dina4

i'm traveling to NYC the day after Christmas with my daughter and niece (just turned 16), my sister-in-law, my mother, and my mother-in-law. We have all been to NYC at least once, a few of us having visited 3 or 4 times.

Main reason of travel is to celebrate the girls' 16th birthdays. They want to shop, and i'm a bit worried about the after-Christmas sale crowds.

Any comments on the 4-night itinerary below re: timing/ crowds/ whatever would be great appreciated:

Friday, 12/26
Arrival at hotel: 6:30
• Top of the Rock
• Rockefeller Center
• 5th avenue walk / see holiday windows

Saturday, 12/27
morning: MOMA
Lunch: The Modern Café at MOMA
afternoon:
• Shop in midtown area
(or if weather is nice, do Brooklyn Bridge @1pm w/ big onion tours, just show up)
• 3:00 Tenement Museum tour
• 4:30 shop in Nolita / Soho

Sunday, 12/28:
• 11 Frick
• 12:30 Bloomies
• lunch at 40 Carrots
afternoon:
• shopping upper east / mid town
• Central Park - ice-skating (or better in the morning?)

Monday, 12/29
***possible Big Apple Greeter tour
(1. Brooklyn Bridge, 2. Columbia Univ, or 3. Financial Center/Ground Zero)

morning: Ground Zero, St. Paul’s Church
Lunch: Pearl Oyster Bar
afternoon: Shop in Greenwich Village / Union Square
evening: Jersey Boys 8:00 (have tickets)

Tuesday, 12/30 -- open
need to be at airport by 1:15 and 2:40

THANKS!
dina

nytraveler

The couple of days after Christmas are incredibly busy in the stores due to 1) holiday returns, 2) people buying things on 50% off after holiday sales and 3) 1.1 million NYC kids on vacation from school - and all the teen girls looking for something to do.

You may find some good deals - but be prepared to deal with enormous crowds and wait on line 15 minutes or more to buy anything.

dina4

that's what I figured. i've been to NYC after Christmas before and remembered the crowds!

maybe we can avoid shopping until the 28th or 29th.

escargot

If you want to do the Tenement Museum, I recommend buying your tickets online ahead of time online -
and get there about 30 minutes prior to the tour so you can watch the short film on arriving/Ellis Island, and see the book store -

then after, you can walk Orchard, and then right up to Soho/Nolita for shopping as soon as the tour ends - it is a Saturday post holiday, but I don't know how late those stores stay open, someone else might -

dina4

Thanks for the tip, Escargot.

Do you have a program you like best at the Tenement Musuem?
We've done the Ellis Island audio tour, so will the 30 min film be redundant?

Thanks again.
dina

escargot

I don't think the film redundant - it runs on a continuous loop in a side room off the bookstore -
so you can walk in, sit , watch for 5 minutes or 20 -
look in the bookstore, use restroom, grab a water nearby if you want one , etc -

We loved the Confino Family Living History Tour -
also enjoyed the Getting By - those are the only two I have done - I would think they are all interesting -
you will need to look at the schedule when it comes out for Dec (not sure it is out yet ) and see which is offered in your time frame - the researchers/actors who do the tours work there in other capacities also so it varies what is offered when depending on which 'actor' is available sometimes -

lisettemac

It's a pretty ambitious agenda, Dina. Saturday and Sunday wear me out just reading it. Do you honestly think you can see MOMA in the morning, have lunch at the cafe and then think you can make a 1 pm walking tour?? Not possible, me thinks (unless you're one of those people who just race through the museums without looking at the art). I'd decide whether you want to focus on the shopping or the museums. If it's the shopping, cut the Tenement Museum from your agenda; if it's the museums, the opposite.

Same with Sunday. The Frick in the morning, lunch at Bloomingdale's, shopping all afternoon and then you think you'll have energy for ice skating??

dmlove

We did "Piecing it Together" at the Tenement Museum (but none of the others) and thought it was great! Have lunch at Katz' after the tour.

dina4

dmlove and escargot -- thanks for the tenement musuem advice.

lisette - I know we have a lot packed in, but I figure we can rest when we get home... We want to make the most of our time in NYC.

If we get to MOMA when they open, it seems that 2 hours is a reasonable amount of time for a visit. The tenement museum is only a one hour program, so I didn't feel it was too much. That's definitely our busiest day, though.
As much as I want to walk across the brooklyn bridge, I only added that in there just in case the weather is mild, and we would obviously tweak our plan for the day if we did that walking tour.
Maybe I should book the tenement museum for sunday afternoon, though...

what ARE the chances we would want to walk across the brooklyn bridge in late december, anyways?

thanks!
dina

MLTimes

Just on quick glance I would rethink your Saturday plans.

The MOMA opens at 10:30. I personally don't think two hours is enough time to do much more than cruise through the museum to say you were there, but if that's your personal art tolerance we'll work with that. You also need to budget time to look around the two excellent MOMA gift shops.


but for the collection itself is too short (particularly given the MOMA's entrance fee-- 2 hours is basically a cursory cruise through the collection's highlights (and also doesn't allow time to shop the two excellent MOMA stores). I'm not totally clear about lunch -- I expect you mean the Cafe or the Terrace inside the museum. (In contrast, the Modern is the restaurant connected with but outside of the museum where, even if you go to the Bar Room, ybut just FYI there is no "Modern Cafe."--

pressed to make a 1:00 tour bus, even if you dine in the Bar Room and not the Dining Room.

MLTimes

Sorry dog paws on keyboard posted prematurely. Ignore that last post and what I was trying to say is . . .

I would rethink your Saturday plans.

The MOMA opens at 10:30. I personally don't think two hours is enough time to do much more than cruise through the museum to say you were there, but if that's your personal art tolerance we'll work with that. You also need to budget time to look around the two excellent MOMA gift shops.

There is no restaurant called the Modern Cafe. There is the Cafe and there is The Modern. The Cafe and the Terrace are inside the museum. The Modern, which has a Dining Room and the Bar Room, is outside of the museum. I expect you want a quick lunch in the Cafe, but I have to rave about the Bar Room menu - the alsatian tarte is incredible.

In any event, with travel time factored in you really won't make a 1:00 tour of anything. I would personally find it hard to make a 3:00 tour if there is a plan to do some shopping on the way. The post-holiday crowds (shoppers and tourists) make everything in the city slow down.

dina4

MLTimes,
thanks so much for the clarification on the restaurants at MOMA. Someone also raved to me -- I think -- about the Bar room at the Modern. I guess I got confused.

thanks.