Staying in Englewood, NJ & Visiting NYC --Transportation into City?
 

Hi! We are staying in Englewood, NJ, August 10th - 12th. I need to know what the best way is to get into the City from the Crowne Plaza Hotel. We have stayed in NJ before, once taking the bus into the City, which was a nightmare, and the other staying at the Homewood Suites and taking the Ferry over. Kinda wish we were staying there this time, but received a really low price from Priceline for the Crowne Plaza. Should we drive to one of the Ferry parking lots, park there all day, and ride the Ferry over? Which is the closest Ferry for us, for the weekday schedule?

Thanks!

There is no "best" way from Englewood. In general, staying in New Jersey and visiting NYC, the best option is staying at a hotel near a PATH train (like a subway) but you're not doing that. Yes, you can drive to the Port Imperial ferry terminal in Weehawken, NJ, park there for the day ($10)and take the ferry over ($7.50/person each way) but you're liable to eat up a lot of your hotel savings by doing that, not to mention the traffic from Englewood to Weehawken. Nywaterway.com is the ferry company.

Your hotel suggest a bus to Port Authority. These buses are all subject to traffic delays. http://www.cpenglewoodhotel.com/hotel/directions.html

As mclaurie suggested, your savings are going to be all used up with the commuting and parking daily. Figure you will be spending $30 to $40/day in commuting costs and parking and you could have gotten a good deal IN Manhattan right now. Any chance you can cancel and try for a hotel IN Manhattan. If you are driving the Travel Inn has free parking and you can walk from there to subway and bus lines and all the Theatres.

In all fairness, if they use a bus to Port Authority it won't cost anywhere near $30-40/day for 2 people. BUT it really depends on which bus is closest to the hotel as to whether it's even feasible.

Well, I assume that since you said Priceline, you meant the non-cancellable "name your own price" part of it.
So you can decide if it makes sense for you to take a bus--which while not the quickest, shouldn't be "a nightmare"
Where in NJ did you stay last time, and what was the problem? Maybe Englewood won't have the same issues for you.

Or you can spend some more money, using some of your savings from the good Priceline deal, and take the ferry. That won't be great either, frankly, as aside from the cost, you need to deal with traffic to and from the ferry area--a one lane road much of the way, and not particularly quick on weekdays.

There may be an option for you to take a NJ transit bus from Englewood to somewhere near a PATH train into Manhattan, but I've never done it so I can't give you details.

Sorry you're stuck in this situation. Personally I don't believe that it you could have gotten a Manhattan hotel for the same price (compared to the NJ Priceline rate plus the cost of buses/ferry). Of course it would have been much more convenient, so that's something for you to consider for your next trip.

Bus 166 stops about 8 minutes from your hotel on Forest Avenue. The bus ride from there to Port Authority/40th St is about 1 hour.

Abut 6 minutes away on Route 4 you can catch Bus 171 tp Port Authority/George Washington Bridge. This trip takes about 20 minutes if there's no traffic, but you'll be way uptown (178th St). It's good if you were planning to visit the Cloisters or Museum of Natural History, but otherwise expect another 20-30 minutes to go downtown.

Neither bus terminal is particularly attractive, but the 178th St terminal is even less so.

Port Imperial is the closest ferry.

On a good day (ha!) the drive in your car might take 30 minutes.