kleeblatt

Background:

I'm an English teacher for adult students in Switzerland. I teach evenings at a local community college. Every year, I organise field trips for my students. This year, we decided to fly across the pond.

Date: April 30 - May 5
Flight: Zrh - Newark with Continental
Hotel: Holiday Inn Midtown on 57th.

Obstacles:

- Clearly passports. The US requires either visas, biometric passports or valid passports issued up to 2005 or 2006, depending if they are digitalized or not. It's not a simple matter, even to travel agents, and two of our participants were given wrong information. They were told their passports were valid for America but at the Zürich airport, they were told their passports were not valid and they could not fly to the US so they decided to fly last minute to Berlin. The participants will get a refund but I'm haggling for compensation.

- ESTAS: The US requires all non-US travellers to fill out an ESTAS on-line form, which costs $14 charged through your credit card. A lot of people still aren't computer savvy and this process caused a lot of confusion. Luckily, all went well. Still, despite their authorization form, everyone had to fill in a form on the plane as well.

Group size: On that day, our group size was 17. Immigration took 45 minutes because of the amount of people standing in line and our group size. Walking the streets of NY or getting on the subway was also a bit nerve wracking because of the continuous crowds, stop lights and the curiousity of our participants. However, all went well, we didn't lose anyone and there was down time available for individual interests. A few other students had arrived before us and some arrived after us so my group size was continuously changing.

Tour guides: They were rubbish. They basically escorted us around without telling us anything. I asked one tour guide to explain more and he replied, "what should I say? It's a big city like any big city." I think their knowledge was limited as well as their interest in doing a good job. However, they did speak German as promised. I booked them through NY City Vacation Packages and will file a complaint.

Transportation from Newark to Holiday Inn: Shuttle, taxi or NJ transit? Tough call. We were even given conflicting info at the airport. After inquiring into a shuttle and being told it would take 40 minutes before they arrived, we decided to take the NJ Transit. As we were getting our train tickets, the hospitality man (why are they all from India?) tried to talk us to go back into getting a shuttle. I ignored his suggestion and we took the train. It went well, smoothly and the train car felt like an old fair ride with its old leather seats. We got into cabs at the Penn station but it would have been just as easy to take the subway had we known our way around more.

Holiday Inn Midtown: Highly recommended for the price. Huge rooms and clean. Close to Columbus Circle. Everyone was pleased. Our rooms were on the 17th floor and some of us had a fantastic view. We thought breakfast was included but what they do is offer a $20 voucher per room. The buffet costs $16 (with taxes) each. One could order from the menu toast and coffee which would be covered by the voucher but the buffet was too tempting so we all paid extra. This was not a problem just another slight obstacle.

P.S.: Hello my two fodorites! It was so nice meeting you. I'll include our visit together later in the trip report. Just wanted to take this moment to thank you again for meetiing up with us. You made our trip even more special!

More to come...

ellenem

schuler,

It was great meeting you and your group. Waiting to hear about the rest of your trip!

lantana

Can't wait to read more.
I can imagine how confusing transportation from the airport must've been. Ugh!
I'm sorry about the disappointing guide/s.
Hotel sounds very good - I'm staying in the Columbus Circle in a couple of weeks and can't wait!
Looking fwd to hearing which show you went to see

nytraveler

Moving groups around New York is always difficult. the city sidewalks can be so crowded and people are moving so quickly - that if the group doesn;t also move quickly you risk being separated.

I've seen tourists having a lot of trouble crossing major avenues - since they dawdled so much cars were moving towards them before they reached the sidewalk. This includes family groups when some kids ended up not making the light and parents/other kids have to wait for them on the other side of the street through another light. (Although I would expect Swiss to be more used to walking briskly - rather than using mall-strolling speed.)

Sorry the guides weren;t very useful - but I must admit I have found most guides to be least common denominator every place I've visited around the world.

SueNYC

Sorry I was out of town and didn't speak German. I would have loved to take you around the Park. I never knew NYC VP was in the business of hiring foreign language guides.

kleeblatt

Day 1: Top of the Rock, Grand Central Station and Times Square:

