Ok, I'll try and give a bit of advice.
We went for a week, for the first time in July and absolutely loved it! It was my compromise to DW so we could go on "my type of holiday" next year (aka WDW
).
Anyway, I'll start with must do's - well, a must buy. 'The New York Pass'. There are plenty of these types of passes about (City Pass etc) but this one seemed the best to us - was about £100 p/p for a weeks use getting you into all the major attractions - we had saved money after 2 days!! Have a look at the website and it'll tell you all the attractions you can use it on.
Also the open top bus tours are good - we got the 3 day "all loops" ticket which includes unlimited use on their uptown, downtown, Brooklyn and night tours. It's hop on and hop off too, so we kind of used it as transport getting down to the south end of Manhatten (Ground Zero/Statue of Liberty/Wall St/Brooklyn Bridge etc).
The museums are all good for a look around, particularly the Natural History Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art has a great roof terrace with views over Central Park.
Obviously the Empire State Building will be high on your list - if you do get a New York Pass go to the second floor rather than queuing outside with the masses as this pass kind of (skips you the wait) where you can also do the New York SKyride - a kind of helicopter simulator which is ok but nowhere near what it would have cost without the Pass. Queues are still big so go as early as possible anyway.
Top of The Rock - The observation deck on the top of the Rockerfellar Centre is brilliant. Much better than the Empire State Building's IMO - the main reason being you get a wonderful view of the Empire State Building from it!! There is hardly any queue and the plexiglass on the observation deck gives you great views compared to the ESB's railings! We went up about 20 mins before sunset and you get a great view of both the Empire State Building and Central Park 'changing colours'.
Statue of Liberty - ok, you cant go to NYC without seeing this and we went down to the dock and got our tickets (included in the New York Pass) then we were told that there would be a further minimum 2 hour queue from that point! And even then there were no tickets available to go into the 'crown' nor the 'base' of the statue so you would basically be going to the island and staring up at it! We cut our losses and decided against it for the following reason:
The Circle Line manhatten boat tour. Again included with the New York Pass (you're starting to get the picture now) you can choose one of the tours round Manhatten island - all of which loop around the Statue of Liberty giving you great photo ops!
One tip I would follow if I did it again, do the 2 hour 'half island tour' rather than the 3 hour 'full island tour' - once you get past the UN there is pretty much nothing to see until you get up towards Yankee Stadium (even that is just a fleeting view) so the last hour was pretty boring.
There's just so, so much more to do, we didnt manage everything in the week we were there. Some other highlights we did were Madame Taussauds (included in the New York Pass, of course) which we didnt think we'd enjoy but had great fun, walking the Brooklyn Bridge (well, we managed half of it as it was a brutally hot day) and so much more.
Oh yeah, shopping!! This was the most disappointing part for us. Yes there's Macy's and Bloomies and all the boutiques on 5th Ave etc, but it all seemed a little expensive to us. Kind of place where if you're used to paying £500 for a dress and you find it for £250 it's great, but we aren't that 'high end' and prefer the kind of things that you're maybe used to seeing for £100 and getting them for £50. DW and I both agreed that the shopping in Orlando was far better for us.
Oh don't forget to go to guest services at Macy's for your 10% discount card (and Bloomies too, if you have a New York Pass which gets you the same discount there - wow i should be on commission from them
!!).
Ok, hotels. Times Sq was not high on our list of places to be in all honesty when we were in NYC. Especially in summer - crowded, hot, stuffy and not much to catch our interest.
So we were very glad to get a hotel slightly 'away from the action'. We stayed in the New York Palace Hotel, and I can easily say it was incredible. We used Tripadvisor to check the highest rated hotels then crossed it off against our budget to try and get the highest rated hotel we could afford. The New York Palace was 3rd in the list of hotel in NYC and within our budget so we went for it. And wow it was a great choice. Luxury hotel within a little piece of a seemingly quiet haven from the New York madness, just across the street from St Patrick's cathedral with a wonderful little courtyard offering views of the cathedral as well as being a great place to unwind (with a ridiculously expensive drink!).
What kind of price are you looking at? The New York Palace was around £130 a night (as it was July therefore off season) and worth every single penny.
Hope this ramble was of some help. I realise I haven't even touched Broadway shows but we didn't do any so I'm sure someone will be of more help than me.
Have fun planning
)
