Well, the trip is over and as promised I wanted to check back on this thread to let everyone know how things went and put a few lessons learned for anyone else who visits New York City for the first time.
In terms of the major attractions the City Pass was an incredibly good deal. There a bit of a price cut for the Empire State Building, MOMA, Gugenheim, Circle Line, USS Intrepid, and the Museum of Natural History. If you’re visiting half of those it’s worth it just for the sake of skipping the lines. At MOMA there was an hour line to get tickets and I just walked right in, for example. The City Pass has to be bought at one of the City Pass locations and the Circle Line (because you have to take your City Pass up to the ticket window anyway) and the Gugenheim (it’s being renovated so the crowd was very light when I was there) seemed to be the best places to go for it.
Barbarian was dead on about the South Street Sea Port being the place to go for the Broadway tickets. The booth in Times Square always had a massive line and it was quiet down at the Sea Port (and you can see the ships while there). One thing that is important for your planning is that the booth does not open until 11am so you may want to hit some minor sites before going to get tickets.
The subway system was designed by a diabolical genius. Genius because it is an efficient way to get around quickly; diabolical because it also can be fairly confusing and not match up the map. I tried to research this as much as possible, but if you don’t have experience with a large subway system there are certain things that would have to be experienced directly. There are a lot of stations that don’t just exit at the mapped location, but somewhere else several blocks away. There are stations that you can walk several blocks before you reach the surface again. And god help you when you’re trying to get some place and random stations are under construction.
There’s a lot of walking to be done. I mean a lot of walking. I estimate that I walked about twelve to fifteen miles in the four days I was in Manhattan. To a certain extent walking was a very effective way to get around, but when you’re seeing the city it can be a bit rough to keep walking like that. Everyone is going to have a different point at which they’ll need to use other transport; work out your limits and take other transportation.
It was incredible seeing New York City and four days wasn’t enough to do everything but I hit as many as I could and had a great time. Thanks again to everyone who responded to this thread and helped out.
Don’t know if I should post this in this thread or not. If its inappropriate please ignore.
I have friends coming down from Maine, (i’m in NE Pa), in April and they want me to take them to NY City for a day. Now I’ve never been to the city before. So reading this thread, I think the Empire state building, USS Intrepid, Museum of Nat Hist., and they will want to go to the site of the twin towers. Any particular order should I plan. Anywhere to park? I’m assuming the best bet would be to park and then walk, cab or subway for the day. If we decide we want to stay the night does the hotel provide parking? Never been in a cab in my life, whats the fare ? Thanks,
Robz
I’m glad I ran across this thread–my husband and I are going in April. We have been several times in the past but not in about 15 years. Thanks for the advice so far, I am grateful for many of the suggestions (especially re: same day Letterman tickets–will be checking that out for sure,Wrenchslinger, and trying the TKTS booth at South Street Seaport instead of Times Square.)
Now, if you can stand a couple more questions, I have some:
*Roughly what can we expect to spend for show tickets bought at TKTS? We are pretty flexible as to what we see, with several top choices.
*We are staying at the Milburn Hotel (I call it the Milburn Drysdale) on W. 76th St. Anyone have any knowledge of this place? We found it online.
OMG, I love NYC and am envious of all of you who live there or who have trips planned.
Try the buffet dinner or just drinks in the revolving restaurant at the Marriott at 235 W 48th St. (212-265-5986). It offers a fabulous view of the city, and details all the buildings within view as the restaurant turns. It’s a total tourist thing, be we had a great time there. Food was marvelous. Drinks were overpriced.
There’s a great Irish pub around the corner if you go north and then west a block or two. I think it’s called B.B. Doyle’s, but it’s been so long I can’t remember. Pool tables, good service, great atmosphere.
If you’re going by yourself, cheap theater tickets can be easy to get. I had fourth row seats at the Shubert for Chicago. I was so close, I could smell the dancers. $40 online.
I’d wait in line all day to see Conan O’Brien, but maybe that’s just me.
I went to the Empire State Building right after it openned and there was quite a line for tickets but the City Pass let me walk right to the elevator up. I’ve been told that the line is much worse later in the day and I can believe it given the ticket line that was there. If you’re doing one day I would start there because of that line, then go to the Museum of Natural History (one of the things I missed, sadly), and then the Intrepid. The Intrepid was the hardest place to get to because there was no subway line over there and I wound up taking a taxi from 8 Ave over to 12 Ave (about six dollars in fare). It is walkable, but it’s half a mile and you’ll probably be tired after being on the move all day.
I’m astounded anyone can drive and park in New York City. Using the public transportation is almost required. You’ll get around faster using it than you will trying to deal with the traffic and finding parking.
I spent $55 (that was half off) for Orchestra seating for Democracy (a play about the 1960’s West German politics in the chancelors office; very well written and acted but the subject matter isn’t for everyone). I didn’t price anything else, but some tickets appeared to be more deeply discountered than others. Also, I should say that I had a handful of shows I wanted to see and none of them were available when I went to the booth so be aware that you may not get to see what you want to see. Considder it part of the price of such deeply discounted tickets.
