Hi Everyone,

I can't seem to decide between the two. Any suggestions? My husband and I are taking a redeye and were planning on doing the Staten Island Ferry first thing in the morning (since it will be really early). I've been reading a lot about the Circle Line cruises too, and how they offer commentary and everything, but are also costly.

For the Circle Line cruise, is the Harbor Lights the best one?

I'd really appreciate any advice!

on a Side not - my husband loves pizza and wants to try the best New York style Pizza. any suggestions about that?

thanks!

Unless you have something to do once you're in Staten Island I would opt for the Circle Line tour. There's wide variety between guides, but (having taken many, many tourist/relatives on those tours during the 7 years we lived in Manhattan) most of them are pretty knowledgeable. The evening cruises are beautiful, but you don't see as much. Maybe you could do one at dusk, ending the tour just as the lights are coming on?

You will hear endless discussions about pizza. Ignore them. Ottomanelli's has the best pizza since Goldberg's went out of business! IMHO!

It is on the upper East side on York Ave.

Another alternative is the NY Waterway sightseeing cruise. It is very informative & is earlier than Circle Line. You can get discount coupons on destinationcoupons.com. We thought their commentary was excellent (& we are native NYers)!

The Staten Island ferry is now free. There are also two beautiful new ferry buildings at either end.

Enjoy!

BTW: walk across the Brooklyn Bridge in the early morning - great exercise and gorgeous views!

There are several NYC pizza threads here. This is the most recent:
http://fodors.com/forums/threadselec...1&tid=34768086

My favorite by the slice is Joe's on Carmine St (near 6th av and Bleecker). By the pie would be John's on Bleecker or Grimaldi's in Brooklyn. Gourmet pizza would be Gonzo's on W 13th St (very thin crust grilled pizza, the absolute best).

Why not ride a Water Taxi to the Brooklyn Pier in DUMBO, enjoy the scenery and have lunch at Grimaldi's? You can then hop back on the Water Taxi and ride around the harbor.

I think it's unfair to compare the Staten Island ferry to a cruise. 2 different experiences. The idea of doing the SI ferry first thing when you arrive is a great idea. Just check the schedule since they only run once an hour on weekends.
http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/dot/pdf/statferysch.pdf

You can still do a Circle line cruise or some other boat ride.

Some of the best pizza is at Grimaldi's in Brooklyn. Take the NY water taxi (from South Street Seaport) to Fulton St. in Brooklyn. Have some pizza, ice cream at the Brooklyn ice cream factory and then walk back to Manhattan over the Brooklyn bridge.

The only hesitation I have with the above poster's suggestion to take the Water Taxi from the South Street Seaport to Fulton Street is that the Water Taxi (last time I rode it last year) cost about $10 roundtrip, and that seemed a little steep for a 2 min ride from the South Street Seaport to the Fulton Street Landing in Brooklyn.

If anything, I would stop at Grimaldi's for lunch and then ride the Ferry again and get some nice views of Manhattan from the water.

Thank you all so much for the advice! I think we will do the Staten Island Ferry first thing when we get in (we can rest since we'll most likely be tired) and then see if we have time to do a cruise later on in the trip. After the ferry ride, I was thinking that we would just walk around and explore the area all the way up to Greenwich.

Is this too much ground to cover? Too much walking? places we wanted to see for sure are: Wall Street, Ground Zero, Century 21. Do you have any suggestions on specific places in SoHo/Tribeca/Greenwich that we should not miss? I kind of see us just roaming around but I wanted to make sure we didn't miss a must-see site.

Do you guys have suggestions on cabaret shows? I had been reading about them and they seem like a lot of fun, but when I looked deeper some of them seemed, eh, adult themed. We're looking for one that is fun but not that type of fun.

For pizza, go to Lombardi's in Little Italy and head to Ferrara's for dessert.

When you get to Staten Island, there is a 9/11 memorial which I found more moving than Ground Zero. Just follow the shoreline on the right, it's not far. Few people know about it and few visit it, a pity.

Since you mentioned about trying the bestNew York style pzza, then nobody, and I mean NOBODY, makes pizza anywhere in the COUNTRY like Di Fara's in Brooklyn.

60+ year old Dominique Di Fara methodically and slowly makes them only with the some of the finest imported ingredients (yes, they're flown in daily from Italy). Hey, you don't get to be on the cover of countless food and some NYC magazines when you don't know what you're doing. Most would say that the 1+ hour wait for a pizza at his hole-in-the-wall place is well worth it.