flying from the West Coast and plan on spending the night near the airport. Will be flying out the next day for Frankfurt, so will have some time to kill. Thought I`d get a priceline hotel, but not sure where to stay. I hear there is nothing near the airport to see or do. Is there anything in the Elizabeth area? I don`t want to get too far away from the airport. Any area close enough to get to easily, that has some shops, etc in the vicinity? I don`t want to fly into Newark and get on another plane the same day, for fear of missing it. Thank you for any help you can give me! Pat

If you stay at an "airport hotel," take the airtrain or a shuttle into New York City. From Penn Station or Grand Central, you can get just about anywhere in Manhattan quickly.

There is nothing in the airport or the Elizabeth area unless you want to go to Ikea or to Jersey Gardens, a discount outlet mall. As you are heading out to Europe, you probably don’t want to have even more clothes with you, so that is probably out. If Jersey Gardens interests you, take a look at www.jerseygardens.com

I agree Manhattan is a good choice for the afternoon/evening. A lot of the airport hotels are on Route 1 & 9 or Route 22, major highways with no sidewalks or anyplace to go, so your best bet to get to Manhattan would be a hotel shuttle or taxi to Newark Airport, or a taxi to Newark Penn Station and then the Air Train or bus from Newark Airport, or a train or the PATH from Newark Penn Station. I posted some info on this recently for a poster staying overnight at the Sheraton Four Points in Elizabeth, so if you run a search for “Elizabeth” my post should show up. The post is called “Help with Transportation from Elizabeth NJ to Manhattan”.

See if you can check in for your Frankfurt flight as soon as you land in Newark. Some European airlines allow check in up to 18 hours prior to departure. The US has tougher rules on this than European airports, so it may not be possible, but do check. To have your big luggage checked in and have your boarding passes the day before will save you a lot of time on the day of your departure. (You may even be able to check your luggage all the way through to Frankfurt from the west coast, check this when you check in for your flight from the west coast.) If you can do this, it would be worth considering staying in Manhattan overnight and just heading out to catch the flight the next day.

There is a Marriott right at the airport. Don’t know if it would be on price line, but you certainly can’t beat the convenience, esp if you can’t check in early for your Frankfurt flight.

There are several discount shopping malls (BIG) in Secaucus, NJ which is about 20 minutes from Newark. There are a number of all suite hotels in Secaucus. I think you'd need a car to do this properly, but if you wanted to shop, that's an option.

Elizabeth/Jersey Gardens area probably has the newest hotels in the immediate Airport area. Several have been built in the last 2 years. In addition to shopping or browsing at Ikea/JG, there's also a large movie theatre in the JG Complex. You could always catch a movie & dinner the night before your flight to pass the evening.

We always fly into Newark when visiting NYC (great nonstop Alaska flight from Seattle) and nearly always get a Priceline room in Elizabeth (usually the airport Hilton) for either the night in or before the flight out. This time got the Four Points Sheraton for $40/night. Hasn't the greatest reviews, but for one night pre-flight we could care less. Biddingfortravel.com will give you the latest bid wins in that area - good luck if you decide to stay out there.