Jersey Shore to NYC?
 

Hi There- We are traveling to Sea Isle City, NJ for a week for a family beach trip. We will have our car w/ us and thought that it'd be fun to take one night and go to NYC. These are my thoughts-- Please tell me if this is NOT a good plan. I am VERY open to suggestions, as I am not from the NE and am clueless.

Drive from Sea Isle City, NJ early morning on a week day to Trenton, NJ. Take the NJ State Rail system from Trenton to Penn Station, NYC. We are planning to depart Sea Isle (week day morning) at 6 AM, to arrive in Trenton around 8AM, taking a train that runs during the 8:00 hour to Penn Station, arriving at Penn Station sometime between 9:30 and 10 AM. We plan to sight see and then stay the night at a Times Square area hotel. We will leave the following day (also a week day) around 11am, taking the NJ rail train from Penn Station, NYC back to Trenton, arriving in Trenton around 1pm, driving back to Sea Isle City by 3:30pm.

Thoughts, suggestions?

There are 5 of us -- 2 adults and 3 kids. My husband (who is from the NE and is frequently in NYC for work) is adverse to the idea of driving into the city.

Driving to Trenton in particular is not necessarily the best option. There are train that would be much more convenient to Sea Isle City than Trenton. See the map here:
http://www.njtransit.com/pdf/rail/Rail_System_Map.pdf

You might also catch a bus from Atlantic City to NYC.

Another option about the same drive time as Trenton is to drive all the way to Metropark on the same line as Trenton but closer to NYC--less time and less money for the train. There is a large Parling structure there where it sil be safe to leave your car overnight.

parKing structure

Awesome! Thank you for your advice! It does look like driving to Metropark would make more sense than driving to Trenton. In all honestly, at 7am-8am, how will the traffic be on a weekday morning getting to Metropark? My husband is convinced that it'll be nightmarish. The GPS says that Sea Isle City to Metropark is about 2 hours, is this accurate even with traffic conditions? Also, my husband is concerned that the parking structure at Metropark will be totally full on a week day by 8am. Is this a concern?

There is a bus from Atlantic City that takes about 2 hours and 45 minutes.

If it were me, I would drive. We make all our trips to NYC by car, and with 3 kids, I think it's too crazy to take them by car to a train, by train to the city, then by taxi or bus/subway to a hotel.

Pick a hotel with reasonable valet, or reserve parking with Icon Parking
http://www.iconparkingsystems.com/

There might be some traffic but driving in New York is very easy.

Agree with Tuscan....drive in. or take the AC bus. All that schlepping around with the kids will be a pain. I drive into Manhattan all the time. Most of the streets are an easy grid.

As far as hotels, five in one room may be a problem so check out Apartment/hotels (not apartments). Staying near Times Square isn't enjoyable unless you are planning on seeing a Show.

Thanks for the replies. My husband is 100% against driving into the city...I told him that driving in seems to be the consensus, but he's not up for it. I'll definitely check into the bus.

We have a suite reserved, which is why we are staying in the area that we're in...we got a good deal on a suite.

The Travel Inn Hotel is nothing fancy, but is in Manhattan and very close to the Lincoln Tunnel from New Jersey so you would only be driving on Manhattan streets for a few blocks. It also has reasonably prices parking in the hotel.

We already have a a suite reserved in a hotel in the Times Square area. I did look into taking a bus from Atlantic City to NYC, but Atlantic City is a 40 minute drive from where we are staying. So, it'd still be a 40 minute car ride, then a 2 hour and 45 minute bus ride.

It looks like the drive from where we are staying to Metropark, NJ is 2 hours exactly, then a 40 minute ride to Penn Station. I think this is what we are going to do. I am curious if the weekday morning traffic from Ocean City area, NJ to Metropark, NJ will be horrible, or if 2 hours is accurate?

It will cost about $55 to drive into the city and park for one night. To be honest, that's cheaper and probably no slower than your existing plan. And that's what I'd recommend. You can actually take the Lincoln Tunnel into the city and directly into the parking structure of the Port Authority and never have to drive on city streets. Just get into the rightmost lane, and you're in the heart of Times Square. It's a lot of traffic but I've done it and I hate to drive into Manhattan.

Radio station WINS - AM 1010 will tell you everything you need to know about traffic in NYC and will suggest alternatives if there is trouble anywhere. You will need a good map to find these, because they sometimes use names unknown to the ( well, my) GPS.

Honestly, between rush hours, say 9:30 to 3:00, it is not daunting. As SusieQQ points out, Manhattan is a grid.

Thanks for all the help! I'm not sure why my husband is so resistant to driving...its not like traffic here in ATL is a walk in the park. He seems to think that ATL has no traffic compared to NYC :-)

I'll tell him again that its the consensus. ;-)

Driving in NYC is not for everyone. I live in NJ and refuse to drive in Manhattan. It takes a certain amount of fortitude; some folks can do it easily, but others of us can't. It seems your husband knows that it's not for him, so i think you should trust him on that.

I think your plan to drive to Metropark is a good one. If you are leaving at 6 am, you will probably fly right up the parkway for most of the trip. But you will find the traffic picks up as you get closer to Metropark both because it's a busier area and you will have hit rush hour. Do you have EZ pass? If so, it will help speed up the trip as there are tolls on the GSP.

Having just been in Atlanta, I can assure you that traffic in NYC is no worse ... and I'm not sure that our drivers are as forceful as Atlanta drivers (or San Diego drivers for that matter ... now that's a city where I was nervous).

However, our road conditions and signage are abysmal, and that makes it particularly hard to drive in the area. If you have a GPS you'll be fine. You'll faint at the cost of our tolls and parking, but you'll be fine.