VCanada

Hey tamaraten - If you use www.hopstop.com and put your start and end destination it will give you all the subway options, plus walking route (plus how long it would probably take for a cab)

ellenem

All TOTR tickets are timed tickets. They all come with a time on them for when you plan to use them. In about a dozen visits, I've purchased tickets at the booths in the plaza as well as the official ticket line inside, but I've never requested a different time than the next available time. I have never pre-purchased tickets for any of these visits. My most recent visit a few weeks ago was most crowded. It took 3 minutes to buy the tickets and then we were on line waiting to board an elevator for about 8 minutes. (You have 8 days in NYC. I would wait and watch the weather to decide on TOTR.)

(If you want to avoid lines, don't go to Grimaldi's--I think you've already reached this conclusion. The pizza is fine, but the one time I went we waited 2 hours for a table. The size of our group caused us to have a longer wait. If it had been up to me, I would not have waited, but I was with visitors who had created the plan and really wanted to do this. To my mind, there are too many other places to eat in NYC to wait anywhere for more than 15 minutes.)

Without knowing exactly from where you will be heading to Brooklyn, it would be difficult to advise on the best subway, though it would probably be the A or C from Fulton St. Start studying the map for your visit:
http://www.mta.info/nyct/maps/submap.htm

Also, Hopstop.com is a great facility to plot transit routes.

doug_stallings

Both the 4 and 5 trains stop at Bowling Green, the closest stop to the Ellis Island ferry. If you want to take the subway to the Brooklyn Bridge entry in Manhattan, take the 4 or 5 train two stops to Brooklyn Bridge and get out. There are signs that point you to the bridge entry, and you can get there directly from the subway. Or you can walk from Battery Park, where the ferry from Ellis Island lets you off.

If you want to take the subway all the way to Brooklyn, then you get off the 4/5 at Fulton St. and transfer to the A or C train to High St., which is one more stop. That's the closest subway stop to the stairs leading up to the bridge.

NeoPatrick

Regarding Grimaldi's. No, I don't think the wait is worth it either. I remember getting there quite early once and the wait was minimal, but seated very close we noticed the pizza next to us was really burned black around the edges. My partner and I both HATE that burned taste, so we said when ordering that we wanted one "not black and burned if possible". The waiter became very aloof and said something like, "well, obviously you know nothing about coal fired pizza. That's the way they are supposed to be". So just as aloof I replied, "well, I see the one to our other side is NOT black or burned -- so it must not be coal fired. We'd like one like theirs please, even though that's the way coal fired pizzas come out at places who know how to make them without burning them." Too patronizing for a pizza place -- you'd think they were a five star restaurant with that attitude!

tamaraten

VCanada - that's an excellent site - thanks for introducing me to it. I need to ask a question though - maybe I don't know how to work this, but just to try it out, I put in "World Trade Centre" as the first location, asking to get to "Brooklyn Bridge" (no differentiation as to which side of the BB possible) as second location. The only information it gave was the route to take by bike. I tried the same thing with "Battery Park" as location #1 and BB as #2. For every other mode of transportation, it said "route not found". What am I doing wrong?!

ellenem - Another decision made! Each time I knock one off, I feel such accomplishment! I am not pre-purchasing TOTR tickets - all of you who have recommended waiting to see what the weather will be are so right.
And another - I am not going to Grimaldi's - at least as a planned destination. (unless for some strange reason we happen to find ourselves there, and it happens to be empty and we happen to be hungry...)
Also ellenem, thanks for the subway map site - I have SO much studying to do, and I feel as though I have been doing this to the (almost) exclusion of everything else in my life - no joke- with SO much to yet figure out. I feel as though I'm at the very tip tip of what I need to know...

Doug-Stallings - Thanks so much for the clear-cut instructions. How long do you estimate it would take to walk from the Ellis Island ferry drop-off to the Brooklyn Bridge entry in Manhattan - at a regular, stroll-type pace. And how long by subway?

