albaelena

Need your input on our NYC itinerary...please comment and fill in the blanks. Need direction on using subway vs cabs and where to eat in the different areas.
We are a group of 8! Four adults, 3 kids (16,13 and 11) and grandpa (78 and very active!)

July 3rd
Arrive at Penn Station at 7:20 pm. Take a Cab to Doubletree in Lexington Avenue.
9:00 pm dinner reservations at Becco.
Walk back to the hotel and enjoy the Broadway crowd

July 4th
Breakfast at 8:00 am (?) (please suggest a place! We love bagels)
Head to Central Park, climb to the top of the Belvedere Castle and enjoy the view.
Be at The Metropolitan Museum of Art at 9:30 am......explore for 2 to 3 hours.
Take a cab or de subway (?) to Yankee Stadium for a 1:00 pm game. We are Ok being late.
After the game take a cab or the subway (?) to Grand Central Station, explore it for about an hour (take the tour?)
At 6 pm take the Grayline night tour.
Dinner at 8 pm (where?)
Make it to FDR Dr to watch the Macys' 4th of July fireworks (where is this? tips?)

July 5th
Breakfast at 8:00 am (where?)
Hop on the Gray line and do the 3 hour loop. Then head to the Staten Island Ferry (hop off at Battery Park and take a cab to the terminal?)
Ride the ferry and enjoy the Lady!
After that depending on the heat we could walk across Brooklyn Bridge .
Have lunch somewhere in the village or Soho?
Head back to Midtown, visit the NY Library, Chrysler Building, Waldorf Astoria, St Patrick's Cathedral.
Back to the hotel to get ready for Broadway.
Grab a quick simple dinner (where?) and head to watch Mary Poppins (is this a good choice?)

July 6th
Our plane departs from LGA at 8 pm so we will explore some more....maybe until 4 pm.
At 8:00 am, leave luggage at hotel lobby and find a breakfast spot (where?)
Take the grayline to cover whatever loops we have not covered. Explore Soho and Greenwich Village for a couple of hours.
What else?????

TC

Hasn't this already been addressed in your previous post?

bugswife1

This is WAY TOO MUCH packed into each day. Please keep in mind that it is going to be very hot in July. July 4th you are going to be up at 7 for an 8 AM breakfast, walk around a museum for 3 hours, stand on the subway for 1/2 hour (would be surprised if 5 of you got seats if you are leaving that close to game time). Then you are going to sit in the boiling sun for a 3 hour game, take the subway back, and be ready for a 6 pm tour? Forget it. Skip the tour, take a nap instead. Get over to the east side by 7 pm the latest for the fireworks. Have dinner in the area and then just find a spot in the crowd. Fireworks begin at around 9:30.

TC

Alba, I don't mean to be unkind, but you are in danger of hating NY with this itinerary and that would be a shame.

First -- you have three teens, put them to work on the Internet and the local library doing some research for this trip. Its a great way to involve them in the planning.

Second -- Get some maps for a better understanding of your locations. I highly recommend the guidebook ACCESS New York as the best book to help oriente to your surroundings.

Get a NY Subway map.
Buy a "StreetWise" NY map.

Third -- you can not get 8 people in a taxi.

Fourth -- there is no way you will make a 9PM dinner at Becco if you arrive at Penn Station at 7:20.

Fourth -- the July 4th crowds will have a big impact on everything you do that weekend.

Fifth -- A cab from Yankee Stadium (if you can get one or two) to Grand Central will take forever and cost a fortune.

Albaelena, these are but a few of the glitches in your plan. Please, please, please, scale the whole thing down and enjoy the few things you do rather than hating the city because it frustrates your plans.

I wish you all the best.

ACCESS guide:
http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9...12e/index.aspx

albaelena

Wow...this is what I wanted to hear....so I can scale back and not regret packing way too much.
We are flexible and will do only what we can.....I looked at Fodors and Frommers iteneraries for 3 days and scaled it back...I see that it was not enough.I was not very explicit in some areas because it would get long but to answer some of the questions here:
1.On my other post I asked questions and had no itenerary
2.The group has 2 families and we are taking 2 cabs from Penn
3.My teens have been reasearching and involved in the planning
3. Dissapointed to hear we won't make Becco at 9 pm.....any suggestions for dinner the first night?or should we reserve for later?
4. We can skip Grand Central Station July 4th.....now, how should we get back from Yankee Stadium to Midtown?
5. Because it'll be hot I'm trying to alternate outdoors with indoor activities...The Met, Yankee Stadium, Grand Central ...does that make sense?

THANK YOU for the reality check...I need it to make this trip a fun one.

missypie

Albaelena, I am planning the same trip, only a few days later and I can certainly sympathize! The most mind-boggling "suggested itineraries" are on frommers.com. They start with a "see it all in 1 day" itinerary, but then if you have more than one day, the subsequent days just add onto that, instead of slowing down Day 1. I'm amazed at all frommers thinks a family can fit into three days!!!

