First off, I can't thank you folks enough for all your advice. This Forum is insanely helpful for planning all my trips. Thanks much.

Now that I have my hotel and flight booked for New York City in September, I wanted to find out the best way to get to Newark Airport from my hotel in Midtown. I searched the forum archives and found tons of info for going FROM the airport TO Manhattan, but nothing on the return trip. Our return flight out of Newark departs at about 3:30pm on a Sunday afternoon. Any suggestions?

IMO your two options are to hire a car service or airport shuttle

or take NJ Transit, in which case you would get from your hotel to NY Penn Station and take either a Northeast Corridor or North Jersey Coast train and get off at the stop for Newark Airport. According to the NJ Transit website, the Weekday Adult One way fare for this is $14.00

You would then take the Monorail at Newark Airport to the appropriate terminal for your flight.

To view train schedule times go to www.njtransit.com and use the Ez-trips/rail option to pull up the schedule for times between those two stops.

Car Service.

I think trying to negotiate the AirTrain back could be daunting. Your hotel can order a shuttle for you. That is what we did.

I used Call-7 Car Service. From Upper East Side (71st and York) to Newark was $46 plus tip. 212-777-7777

Driver arrived on time in Cadillac, put luggage in trunk, Used FDR, Houston and Holland tunnel to exit Manhattan and removed our luggage from trunk at Newark. Took all of 45 minutes to get there.

Keith

There is another less expensive alternative to a car service that I have used when I was staying near Grand Central--that airport express bus that leaves from midtown ( Grand Central, and Port authority) and lower Manhattan.

http://www.coachusa.com/olympia/ss.newarkairport.asp

You have several options. If the way you got into townin the first palce worke OK, just do that in reverse.
The AirTrain from Penn Station is easy, drops you at EWR and you get on the airport tram to the terminal.
Taxi or car service - not a lot of difference in cost unless yo get stuck in traffic with a taxi meter running.
Bus - leaves from Grand Central area, drop syou oustide the terminal door.
Shared shuttle vans - riskiest of all because you don't know if you will be the first or last one picked up and may have to sit there while the driver picks up several other passengers - a real waste of time.
My choice is usually the train.

If you don't mind spending the money, I agree that a car service or taxi is the easiest (best) way to go. On a Sunday morning LEAVING NYC you are most unlikely to encounter any traffic at all, you should sail right out. (Remember that they now say arrive 3 hours prior to departure, a bit crazy but whatever)

If you take the Airtrain, watch the train schedule from Penn Station, it is less frequent on Sundays. My only issue with the Airtrain is that there is really no luggage room, if you have a lot of luggage (which I generally do), it just is a total pain on the regular trains from Penn Station, as these are commuter trains and are not made for people with luggage. On a Sunday this may be better as trains are unlikely to be crowded leaving the city at that hour.

We took the train/ air tram a couple weeks ago from Midtown. No problem for us but we did not have a lot of luggage either. If you are travelling light I would take the train otherwise the limo/ taxi is probably the way to go. Personally I'm not sure I would fool around with the airport shuttle van; especially when you need to be at the airport by a certain time.

Assuming from your other post, you're on a budget your options include:

>getting to Grand Central Station (by cab probably) and taking the shuttle bus from there. $14/person plus taxi of about $5. Total ~$33

>getting the E train subway 1-2 blocks from your hotel to Port Authority and taking the shuttle bus from there. Subway ($4 or less) plus $28 so about the same price.

>getting the E train subway to Penn Station (same train as above, just stay on for a stop beyond Port Authority) and take the train. Details on options here http://www.airtrainnewark.com/airtrainnewark/index.html

Find out what time your airline expects you to check in. Allow yourself an hour and a bit for travel. It may take less on a Sunday. You should doublecheck the events schedules on the calendar on nycvisit.com and make sure there are no street fairs or runs etc. that might affect traffic. If there are, do what you can to avoid that area. Sept. is prime season for street fairs.

If you're coming into the city on the bus into either the Port Authority or the stop near Grand Central, it's cheaper to buy a round-trip ticket than a one-way ticket, so you can save a few dollars. Personally, I'd never consider either a car service or taxi because I wouldn't pay the fare, which might be $60+. (If you are a party of 4, then there's a stronger argument for the car service, though.)

I guess I'm on a tighter budget than most on here. I take the Super Shuttle for $14 each way that drops me off right at my hotel. Sometimes it takes a little longer depending on how many people are on it & where they're being dropped off. And you can reserve it for getting back to any area airport too....no luggage dragging or high costs.

Car service is only real option in my opinion, unless time means nothing to you and it's worth a lot of wasted time & inconvenience to save a few bucks ...

www.dial7.com