There is a chance our two week vacation in NYC may coincide with your spring break over Easter next year. I've heard hotel prices are sky high, and crowds are big, should i make a big effort to avoid this time of year? thanks for your thoughts

NYC gets 50 million visitors a year and I did not even realize spring break mattered as an usual tourist time.

NYC is not a major spring break vacation. I'm sure there are some tourists here for that but this is not an especially mobbed time of year - that is the time from mid Oct through Christmas.

Will there be a lot of tourists - yes, there always are except in Jan and Feb.

Great, thanks for your advice

Most people want to go somewhere warm.

Spring break in general is early to mid March for most schools and universities.

New England schools generally have a February holiday and a mid-April holiday, a week each.

Easter in 2015 is April 5, so neither of these is near Easter.

BTW, if you ever want to go the popular brunch places go either Memorial Day weekend or Labor Day weekend. And if they are not in midtown, Christmas week. Many NY'ers are away those weeks.

Actually, NYC is a huge spring break destination for school kids primarily in high school and junior high. It's also a huge destination for Europeans during Easter week. But in terms of the number of tourists and crowds, these aren't even noticeable. Most school groups don't even stay in Manhattan. They fill up hotels in the NJ suburbs and bus the kids in daily. But you may very well see groups of 40 kids trying to crowd onto a subway car at the same time, but that is more annoying to New Yorkers than tourists.

There are areas of NYC that are always insanely crowded (Broadway in Soho, around Rockefeller Ctr in midtown). They are worse at holidays.

But...like most other big cities if you stay away from these main drags it can be blissfully uncrowded. Amble on side streets in any neighborhood.

One thing about NYC (where I lived for 5 years, and subsequently have spent much time in...) is that all coffee/tea places and even slightly popular eating places seem to be very hard to get in anywhere near meal hours. Plan accordingly.

Well, naturally if places are any good they will be full at prime times. The places that are empty probably have sub par food.

And I have found places to be insanely crowded only between Thanksgiving and Christmas - not in the spring - unless on Fifth Ave in front of the St Pat's - for the Easter parade.

Great adivce thanks

I've been there during spring break, specifically the week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. I was staying on the UWS but I didn't notice any particular crowds in the more touristy areas of the city. Hotel rates may be high but crowds won't be big.