Anyone Ever Been To New York City?

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synchkat

I'll be with my mom who has some mobility issues so we were planning on cabbing it everywhere anyway. We really only have a day in NYC. We're staying 3 blocks from Central Park, right near Carnegie Hall so I'm thinking when not cabbing it we can walk.

WhimsyWayward

Just a one day trip to get my pizza fix! I crossed the Canadian border.

Zealand4530

WhimsyWayward wrote: »

Just a one day trip to get my pizza fix! I crossed the Canadian border.

Pizza wasn't that good I was disappointed

Zealand4530

King_Spicy wrote: »

Zealand4530 wrote: »

Was in nyc back in 2015 for a week. Best city ever. Stayed at the marriot in Times Square was about 400usd a night in February good central location but if I went back I'd find a cheaper hotel

Comfort Inn in China Town was $81 a night. For comparison, some of the *kitten* hostels in Times Square were $80-100 a night. lol

I'm not high maintenance but I ain't staying in no comfort inn in china town even if it was free

King_Spicy

Why is that? Comfort Inn is a decent hotel (20x better than any hostel). Had a nice overlook of the park from the hotel room as well. Nice and peaceful to drink mimosas while sitting back and watching others working out at the park. lol

sfcrocker

I grew up there and go back frequently. The subways are fine. They carry 4.3 MILLION people a day and have a handful of incidents. They're much cheaper than Uber and cabs.

If you've never been to NYC and don't want to take chances with hotels that may or may not be good, stay at the Marriott on 92nd street on the upper east side. It's less than $200 a night, which is about as good as you're going to find. It's a standard Marriott--clean, functional. It's cheaper because you have to take the subway a few stops to most of the major attractions except Central Park and the museums which are walkable.

As others have pointed out, there are plenty of cheap things to do. I like to walk so when I go back I walk the High Line (free), or around Central Park (free) or sometimes walk from the Marriott to 5th avenue, then all the way downtown and across the Brooklyn bridge (free!).

IMO, seeing the Statue of Liberty up close is overrated and takes too much time.

Have fun!

ejbronte

sfcrocker wrote: »

I grew up there and go back frequently. The subways are fine. They carry 4.3 MILLION people a day and have a handful of incidents. They're much cheaper than Uber and cabs.

If you've never been to NYC and don't want to take chances with hotels that may or may not be good, stay at the Marriott on 92nd street on the upper east side. It's less than $200 a night, which is about as good as you're going to find. It's a standard Marriott--clean, functional. It's cheaper because you have to take the subway a few stops to most of the major attractions except Central Park and the museums which are walkable.

As others have pointed out, there are plenty of cheap things to do. I like to walk so when I go back I walk the High Line (free), or around Central Park (free) or sometimes walk from the Marriott to 5th avenue, then all the way downtown and across the Brooklyn bridge (free!).

IMO, seeing the Statue of Liberty up close is overrated and takes too much time.

Have fun!

Agree on all of this (except the hotel, about which I have no knowledge). Also agree that actually going to and into the Statue of Liberty is a little tiresome; but for the many of us who have immigrant ancestry, the boat to the Liberty Island can also take you to Ellis Island; and to get to both, you'll go by Castle Garden, which was the landing point for many of our ancestors before 1892, when Ellis Island went into action. The old Custom House at Bowling Green is now the Museum of the American Indian:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Hamilton_U.S._Custom_House

and is a very beautiful building. If you're into this kind of "walking in the footsteps of those long ago", this might be a very nice way to spend a few hours. And if you want to do a little more of this sort of thing, there's the Tenement Museum, too:

https://tenement.org/.

samer_shu

samer_shu wrote: »

Manhattan resident here, so I'll tell you what I've told many other out of town visitors throughout the years. I won't get into the itinerary because there were a lot of great suggestions. Just don't listen to that woman who talked about slashing and the subways being unsafe. That was seriously ridiculous.

