Well, Nicole and I had a B-L-A-S-T in NY! We flew out Wednesday morning, December 12 on Jet Blue. I've never flown on Jet Blue. It was really great not paying extra for a carry on (unlike other airlines I've flown recently - cough cough Spirit / Allegiant)! Here is a picture from the airplane and another at the Newark airport while we were waiting on our Lyft - brrr!
We arrived at our hotel around 1:00pm and check-in wasn't for another 2 hours, but they were super accommodating and let us check in! Maybe that's why they called it the Super 8? Lol. I found this hotel on the internet searching for cheap hotels in NY, and it was only $87 a night which included breakfast and it was only 4 miles from Times Square! There was an express shuttle that picked us up right out the front door of the hotel and then about 15-20 minutes later dropped us off in Manhattan for only $3.25! Needless to say, we checked in, freshened up, and were downtown by 2pm! Here we are on the shuttle bus:
The bus dropped us off at the Port Authority, and as soon as we ventured out we were swarmed by costumed people gesturing for us to take a picture with them. As soon as I snapped this picture of Nicole they asked for 'tips', so we learned to stay away from costumed people from there on out! (What's up with the dude on the right?)
From there, we walked to Times Square and just took it all in! I kept saying, "Look at all the screens!" I couldn't believe how they were everywhere!!
A friend of Nicole's told her about this great restaurant called the Stardust Diner where aspiring actors and actresses work and sing while they are waiting on tables (and waiting to be discovered!). The line to get in was pretty short since it was still basically between lunch and dinner, and we had fantastic seats upstairs where we could see all the action downstairs. And the food was actually REALLY good!! Here's a picture of our waitress performing a song from Frozen, and then us standing outside the diner afterwards. This was a definite highlight of the trip!
We then walked over to Rockefeller Center and captured this shot of the amazing tree and the ice skaters below:
From where we were standing in this picture looking straight ahead, we saw this incredible light display set to music on the Saks 5th Avenue building. I found a youtube video someone put out there of the whole show that is below this picture if you want to click on it to see it - it was pretty cool!!
We walked back to the 'tree' and took an elevator downstairs to discover shops and restaurants down there, and most of all, heat! We wondered into the Swarovski store, which we discovered is the largest in the world. They even have a couch worth a million dollars made of Swarovski crystals, so Nicole and I had fun on that:
Upstairs from there is the infamous FAO Schwartz store. Upon entering the store there was a huge teddy bear just begging to be snuggled with, so Nicole was kind enough to oblige:
We walked through the whole store, and just when we were about to leave, we came upon the 'piano', made famous by the movie BIG. That was a TON of fun! Nicole snapped a picture of me playing 'heart and soul', and then the store employee who was manning the piano laid down on the floor to get this picture of us with the tree behind us because he had to get the star on top of the Rockefeller tree in the picture!! He was awesome!
When we left that store, we headed directly to Bryant Park. We had heard there were 3 places to ice skate in New York: Rockefeller Center, Central Park, and Bryant Park, and we were told Bryant was the best one. When we got there I got a little intimated by the crowd and decided to sit it out. But Nicole went, and she had a blast! Isn't she adorbs?
Well, like everything - all good things must come to an end. The ice rink closed at 10pm so we headed back to the shuttle bus and back to our hotel. But we packed in a ton of stuff in those 8 hours!!
RSS Feed
