A few weeks ago, I mentioned that we were eagerly preparing for our New York City trip. That trip has come and gone, and I wanted to share our adventure with you!
On September 11th, we took the 9:11am Long Island Railroad train into Penn Station. That was the most nerve-racking part of the whole trip! We left the house we were staying at armed with a picnic lunch for me and my daughter, and a suitcase of food for the rest of the trip. On our walk to our hotel, we found the nearby Whole Foods!
My husband headed back to Penn Station to grab his train back to Queens, while my daughter and I ate out lunch in the breakfast area of the hotel (we were too early to check-in). After lunch, we grabbed the subway up to Central Park! We found the carousel, the playground, and the zoo before heading to FAO Schwartz. There, we played the big piano, watched some magicians, and looked wide-eyed at all the toys!
After FAO Schwartz, we had a snack in the small park across the street where the horse drawn carriages park. She was allowed to feed two horses carrots!
Across the street was The Plaza Hotel where Eloise lives. If you don't know Eloise, you should consider getting to know her :) In The Plaza, we found the picture of Eloise, Weenie, and Skipperdee, which was a highlight of the day! We considered our day successful at this point and grabbed the subway back to our hotel.
Before dinner, we grabbed my wallet and went to Whole Foods to get some refrigerator staples: milk, cheese sticks, and blueberries. This was all I needed to round out our meals from the food I had brought from home (refried beans, tortillas, energy balls, granola bars, muffins, chips, bunnies, and mini-wheats).
We ate dinner on the bed looking out at the rooftops of NYC! We were on the 15th floor facing the southend of Manhattan. There was a gold dome that intrigued us so after dinner we hit the streets to find out what it was. Turns out, it was an office building...nothing exciting, but we did get to find a Trader Joe's and see the Empire State Building! Once the sun went down, we looked out onto the memorial lights of the Twin Towers.
The next day we found Van Gough's Starry Night at MoMA! If you've never seen it in person, I recommend a trip to MoMA; the original is far more impressive than any reproduction I've seen!
They had a wonderful, free audio tour companion for kids which taught us a lot! In the middle of our visit, we found a nearby waterfall park to have another picnic lunch at! The waterfall is what's behind my head in the picture.
After returning to the museum and finishing our tour, we headed to Rockefeller Plaza to go to The Top of the Rock. We loved seeing NYC 70 stories high! Perhaps the most exciting part was that we could see the Statue of Liberty, which was where we were going the next day!
For dinner that night, I made a picnic dinner for us to take to Highline Park. We walked over to the park, found a bench overlooking the Hudson River, and had a delightful picnic.
On our final day in NYC, my daughter and I trekked to Battery Park to catch the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty. I had read online that it is helpful to buy your ferry tickets online ahead of time so we did that. I asked the hotel desk manager how long it would take us to get to Battery Park. She told me 20 minutes by subway, but she didn't mention the 10 minute walk from the subway station to the park. Sigh. We BARELY made it to the ferry in time!
Again, there was a wonderful audio tour for kids that was free. The Statue was under construction, but we still got to see it from the outside. The day was gorgeous so we took our time listening to the audio tour before catching the next ferry to Ellis Island. While on Ellis Island, we ate a picnic lunch looking at the Manhattan skyline. Then, we enjoyed another free audio tour of Ellis Island. Personally, I didn't think this tour was nearly as good as the tour at the Statue of Liberty, but maybe my opinion was skewed by a long day!
We finally made it back to our hotel in time for a rest and dinner before catching the subway to attend the highlight of our trip: Mary Poppins on Broadway! We made it into Times Square early to see all the changes that have been made since the last time we were there (11 years ago!!!!). There are even kids' characters walking around like Hello Kitty, Minnie Mouse, Mario, etc.
Mary Poppins was awesome! It is my daughter's favorite movie so to see it on stage was fabulous. The story is a little different then the movie, which was unexpected. It was fabulous, though, and our daughter loved every minute of it! This show was the only touristy thing my husband was able to do with us the entire visit since he was held captive in meetings the whole trip.
The next morning we packed up the contents of micro fridge, packed picnic lunches for all of us, and headed for Penn Station to grab our Amtrak train to head home! If you've never ridden a train as a means of long-distance travel, I highly recommend it! I was a fabulous experience!
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