- New York is expensive. Suck it up and deal with it. If you are going to be money conscious about everything, it will ruin your time here. Just expect to pay more and be pleasantly surprised when you don't. With that said, you you can do/eat a ton of things here on the cheap. But doing mostly touristy things, expect the touristy areas to be more expensive. My suggestion is to look up "cheap things to do in NY". There are a ton of lists with ideas of things you can do that are on the cheaper side.

- If you are only here for a couple of days, it's really not worth it trying to save money by going to another borough or New Jersey. You simply don't have the time. Also, you're 25 years old so you'll want the hustle and bustle of the city. And nothing beats stumbling home drunk after an amazing night out and to just walk a couple of blocks to your hotel.

- When people ask me for hotel suggestions. I just tell them to check hotels.com or Kayak or something like that. What might be a good recommendation today might end up being 700 dollars tomorrow. Deals come and go all the time. With that said, I just checked hotels.com and there are a ton of hotels under 200 dollars in Midtown. I usually use hotels.com because most of the hotels there have a free cancellation policy. So you can book something now and when the time comes closer and if you find a better deal, just get that one instead.

- Central locations are usually the best. As a local, I personally avoid Times Square like the plague but if you've not been here before you'd probably love staying in that area. There are many hotels in the West 20s that tend to be cheaper. Just check whatever has a great deal online.

- Food: If you do stay in the Times square area. Do not eat there and DO NOT eat in any of the chain restaurants. They are expensive and awful. Just walk over to Hell's Kitchen on 9th Ave (anywhere between 42nd and 55th". There will be a ridiculous amount of restaurants there that are cheaper (again, that's a relative term)

- Parking. Don't bring a car. If you do, don't valet park at the hotel. Depending on where you find a hotel, just look up parking garages in the area. I just found this site for example: http://www.parkwhiz.com/p/new-york-parking/map/ Tell Siri to drive you there directly and just leave your keys until you are ready to leave the city.

- The city is too big and there is too much to see in two days. I am a walker. I love walking everywhere, but given your lack of time, you might want to consider the hop on/hop off buses. Maybe do that for one day and then walk around the following day. I do want to say that the statue of liberty tour might take up too much of your day. If you do the Staten Island ferry then you'll get a very close look at Lady Liberty. Just consider cutting some things so you can spend more time on other things. You'll be back again.

- If you are going to do a Broadway show, TKTS has the best deals but the lines are long and it will take up too much time from your day. Either go to TKTS by Southstreet Seaport which has no lines (if you happen to be there) or just look up "discount broadway tickets" and websites like Theater Mania will have shows up to 50%. It's what I tell everyone to do.

- Oh, and please be mindful of the people around you when you walk. Don't walk in a row of 3 or 4 people and take up the sidewalk. And don't just suddenly stop when there are a ton of people walking behind you, especially when walking up the subway stairs. And don't hog the sidewalk when trying to take a picture of your friend (do it at an angle). And don't be afraid to ask people questions. We might seem to always be in a hurry but we'll stop and answer questions.

My my! I came to this forum to look up if I should set my Activity Level to Sedentary or Lightly Active seeing how I walk everywhere in NYC and here I am writing a novel.

Good luck and hope you have a blast and let us know the trip turns out!

Broadway Tickets:

I've another great tip you can add to my list above that I just came across this week since I've been playing host to friends from Australian.

In addition to the discount Broadway sites that I mentioned above. If you still want to buy from TKTS in Time Square and not wait in the ridiculously long line, just google "TKTS Live". It will give you a real time list of what is showing on the board for available tickets. And instead of waiting in line in the afternoon, just show up in the evening an hour or so before any of the shows and get your half price tickets. There might be a chance that some shows might be sold out but who cares! There are a ton of great shows and you didn't waste all afternoon waiting in line.

Here is the TKTS Live url: https://www.tdf.org/nyc/81/TKTS-Live?loc=sssp