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The Big Apple

On the final morning of our Transatlantic cruise we sailed silently and slowly into a rainy, misty, New York harbour. The Ships berth was at Bayonne, on the Jersey side of the river and very close to Newark Airport. Great to go to the Airport, not so much when you are heading into Manhattan as we discovered.

Once we cleared Customs and Immigration and got outside, we were met by total chaos. Picture the scene – one long looping road approaching the terminal, jam packed with new arrivals waiting to get on the ship for the next cruise, the net result of which blocked cabs from getting through to pick up departing passengers. It was a mess.

We finally shared a cab with 3 lovely old British ladies, where the driver quoted $70 a head to take us into Manhattan. That’s $350 for a one way trip of 40 minutes. Nice work if you can get it and our first experience of how easy it is to get ripped off in New York.

The journey was uneventful and we were dropped last at out hotel literally just off Times Square. I gave the driver a $100 bill, told him that’s all I had and that’s all he was getting. He saw I meant business and didn’t argue. Score one for the tourist.

Our hotel was perfect. Large room with 2 queen beds and all the amenities you could want. I know a couple of you said to avoid hotels in the centre but this one worked out well, where we were literally 100 metres from Times Square.

What can you say about New York that hasn’t been said before? I suspect all of us here feel like we know it even if we’ve never been, given it features in so many epic movies and TV series, but I can now say with experience the vibe and energy of the place has to be experienced. Maybe because it was Halloween there was extra hype going on, but it was inescapable, in a good way.

Before we left the Ship Rob and I had sat down and worked out the must-see things in our short stay. We ended up buying the 3 day New York Pass by Go City, which gave entry into far more places than we could cram in to the 3 days. They aren’t cheap but we got our monies worth out of them.

After we dumped our stuff in the Hotel we walked out exploring Times Square. The first thing you realise is that Times Square isn’t a square. Whilst there is a focal pedestrianised area, Times Square actually stretched several blocks along 7^th Avenue. This is a good time to call out how much I love the US grid block and road naming convention. It’s impossible to get lost even in a huge area like Manhattan, as long as you can count.

At 3pm, it was pretty busy with street artists everywhere trying to attract a crowd. It had stopped raining but was still cloudy, with the tops of a lot of the skyscrapers disappearing into the clouds. We decided to jump on to on of the Hop on-Hop off buses available with the pass and spent a great 2 hours just travelling through the city, seeing where most of the key sights were and getting a general orientation. We realised pretty quickly that we wouldn’t get to everything we wanted to see, given we only had that day, a full day Tuesday – which was Halloween – and a half day on the Wednesday before Rob flew back to the UK and I continued my travels in the US.

We ate pretty simply on the Monday night, trying out the famous New York Pizza. The slices were as huge and as delicious as I hoped they would be and not that expensive, given we were just off Times Square.

After a good night’s sleep we woke to a beautiful sunny and chilly day. We grabbed the breakfast to go from the hotel and headed out for a full days sightseeing. First up was a 2 hour river cruise with  Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises | Guided Boat Tours NYC which leaves from Pier 83 in Midtown.

The tour gave us some incredible water side views of Jersey, all of Manhattan and of course Liberty Island and the Statue of Liberty. The on-board guide providing non-stop live commentary, interspersed with some of the worst Dad jokes I’ve ever heard, was both informative and entertaining. I highly recommend this to anyone heading to New York for the first time. Photos are all in the montage linked at the end of this Blog.

A quick sammich on board towards the end of the trip and then it was off and straight next door to the Intrepid Museum, housed mainly on the USS Intrepid – a huge 2^nd World War Aircraft carrier now turned into a floating museum. The Intrepid saw action in both WWII and the Vietnam War, before being finally decommissioned and turned into the floating museum in the mid 70’s. I’m an aircraft geek so I really enjoyed the huge collection of military planes and Helicopters on the flight deck. Most impressive of all was the Space Shuttle Enterprise, housed in a special section custom built at the back of the ship.

After an enjoyable 90 minutes on the Intrepid we jumped into a cab and headed to our next stop which was, of course, the Empire State Building. I have to say, if there is one thing that Americans know how to do, it’s to put on a great exhibition venue and attraction. I was really impressed with the whole slick, professional operation of the iconic tower and the views from the top were quite simply breathtaking. Photos I took up there don’t really do it justice.

By the time Rob and I headed back out onto the street it was already past 4pm and with it being Halloween, we knew things were about to get even crazier shortly. We crossed into a Starbucks nearby to grab a quick coffee and decide what was next. Whilst in there we got chatting to a lovely young lady called Andy (Hi Andy 😊 ) who lives in London and was also doing the tourist thing in New York after visiting friends in California.

Andy talked about her plan to watch the annual Halloween Street parade starting in a few hours. Rob and I thought about watching it but decided we would check out Times Square area instead as it was closer to the Hotel. We swapped phone numbers and Andy kindly agreed to send us any pics she got at the parade. Those pics appear in the photo montage at the end of the blog. Thanks Andy… you’re a star!    

We duly headed back to the Hotel for a quick one hour break before heading back out into Times Square in the dark to experience Halloween. To say that the US takes Halloween seriously is an understatement. Times Square was of course packed and every conceivable type of apparel and costume were evident on the thousands of people out to have a good time. One comment I would make is, whilst crazy busy, the mood and atmosphere was fun and full of high positive energy. At no time did it feel unsafe.

Rob and I made our way slowly through the crowds up to the Hard Rock Café just up from Times Square. We enjoyed a couple of cocktails and some pretty good food there before heading back into the masses, enjoying the atmosphere for an hour or so. Then it was time to take tired happy feet back to the Hotel.

The following morning was a more lazy start as we would be heading to the airport in the afternoon to catch our respective flights – Rob to head back home to the UK and me to continue my journey on to Georgia. We grabbed breakfast at the Hotel before heading out for the morning.

Our last attraction visit was Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. I had been to the London one many years before but was interested to compare the two. It’s huge… spread over 5 floors with some amazing likenesses of famous people from all walks of life. It was quite satisfying to be able to smack The Donald in the chops on my tour around (apologies to my American Republican friends but it had to be done). Rob and I spent well over 2.5 hours exploring the museum before heading back out and grabbing a cab back to the Hotel.

Our Cab journey out to JFK airport was an altogether different experience from the once into the city 3 days before. The driver was friendly, chatty and all up the total fare was only $60. He was well tipped.

Rob and I said our sad goodbyes at the airport as we headed off to our respective flights. We had enjoyed an amazing 3 days in New York (albeit overshadowed by deep concerns about Renee in hospital), barely scratching the surface of what’s there is to see and experience in this amazing city. I will be back.

Check out the photos from the trip here :)