Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Perfect New York City Weekend!

My 24-year-old daughter, Beth, has never visited NYC before, so we made plans for a weekend getaway. We couldn't have asked for better weather, and Beth is the perfect NYC
companion. We walked EVERYWHERE!

We caught the train in Trenton, and after a fairly uneventful ride except for a 20-something woman who decided that her loud voice and strident laugh needed to be shared with everyone in the car, got into the city about 11 a.m. and commenced our "Walk 'til you Drop Weekend" by walking to the Hotel Belleclaire (34th St. to 77th), and dropping off our bags (two backpacks). My daughter's main request for the weekend was to have a hot dog in Central Park, so we did that for lunch, then went to Strawberry Fields and saw the Lennon memorial before riding the subway to Times Square, where we picked up the Grayline Heritage Hop On/Hop Off trolley. The guide was an idiot. He told
two older (70+) French tourist couples that since they were in America, they
should speak English. He yelled at the passengers if they didn't look out
the window in the direction he was pointing and if cars pulled in front of
the bus, he leaned over the driver and screamed at the cars. I did get to talk to the one French gentleman who could speak English and this was his 17th trip to the U.S. We had a nice conversation about traveling and both agreed we were lucky we hadn't been in New York the weekend before with the 6+ inches of rain they got!

We walked through the World Trade Center memorial, which was very touching. We only got to view the outside of St. Peter's church and walk through the cemetery, but the photos of what it looked like just past 9/11 and how it is now were very interesting. We walked to the Chinatown/Canal Street area and bargained with the vendors for leather purses before catching a cab back to Times Square and then got the packed subway back to the hotel, where we did the quickest change you ever saw and got back on the subway to Times Square to go to the theater.

We went to see The Pirate Queen and it was great! It started a little weak,
but then picked up. The singing was wonderful and the sets were
outstanding! Beth really seemed to enjoy it. After the theater we walked
three blocks to St. Andrew's Restaurant, where we had Belhaven Ale from
Scotland. I also had cock-a-leekie soup and Beth had a chicken appetizer while we listened to live Celtic music. We left the restaurant at midnight and couldn't find a cab (do they all disappear at some magic hour?), so we walked back to the hotel (44th to 77th....). It was a beautiful evening and lots of people were out and about, but we were dead tired by the time we got to the room.

Sunday morning we checked out of the hotel but left our bags in the bag
drop, and caught the subway down to 50th Street/Rockefeller Center. The Top
of the Rock is a must-do! We went right
in, zoomed to the 67th floor in a glass-roofed elevator, and then went out
on to three levels of observations tours with the most fantastic views. What
a beautiful day for that! After the observation tower, we went over to
St. Patrick's Cathedral and walked around inside for a few minutes. We
talked about going to the Statue of Liberty, so we caught the hop-on/hop-off
bus again and this time had a great tour guide named "Esmeralda," who was
dressed as a gypsy. She told me she changed out of her spangled/bejeweled skirt when she was off work because she didn't like to get noticed on the street. I told her I didn't think she'd stand out at all, based on some of the characters we saw this weekend. She did a great job and we enjoyed that trip very much.

We got off at Battery Park, but after seeing the lines for the ferry Beth
decided she'd save that trip for another day. We ate at a good
Mexican restaurant named Chipolte, then caught the bus back up to 50th
Street. We walked around some more and did some shopping before catching a cab back to the hotel, got our bags and did the subway back to Penn Station.

As I said, it couldn't have been a more perfect weekend, weather-wise and companion-wise.