We arrived on time at Newark using Continental from Zürich.
- 1 hour wait at immigration
- 30 min. wait for someone's forgotten pouch to be delivered from the plane.
- 15 min. debate as to which transportation to use. One woman said shuttle. Another said NJ Transit. At the NJ transit machine, the hospitality man said we should go back and get a shuttle. I ignored him and we took the train.
- Took NJ Transit from Newark to NY Penn Station. A great and efficient way to travel even with a group.
- We then took taxis from 8th str to our hotel. The skyscrapers that met us as got up the stairs from Penn Station were amazing. My group wanted to just sit and enjoy but we were running late and I swept everyone into a respective taxi.
- Our strange tour guide met us on time. I was extremely disappointed in the amount of information he gave us. I've booked many tour guides in my lifetime and the ones we had in NY were the worst.
- He walked to the Rockefellar Plaza. After a short wait, we were launched up to the top by a swift lift. Someone in our group works for an elevator company and was quite fascinated with the engineering of the lift. The views on top were amazing. We were all in awe.
- We then walked to Bryant Park, only to find the recommended restaurant by the tour guide being closed, so we continued our brisk pace to Grand Central Station and after doing an echo experiment, everyone chose their food.
- We then walked to Times Square and were greeted by the lights and ads. Wow. Better than London. Amazing.
- We continued on back to our hotel and hit the hay after a long day.

Day 2: Gospel Mass, Thai Restaurant, Lincoln Center, Central Park, The Plaza and Waldorf Astoria.

More details to come.

kleeblatt

Day 2: Gospel Mass, Thai Restaurant, Lincoln Center, Central Park, The Plaza and Waldorf Astoria

After gorging on a breakfast of orange juice, bagels, hot oatmeal, plain yoghurt, fresh fruit, pancakes, sausages, hash browns, scrambled eggs, toast and poppycakes, we make our way to East Village to visit a gospel mass. Ellenem was my contact person and with her help, we found the Middle Collegiate church and were greeted with love and excitement. We enjoyed the singing, the congregation and the simple beauty of the church. What I wasn't expecting was the power of the political sermon given. Budget cuts, Washington, politics, etc... was the main focus. It left me shaking because I had never experienced so much emotion in such a sermon before.

Most of my group didn't understand the pastor but enjoyed watching his body language. We left a bit early and went to a nearby Thai restaurant for a wonderful meal. Ellenem came by and had a nice chat with us afterwards. She's a wonderful, warm person and I'm glad to have met her.

We then went back to the hotel and met our new tour guide. His voice was soft so no one understood him. It was a constant complaint throughout the two tours. He tooks us to Lincoln Center, John Lennon's house and memorial, some of Central Park, The Plaza and the Waldorf Astoria. We loved walking down the street to the Waldorf Astoria, walking in awe of the huge buildings around us. We continued our walk through Times Square and ended up on the 9th at a nice Italian restaurant.

Day 3: Tour of Ground Zero, Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, Wall Street, Pier 17 and a bra bar.

tchoiniere

Well, wheres the rest of it? Sounds like a great trip so far...

SueNYC

" Waldorf Astoria? That is nowhere near the Park. Sounds like you didn't spend much time in the Park. Too bad.

kleeblatt

Sue: Like I had already mentioned, our tour guide was rubbish.

More to come soon.

lantana

Looking fwd to more!

kleeblatt

Day 3: We left the hotel at 8.15 and took the subway downtown. We walked to Battery Park and got our tickets for the ferry to Ellis Island (which also stops at the Statue of Liberty). The line was short and we only waited about 10 minutes in line. The key to doing this tour is to get their early. 3 hours later and people were waiting 3-4 hours to get on the ferry.

The ferry was full, the tour guide was mum and the weather was cool. We decided to skip the statue of liberty and too the Ellis Island tour instead. On Ellis Island, we enjoyed reading the passages by the immigrants and looking at the pictures. We then found the wall with all the immigrants names on it (up to 1930 I believe) and we found many names from our area in Switzerland. I even found a man's name who I had known personally. The museum showed a life that many people had forgotten. The prices, the pictures and the different names of professions (many which are now non-existant) were intriguing. We then went back to Battery Park.

We then continued on to the winter garden, which is a spectacular building with beautiful palm trees as a center piece. Our tour was a blur, tons of people, incredible architecture and our guide, who finally really knew something and was excited something, had really built us up to see a memorial in the glass house. Well, we got there thinking, finally, we are going to be informed of something, but the security guard blocked our entrance and said due to tightened security measures (because bin Laden had been killed the day before), the 9/11 memorial is closed. We were flabbergasted. It was an ironic situation really because the memorial would have meant all the more to us.

Oh well. We were mesmerized during our walk around Ground Zero and saw quite a few people getting interviewed. It was the day after bin Laden's death and there was just a slight buzz of something historical happening.

We continued our walk to Wall Street and sat at the feet of George Washington, looking at the Stock Exchange building and watching a model being photographed. We ended our tour at the chapel where the 9/11 rescuers were cared for.

