apr 14th, 2004, 08:44 PM
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lovetotravel:
Regarding paying $5 for the Air Train, the other option is taking the airport shuttle for a free transfer from the Howard Beach Station. (These were the yellow or blue buses parked right outside the station. They may take a little longer (maybe 10-15 minutes to do the entire loop depending on traffic), but it's a cheaper option than the AirTrain.
I've done this before, and although some people may be against it, I've never had problems, and there is room for luggage.
Regarding paying $5 for the Air Train, the other option is taking the airport shuttle for a free transfer from the Howard Beach Station. (These were the yellow or blue buses parked right outside the station. They may take a little longer (maybe 10-15 minutes to do the entire loop depending on traffic), but it's a cheaper option than the AirTrain.
I've done this before, and although some people may be against it, I've never had problems, and there is room for luggage.
Apr 15th, 2004, 05:55 AM
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Great report - thanks for sharing! Thanks for the restaurant names/addresses, our style is like yours - casual and inexpensive. I also agree that it's good to have a few ideas for dinner before you set out, this prevents doing what I call "The Restaurant Ramble" i.e. walking from place to place checking menus until all are satisfied (ugh) or worse, ending up some placed with high priced mediocre food. Thanks for your suggestions, I've added them to my NYC notes.
Apr 15th, 2004, 05:42 PM
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Regarding the shuttle vs Air Train at Howard Beach. I do recall when the subway arrived at the Howard Beach station that the conductor mentioned BOTH the AirTrain and Shuttle buses to the airport. The thought briefly crossed our minds to check out the shuttle buses but our adventurous spirits were a little tired at that point and took the easy path following the signs to the AirTrain.
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