VCanada

tamara - you aren't doing anything wrong - I just tried it and got the same weird result... I wonder if it is confused because there isn't public transit that links the two... you can do a similar thing on google maps - it shows that it is a mile walk from the WTC and the start of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the transit options map out a route that walk then take a subway sidways which gets you marginally closer, then walk again. So I think it might just be that there are relevant transit routes so hopstop has a problem.

ellenem

I would assume a 30-minute walk from the Ellis Island ferry to the Brooklyn Bridge, because it may be warm, PLUS the most direct route up Broadway takes you past the bronze bull, Wall Street, Trinity Church, St Paul's Chapel, and City Hall, all of which might make you pause a minute or two (or more) to contemplate. You could spend a lot of time in the area as well, stopping off for your visit to the World Trade Center Memorial, strolling long the waterfront from Battery Park to the World Financial Center, visiting South Street Seaport--depends on your interests and energy levels. It would be easy to find things to fill an afternoon after a visit to Ellis Island.

5alive

I have just read this thread in entirety from start to finish. We have a ticket to Ellis Island for 9 am on a Saturday and will probably spend a good half day there given the reports here. We may also get off at the Statue of Liberty first because it's on my younger son's wishlist to do so; I fully expect to get back on the next ferry possible.

Having read this thread, I am very tempted to do some--not all--of these things mentioned on the way back toward the subway and our hotel in Murray Hill. Since we have a Broadway show that night, I do not want to turn the day into a maitaitom death march....We also have another day in our trip left open for exploring, so maybe I should resist and come back another day?

Bowsprit

5alive: Come back where another day?

sf7307

I think she means the rest of lower Manhattan.

traveler2005

I may have been one that mentioned Real New York Tours. Our group of 5 took a private all day tour. We did a great deal of walking and were pretty exhausted at the end of the day. However, we got a great overview of the city. For a private tour, they will take your interests into consideration and might be able to cut out some of the areas that require more walking. Or you could ask to sit and take a break. You could always email them to get a better idea of the range of walking that they might include.

Unfortunately, I never took the time to condense my trip notes into a trip report. However, I just went through and made a list of things that we saw and that that I listed in my notes. Most things were seen from the outside with the tour guide giving us lots of history and interesting stories. At the end of the tour, he even gave us his phone number in case we had any questions during the rest of our trip. It worked out well since we realized after we broke up that one of our friends had offered to put the guide's jacket in his backpack when it got warm.


Times Square
Central Park
Greenwich Village Christopher Park Stonewall Inn.
Empire State Building.
West Village.
86 Bedford
Cherry Lane Theater
Narrowest home in NYC
Aaron Burr’s house
Washington Square Park
lunch at Joe’s Pizza
Minetta Lane
Café Wha
Macdougal St.
NY University
Washington Square Park
Soho
Triangle Shirtwaist
Little Italy
break at Ferrara Bakery & Café
China Town
Five Points
Suggestion to see – NY Tenement Museum
courts area
Brooklyn Bridge
St. Paul’s Chapel
Wall Street
Canyon of Heroes
Wall St. – National Stock Exchange
Trinity Church
WTC Memorial (we ended there, so we could spend more time)

5alive

Yes, sorry, I meant that I had a day that was not booked yet and we remain undecided as to what we want to do. We thought the Brooklyn Bridge and the Wall Street area, perhaps with some Greenwich Village thrown in. Then I am seeing the suggestion that these activities might be tacked on to the end of the Ellis Island outing. Trying to decide if that's too much for one day.

Bowsprit

5alive: Why not just go to Ellis Island, see how you feel at the end of that visit (you may end up spending more/less time there than you expected) and then decide what you'd like to do next. None of the options you've listed need a reservation; just play it by ear.

tamaraten

okay, after days and days and days.....I have a semi-loose plan for the first three days of our trip! (our of 8). Please tell me what you think!

