Some friends and I are taking advantage of some cheap rates via Skybus from Columbus, OH to NYC in January (yes, I know it'll be COLD). We will arrive on a Thursday and depart on a Monday (4 nights). A few questions:

1. Any recommendations on ground transportation from Stewart Intl. Airport (Newburgh, 55 miles from NYC) to the city? I'm looking into the Shortline bus shuttle.

2. More importantly, a moderately-priced (maybe $200/night)hotel recommendation for six women (obviously multiple rooms). Are apartments available for weekend stays?

Thanks much!

Looks like you could also take Metro North to Grand Central.

http://www.panynj.gov/CommutingTrave...portation.html

You should get some good hotel suggestions; you might want to consider priceline.com.

Try the Affinia group (www.Affinia.com) for reasonable room rates which should be easy to find that time of year.

Have you booked your flights? Any money you can save will be negated by transportation time and money into Manhattan unless you are only paying about $39 roundtrip each.

I'm guessing the commute alone will take you around three hours each way.

Quikbook (www.Quikbook.com) also has good hotel deals.

The flight we're considering is $80 round trip. Do you really think it'll take three hours to drive into nyc?? I was expecting about half that time.

Yopu should put your dates into kayak.com, and filter the results by your pricerange to get an idea of what may be available.

I stayed at the Park South Hotel ($239 through Quikbook) in early October and thought it was a great value for NYC. My room had two double beds so it would work for two women friends traveling together, although the rooms are very small. My favorite restaurants are in the Park Ave S area so I thought the location was great.

It looks like to take Metro North you'd take a cab to Beacon from the airport. The train in would be an just under 90 minutes.

As others have said, you won't save much money flying into Stewart because of the long commute to NYC from there.

Here's a link to all the transprotation options from Stewart:

http://www.stewartintlairport.com/groundtrans.html

On a good day by car your might do the drive in 90 minutes, but probably 2 hours or more once you hit city traffic. All of the train or bus choices would combine with shuttles or taxis at both ends and take 2-3 hours.

Stewart is not considered a NY city airport. Those are Laguardia, Kennedy, or Newark.

Some airports still a bit far out, but with better public transport connections are Islip and Westchester.

FYI,

Just put 'Stewart Airport to Fifth Ave and 42nd St' into Google Maps and the drive was estimated as

70.8 miles
1 hr 26 min
(2 hr 10 min in traffic)

The times Google Maps and others ahve calculated are unrealistic. I used to live in a nearby county, flown out of Stewart for business and pleasure and still visit friends scattered throughout the area, so there is practical experiece.

One other thing, Newburgh is often 10 degrees cooler than NYC and one flight in the winter was delayed substantailly due to the de-icing of thew wings.

Agree that the 3 airports for NYC are LGA, JFK and Newark. There are 3 others in the suburbs - Islip, Westchester and Stewart - which are reasonable for people that live in those suburban areas- but a major pain in the butt for tourists headed into Manhattan.

Trips into the city are long (2 to 3 hours) due to shuttles that run only rarely and bad connections to trains. Also - in Jan bad weather can make the rip in and out of the city a major issue.

I would really only conisder flights into the 3 major airports.

As for hotels I would look at Priceline - in Jan for $200 a room you should get some good hotels. (Also look at Kayak, travelzoo etc for other great deals in Jan.)

I've been checking for a girl trip too. (I grew up in the Bronx and youngest daughter wants a 'tour'...if I can even find/recognize anything after 40 years!!)

But that is neither here nor there. You might check the following. The Belvedere Hotel has a January and February special..$189 per night which includes what they call a 'full' breakfast. That's for a double with a king or 2 queens. The hotel is in a good location and gets good reviews. Check their web-site and tripadvisor.com for the reviews.

Have a great time!

You might also check travelzoo.com for specials. There are already several posted good thru Jan.

You will need a bus or taxi from the airport to a train station and the train from Beacon to Grand Central on Metro North is here
http://as0.mta.nyc.ny.us/mnr/schedul...t_stat=GCT%200

Cant help with the ground transpotation but id highly recommend Churchill suite's downtown(15 Park row) for your hotel/apartment. You can get a very nice 2 bedroom apartment for about $300 a night. When you break it down you wont find anything nicer for $150 per person. The aprtments also come with a sleeper sofa you if someone dosnt mind a couple nights on ths sofa it wouldnt cost more than $100 per person. they come with full kitchen/showers/ livingroom etc. Most importantley they are very clean and very safe.