Visiting NYC for the first time. We are staying for 3 nights. We arrive from Chicago at noon on Thursday and are staying at the Westin Times Square. We have dinner reservations at Lupa at 8:00. We assume we will have about 5 hours to sightsee on Thursday but not sure what would be best/easiest to do. Is there enough to do in the Times Square area that day? What about Central Park? On Friday and Saturday, we were thinking we would go to one or two museums. We are deciding between the Met, Guggenheim and Museum of Natural History. We also plan to go to Ellis Island (should we do the museum?), Ground Zero, Empire State Building. If we have time, we thought we would check out Greenwich Village and Soho. We are having dinner on Friday night at Blue Water Grill and Saturday we have tickets for the Producers and are eating at Angus McIndoe afterwards. Is there any must sees that I have left out or anything we shouldn't bother with? Also, curious about transportation. Is it best to take the subway to the sites/restaurants I mentioned or is it best to take cabs? I assume we are an expensive cab fare to downtown. Thanks for your advice.

Although I've never done it, I'd think since it's your first time you'd be smart to do a double decker bus tour the first day to get a good overall view and see a lot of the famous sights. Hopefully it will be nice enough to sit in the open on top. Busses are practically right outside the Westin's door. In my opinion that's also a good way to see the Empire State Building, unless you really want to go to the top.

I'd chose the Met for your one museum, but when you get there take a quick vote of what you want to see. There is a current ElGreco exhibit that is quite good and it is next to the 19th-20th Century Europeans, including the impressionists. You might want to take a taxi to the museum, it's a little complex by subway. If it is a nice day you may actually walk all the way back to your hotel going through Central Park (the better part of an hour without stopping). Lunch at the Boat House in the park would be very nice before or after the museum.

Getting to Union Square for Blue Water Grill is an easy subway ride from your hotel, but you might want to do the taxi to Lupa for dinner your first night. Then after walking around after dinner, you might want to take the subway back to your hotel.

I think the Ellis Island museum is fascinating and worth a view if you take the boat out there and pass the Statue of Liberty along the way.

We were in NYC last weekend. Arrived at 10:30 on Friday morning. Dropped our luggage at the hotel and immediately went to the Gray Line office to buy the 2 day tour ticket that includes the evening tour. Well worth the money. While there we purchased our ticket for the the ferry to Ellis Island, which saved us time when we arrived at Battery Park (only had to stand in the line for the boat). We took the subway to Battery Park as it was much quicker than riding the tour bus. The line for the boat was not nearly as long as we expected. We did not get off at the statue of liberty since you can no longer go inside the statue. Ellis Island was very interesting and well worth the trip. We took a ranger-led tour that was very informative. We were able to get back to Battery Park about 5:00 and get on the Gray Line bus to South Street Seaport. We walked right up to the TKTS booth and bought 7 tickets for the Saturday matinee of Gypsy. The booth is open until 6:00. Glad we were able to get tickets Friday as the line at the booth in Times Square was very long Saturday morning.

We decided to go to the Empire State Building on Friday evening to see the city after dark. It was a beautiful sight, but not worth the line we stood in. It took about 2 hours to get through both lines - the line for tickets and then the line for the elevator.

The Gray Line buses are a great way to see the city if the weather is good. Sitting on the top is the only place to be. Sitting inside the bus greatly limits what you can see. We took the uptown tour on Saturday morning, the downtown tour on Sunday morning, and the night tour Saturday evening. Didn't have time for the Brooklyn tour, although the night tour goes through part of Brooklyn.

The downtown tour will take you to the WTC site. It is such an emotional place to visit. Visiting St. Paul's Chapel is a must. The memorials and pictures that are posted throughout the area and in the chapel are very moving and will bring tears to your eyes.

Make sure you have plenty quarters if you plan to ride a bus. We tried to ride a bus but didn't have enough coins and they will not take dollar bills. The subway machines will take credit cards, but if you want to purchase a single ticket you need one's, although at one location the machines would only take quarters and we didn't have enough. If you plan to use public transporation a lot, I think there is a pass you can buy which would be much easier and cheaper. The subway is a great way to get where you need to be quickly. We asked questions of several people to be sure we were getting on the right trains and were pleased at how nice and helpful people were in the subway stations.

This was our first trip to NYC. What a wonderful city. Have fun!!

Thanks for your replies. Patrick, I must be the one going crazy. I just read your thread about posts disappearing and reappearing with different dates. I looked for this post twice and didn't see it. Then I saw it after I posted to your other thread.

Curious to know what your opinion of Lupa is. We were very disappointed

Lisa, I was also disappointed. I wouldn't tell someone not to go there but I think I was expecting it to be alot better. I thought my salad and dessert were excellent but I didn't care for either my entree or my husband's.