Do you have maps yet? It helped me a lot to buy some maps. What I do is to make a list of our must-sees, then jot down days when they are closed, etc. (e.g. no museums on Mondays), then locate everything on a map. Once I see where everything is in relation to everything else, I start mulling over an itinerary...e.g. it makes sense to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the same day as Central Park.

When I've got the bare bones filled in, then I'll consult the Access Guide and fill in with smaller destinations that are on the way to the "must sees."

I've been collecting restaurant recommendations, and one of the last things I will do will be to photocopy a map and write down the location of each recommended restaurant on the map. If some of the recommended restaurants are not near anywhere we plan to visit, they'll come off the list of recommendations. If I come up with an area we'll be with no recommended restaurants, I'll come back to this board and I'm sure everyone will help me out.

albaelena

Thank Missypie.....and please KEEP COMMENTING, I need more input!

Our must sees are Yankee Stadium, the Met, Central Park, Statue of Liberty, a Broadway show.

I have a map and figured the route was not too crazy .....

Please help me out... I looove NYC and have been brainwashing hubby to move there for a year when the kids go to college .....have not visited in 10 years and is the first trip for the kids.

Alba

ellenem

While some of your routes look reasonable, it takes more time than you think just to get from place to place, never mind unforeseen glitches.

For example, you arrive a Penn Station at 7:20 pm--hopefully you'll arrive on time. It will take you 5-10 minutes just to haul your luggage off the train, out of confusing Penn Station and onto the taxi line. You may have to stand on the taxi line for 10 minutes to get two cabs. The ride to the Doubletree on Lexington takes 10 minutes with no traffic, if you make every light. There's no guarantee that both cabs will take the same route or arrive there at the same time. If you reach your hotel before 8:00 pm, I'd say you made amazingly good connections . . . amazingly good. Do you plan to check in and freshen up? This adds at bare minimum 30 minutes with such a large group. (Getting a group this size to do anything on a schedule will be a challenge--it will always take more time to get everyone moving.) Now back into taxis--more waiting time-- and a trip across town to Becco.

Choose dinner someplace close to your hotel for the first night--walkable.

The subway to and from from your Yankees game (4 train to Grand Central) will be the perfect option on this holiday--you don't want to get in a cab with all that traffic.

If you hop off at Battery Park, you can walk to the ferry terminal.

Just wondering--why the Waldorf?

missypie

It has helped me a lot to study maps. We are such NYC idiots. I went to the World's Fair with my family in 1964...didn't visit NYC again until I was there on business in 1997...spent 5 days in a law firm conference room...ate exactly one meal that wasn't in that conference room! DH has performed in NYC with choirs several times, but has always been in a large group. We are totally comfortable in Paris, London, Rome and Barcelona, but NYC intimidates us! Yes, I'd love to visit NYC with just my husband, too, but there will be time enough for that in a few years, God willing.

TC

This is why the ACCESS guides are all important. They are laid out so differently than any other guide book. Each section is a particular area of the city; ie. Midtown, Theater District, Upper West Side, SoHo, etc. At the beginning of the book there is a larger map that shows how each section relates to the others -- where is Midtown in relationship to The Village. At the beginning of each "chapter", there is a very detailed map of that area. It is dotted with numbers. Each number corresponds to an attraction on that street; ie. hotels, restaurants, theaters, museums, sights of interest, architecture, etc. The listing that describe the attractions are color coordinated for ease. So.....its amazingly easy with this book to find out what is close to what -- such as, what restaurants are within walking distance of your hotel or near the location of the fireworks. I have found the brief descriptions and recommendations of restaurants in the books to be spot on. It will be easy to pinpoint places that are right for your particular mix of travlers. Each listing is complete with phone numbers, address, web site, hours, pricing, etc.

RUN to the nearest bookstore and get a copy of this book. Make sure its the new 2006 Edition.

Apologies to Fodor's, but ACCESS books are the best for travelers who are unfamiliar to a city.

nytraveler

Agree that you have way too much planed - there's now way it's ever going to happen.

As for Yankee Stadium - the only sensible way back and forth is subway. Traffic around the Stadium is horrendous before a game and getting 2 cabs would be a fortune. Also - there are no cabs available on the street in that area so you CAN'T take a cab back. Your only options are subway or a car service -and for 8 people they will want big $.

As for timing - a 1pm game will typically last until 4:30, so with getting 55,000 people out of stadium and at least half onto the subway, it will be at least 5:30 by the time you're back in midtown.

As for seeing the fireworks - abuot a million people line the FDR to see this - and they start arriving hours in advance. thre's no way you can have an 8 pm dinner and see them (you would still be eating). Doing a 6pm dinner and then rushing over to the FDR would give you a chance at a decent spot to see something.