Very broad strokes:

Monday:
arriving around 4 p.m. to hotel (54th & Madison) and settling in
visit to Crumbs (it's near hotel) for a Hello-NY Cupcake for dd! (a Bowsprit quote!)
TOTR
Stroll wherever we feel like: through Times Square maybe, Central Park, 5th Ave., whatever.
Figure out a hopefully great dinner somewhere along the way..

Tuesday:
Met
Frick (maybe)
Some more Central Park
7:00 p.m. Wicked

Wednesday:
Ellis Island (hopefully early...don't know if we'll be able to get to ferry by 9:00 a.m. considering where we're located...our hotel includes breakfast so it would be a shame to miss it - that would mean waking up pretty early and I figure the night before after Wicked we'll do some post-theatre strolling, eating and maybe go to sleep late. Any advice on this would be really welcome.)

Brooklyn Bridge - a thoroughly canvassed issue thanks to all of you wonderful people. Still haven't decided from which direction. Will wait and see as so smartly/logically suggested by the experienced posters here - depends on weather, how we feel, how dd's leg is....

WTC Memorial - thinking about this here maybe.

Battery Park - thinking about on this day too

We'll see what else if there's time...

Thursday:
Tenement Museum
maybe Little Italy
maybe China Town
8 p.m. Once


The above is pretty general and broad, but it's a framework. Obviously we'll have to fill in lunches and dinners, and other things in between.


Please critique!

Thanks.

Aduchamp1

I have a Solomonesque solution to the Brooklyn Bridge question. Start in the middle and then walk both ways simultaneously.

Problem solved.

skatedancer

i would reserve your Ellis Islands tickets online. It is a much shorter security wait. You won't have to worry so much about missing / rushing breakfast.

blh

You might want to change the Ellis Island Day to a day when you could have an early evening the night before. We actually just had a breakfast bar and coffee in the room that mornning so that we could catch a subway early (by 8:00 if I remember). That gave us plenty of time to get down to the ferry and go through security by 9:00 AM (our ferry time on prepurchased tickets). Actually, there is a pretty good cafeteria on Ellis Island where you can get drinks and snacks as well as lunch. Everyone always says to go early - and I think they are right considering all the crowds that arrived in the hour after we got to Ellis Island. Also, there is a snack bar on the Ferry. I saw quite a few people getting snacks as I'm sure they skipped breakfast. If your hotel serves muffins and such, you could stop by and pick up some things to take with you. If it's a sit down/full breakfast, of course, that won't work.

doug_stallings

Your plans sounds very workable to me. The key to enjoying Ellis Island and not wasting too much precious vacation time is the early ferry. If you don't think you can do it on that day after Wicked, then don't or choose the Staten Island Ferry, but definitely reserve the Ellis Island ferry if you are going. Otherwise, you quadruple the wait times, and that just isn't worth it when you have a limited amount of time in the city. Of all the attractions you are planning to see, this is the one that must absolutely be booked as far in advance as possible. Really the only one.

Bowsprit

Choose the Frick or the Met, you will poke your eyes out (or your daughter might)after going to two museums in one day. Best way to squash an interest in art is to go to two museums in one day.

I wonder if the two of you would enjoy MoMA?

Make sure you have time to wander through the West Village, one of the most interesting neighborhoods in Manhattan.

Have fun, girls!

ncounty

I just did a first day in NY today with my child who is a 15 yo boy. He is just back from Beijing so he was a little jet lagged although we still managed to fit a lot in. Rather than bore everyone with the details, I just posted it as a trip report so you can read it if you wish:

http://www.fodors.com/community/unit...n-new-york.cfm

For a place to eat, I really liked our selection today, Cask, in Murray Hill around 33rd and 3rd avenue.

To me, TOTR is very expensive just for a view. Maybe I am missing something but taking an elevator up for a gorgeous view is worth no more than $10 to me. (it is currently about $25 though you may find a discount)

I would also recommend adding seeing Grand Central station if you can, we were very impressed with it and enjoyed the dining concourse downstairs. You can get great cupcakes at Magnolia bakery there.

Hope you have a great time!