NYC or Philadelphia family trip
 

Hi all,

Looking for some help trying to plan a family trip for next May for my son's graduation. He wants to go to NYC which I was planning to do. We have 3 free tickets on SW and was going to use the ATA partnership to fly to LaGuardia. However they are not going to be flying to LGA after Jan 2008. After looking at hotels in Manhattan and airfare I am beginning to think it is out of our budget. So we started thinking about flying to Philadelphia and spending a few days there with a possible train trip to NYC for one day. OR should I think about flying to Philly and driving up to NYC and staying outside the city somewhere (NJ?) and then just riding the train into the city for a few days to see the sights. I guess we could consider doing this from ISLIP as well.

We will be traveling with 18, 15 and 4yo and will need 2 hotel rooms (thus increasing the cost)

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks!

I would go with Philly if you are concerned about costs. No city offers as much as NYC, but Philly is a vibrant city. Tell us what you like to do on a trip and we can give you a better answer.

In May there are still some bargains to be had for NYC - through the discount web sites - or in Jersey City. I wouldn't give up on it before doing some searching.

As for air fare- frankly it's just as easy to get to Manhattan from Philly as it is from Islip (the Ronkonkoma train station is nowhere near the airport, the trip is long and it only runs once an hour most of the day - so you need to leave about 3 hours for the trip).

I did a little more research after posting this question. Looks like Islip is not an option. I guess now we can fly to Philly and spend a day or 2 there and then either take a train to NYC for a day OR we could drive up to Jersey City or some other area close by (Meadowlands?) and stay for a night or 2 and take train to NYC from there.

There's so much to see in NYC and I know in 1-2 days we won't even scratch the surface. If we have 2 days then I think one day will just be seeing some of the sights such as Times Square, Central park, etc.. The second day I know I want to do Ellis Island. The boys are not interested in any museums (I'll have to come back for that!)

Jersey City (from which you can take the PATH train) is far preferable to the Meadowlands - which requires bus travel - and can take forever to get into the city.

For Ellis Island buy your ferry tickets in advance to avoid one long line - the you only have the security line to wait on.

In Central Park you will probably want to do the zoo at least - check the Central Park Conservancy to see what else is of interest.

Also reco the Museum of Natural History. There isn't a kid in the world that doesn;t love it - esp the dinos.

Thanks for your help. I think I've found a couple of good possibilities in Jersey City that are close to a PATH station. Is there a web site to get Ellis Island tickets? I'll start looking at other things to do in NYC. I would love to go to the museum...

Thanks again.

There is:

http://tinyurl.com/ywaxke

Really, you should consider Philadelphia. It's not New York, but it is vibrant, interesting, full of history, and too easily overlooked in favor of New York or Boston. There are very frequent hotel deals, and you can get quite a decent room for half or even a third of what a comparable room would cost in Manhattan. Most of the historic area sites (Constitution Center is a notable exception) are run by the Park Service and are free or extremely cheap. Good restaurant meals aren't necessarily cheaper, but I do find it easier to get a table, and find trendy restaurants (and we've got a lot of them!), somewhat less intimidating than in Manhattan.

If you're going to take a day to see Ellis Island (a site I recommend), you can easily drive from Philly to Liberty State Park to catch the ferry. The exit for LSP is right off the NJ Tpke.

This past mid-September we went to NYC and trainec to Philadelphia.

While not NYC, Philadelphia was a very pleasant surprise.

Many historic sights group very closely together.

The train ride was a very pleasant 1:20 or so.

The hotels in NYC cost us double the price.

Why don'y you spend several days in Philadelphia, train to NYC early in the morning and spend maybe one night in NYC.

The great things about the train is that the stations are very close or in the middle of the cities.