Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Trip Report A very short trip to NYC

This is a mostly useless report about a long weekend in New York where I ate out only three meals, and saw no sights except Joann's craft store, Crate & Barrel, and a supermarket. A certain Fodorite asked me to report back, so here it is.

I flew to NYC for my daughter's bridal shower last weekend. She did not know I was coming. She was scheduled to work the 3 days prior and the 3 days after the shower, and she felt it would be crazy for me to visit her for just one day.

I flew non-stop Honolulu-Newark at 3pm on Friday and arrived at 6:30am on Saturday. It took less that 10 minutes to get from the the plane to the curb, which I thought was pretty good. I had two big bags, containing 30 pineapples and lots of flowers,so it was nice to have my DD's new father-in-law pick me up. We stopped at the Port Authority bus station to pick up the other bride to be (two brothers are getting married a month apart). She had her shower last month, so was happy to come up from Virginia to help with my daughter's.

Mom-in law and I have met a few times, and she graciously offered to put me up in their home in Yonkers. We spent Saturday assembling favors, running errands, arranging flowers and getting to know each other. The plan was for me to surprise my daughter at the shower, but she and finance showed up to spend the night in Yonkers too! It was a fun surprise anyway, and she admitted she was really hoping I'd come. :-)

The party was at <B>Decosta's Restaurant</b> in Yonkers where we had the whole place for the afternoon. The other DIL's shower was there with a tulip/spring theme, hence my hauling of enough Hawaii swag to give it a different look. The mini-pineapples were a huge hit, as were the protea, orchid & ti leaf arrangements and mac nut candies. The food was fantastic; fried calamari, a rolled eggplant w marinara sauce, several salads, three entree choices, Italian cookies, and a beautiful (and delicious) lemon raspberry cake.

Half the family is Irish-Greek and the other half, German-Italian. All the women were exactly what I imagined third generation New York women to be...fun and loud! They were also very welcoming and I am looking forward to the wedding even more now. (Also per recent lounge threads on showers: gifts came wrapped, and no games played)

My daughter managed to use her mom-card and got both Monday and Tuesday off from work. On Monday, we made use of a family car to run some errands, addressed invitations, and talked wedding. We met her fiancé at the <b>Mermaid Inn </b>for a happy hour dinner. Great $1 oysters, fish tacos, little sliders, and various other small plates, plus more than a little sparkling wine. Walked back home via Central Park and then watched a beautiful sunset from her rooftop.

After a diner breakfast in the morning, I caught a cab to Penn Station. My driver was a hoot; I laughed the whole way, and he dropped me at the perfect entrance to easily catch the NJ transit with my mostly empty, but still bulky, bags.

The TSA pre-check line was about about 40 people deep, but there were 3 agents. My flight to San Francisco was delayed and arrived just as my HNL flight should have departed. Luckily, the FAs announced that they were holding the flight for 7 of us, and let us deplane first. We all sprinted down the terminal, and I was very pleased to be upgraded to first class, especially since my plan to buy lunch in the airport didn't happen!