After saying an awkward goodbye to our tour guide, we headed over to Pier 17 and ate cheesecake while sipping marguaritas. We had wanted to walk over the Brooklyn bridge but because our feet were tired and the bridge was half covered with sheets, we decided to order another marguarita instead and talk about Victoria's Secret and the dive we were going to visit that night.

When organising my trips, I like to go to one unique, off the wall, place that really offers atmosphere. At the recommendation of a few fodorites, we were going to end our day at: Jeremy’s Ale House - 228 Front St (between Beekman St & Peck Slip, or for a more appropriate name, the bra bar. Since we had been eating, walking and still tending to our jet lag, I was hesitant as to what my group would think of this bar. I had gone in earlier to take a peek and was taken back. At 4pm, the place was almost empty, the floor was cement, the atmosphere a bit rough, the clientele scruffy, the food not enchanting BUT there were definitely bras hung all over. We all met up at 6 pm in the bar and even though the place had run out of almost all beer due to the bike marathon the day before, we loved it. And being with the Swiss, drinking Bud light was a treat to them. Ha ha. A treat. Here I wanted to find some fancy US beer but low and behold, it was Bud light that saved the day.

We met awygn that evening (a fellow fodorite) and enjoyed a lively, lovely conversation with her. Since most of my group were still learning the basics of English (having just learned the past simple), they didn't feel confident enough to engage in conversations with the locals. One young man, a gorgeous, humble, well built man of 22, was outside smoking a cigarette (yes the Swiss smoke a lot) and two young women began speaking to him. Unfortunately, their flirting didn't lead them too far because the young man realized his lack of English skills just wouldn't cut it and so he apologized and left. They later told me he was hot and sexy but very shy. And the young man later made a comment on how he desperately needs to improve his English. Mission accomplished.

We didn't try out the food but we all got reasonably tipsy, took the subway and decided it was a nice evening at New York's downtown bra bar.

Day 4: A walk on the High Line, going over to the flatiron building and continuing all the way down to China town.

bardo1

Very nice - looking forward to more...

Nikki

Thanks for sharing your view of New York from a very interesting perspective. I'm looking forward to the rest of it.

lantana

I'm so sorry you weren't able to visit the 9/11 memorial. What unfortunate timing

"...we decided to order another marguarita instead and talk about Victoria's Secret..." you're so funny

VERY cute about the shy young man. NOW he will be motivated to improve his English, ha!

Glad you made it to Ellis Island. Such a special place. I went for the first time last summer and saw the passenger record of my grandfather, who came over from Switzerland in 1921

I can't wait to hear about the High Line - I'm going next weekend!

bardo1

Where is Day 4??

Toucan2

I remember schuler planning this trip, then saw this rise to the top and thought, aha! the trip report! I was enjoying it, and then it ended I hope you come back to finish up.

PS I took too of the grayline tours recently in NYC and the tour guides were awful on those too. Very disappointing. They spent more time mentioning how they rely on tips than telling us anything useful or interesting.

Bowsprit

One of the best walking tours I've ever taken was given by a volunteer from the group Big Apple Greeters. There's no guarantee that you'd get a Greeter but if you do you're in for a treat. And it's free! These tour guides are passionate about the area they're touring and are locals so the information is accurate, timely, and given from an 'insider's' perspective.

http://www.bigapplegreeter.org/01-bi...0-what_is.html

The Foods of New York tours also are outstanding. Again, the tour guides know the history of the area you're touring and since group sizes are small, and you're walking, they are comprehensive.

kleeblatt

Hi Guys! Schuler's back!

re bigapplegreeters: they don't do groups so we couldn't use them.

Day 4:

We took the subway to the nearest highline station. It's about a 10 min walk to the beg. of the highline (we started furthest south) and it takes you through a more run down part of New York (which I'm guessing will be built up soon).

The highline is walk along raised railroad tracks. It's now a pleasant path that offers you river views and has nice plants, art and just a good feeling for the visitor. There weren't many people on the highline and we all felt it was a great way to meander through a part of the city that many people don't see. The highline was sadly only partly finished and we had to stop our stroll half way through.

So then we headed off to the flat iron building. A majestic, historical piece of architecture, it's definitely a must for any tourist to see.

With a map in the hand, we continued our walk to Greenwich, Soho, Little Italy and ended in China town. The map helped us find the most beautiful places in Greenwich. We found Little Italy to be very little and felt the grimy (but interesting!) China town to be slowly eating up Little Italy's streets.

Baseball game in the evening: to be cont.

Bowsprit

Sounds like a great trip. BAG does do small group tours; your group would have indeed been too large for them.

Greenwich Village is one of the most visited neighborhoods in Manhattan and full of suprises.

Little Italy is just about fully contained on Mulberry Street and the best Italian food is found elsewhere.