Just returned from ABD NEW YORK DREAMS July 2016

[scottmel]

Wow. I think ABD needs to give me a call and I'll arrange a better tour! lol Living 30 minutes away has us very spoiled, but I am a little surprised with the highlights of this Adventure. Ellen's Stardust is such a tourist trap, IMHO. It's like going to Carmine's and thinking you hit an authentic NY Italian restaurant.

I would love the backstage tour and special seats at Aladdin and I think I'd love the Apollo Theatre visit. The rest - sounds under-impressive.

You need to rate the Tenament museum up there and the food sampling afterward. That was my favorite. AND I watched GMA last week and realized it was pretty cool to have been inside the studio and front row area central park for concert...Dh and I just said we could do the trip again once the play changes lol. Guess it grew on me a bit in hindsight...

 

[FoodieFriend]

Just returned home from our trip and thought I could share my insight to anyone else that booked this trip.
For starters we arrived 2 days before tour started and loved this. we ended up hiring MUSEUM HACK to tour us the Natural History Museum and was a lot of fun. Great walk thru Central Park to get here and yummy lunch at shake shack!

The manhatten club is really nicely located and the accomodations are HUGE! 2 bathrooms was incredible help. Super nice staff and our parking bill was completely covered by ABD.

As I said the pre arrival days for us were key. We did a lot! From shopping 5th Ave, museums, central park, saw Les Mis it was was great. Fantastic seats!

Ok now the ABD tour begins. I will be honest the first day is NOTHING you cannot do on your own - The Ride, 9-11, Top of World Trade Center and TriBeca Grill. All nice, all fun but nothing SPECIAL that you couldn't do. I was a little disappointed that we were not given guidance on the 9-11. We were given a map but I would have appreciated the guides pointing out a few obvious MUST SEES as we discovered those 20 minutes before we were due to board the bus. Reading a map only tells you where something is located not much else. Tribecca Grill was good but I was disappointed the menu was a fixed offering of 3 or 4 things. Food good and the owner spoke with us, etc. Nice day but not a WOW Day.

Day 2 - began crazy early for GMA! Little disappointed here b/c honestly this was going to be my highlight of the trip. i found it a little slow, the anchors didn't interact or say much, busy set, but very underwhelming. Looks more exciting on tv! Neat to see but nothing that I was in awe of. Next we went to Central Park to see SIA (I think that is how you spell it). I had no idea who she was but crowd was huge and DD seemed to think this was value add and hey concert in the park, great weather, packed place - nice time.

After this we went to harlem and the walking tour of Harlem was sort of odd. The Mr. harlem guy super nice but a large crowd of tourists following him around hearing about Harlem was just sort of odd. Red rooster for lunch was TERRIFIC! We then went to the Apollo Theatre to hear Billy Mitchell speak for a solid hour. What a gem. We so enjoyed this part of the tour, more than I expected. I thought GMA would be the highlight, not so. Very nice tour of place and his speech.

We were running late at this point and the optional Central Park became a 20 minute abbreviated excursion. I didn't care, as I said we were thru Central Park a lot earlier in the week.

Next up the teneament museum. Well true to living in the times, no AC in this building. Hot. INTERESTING and the food sampling afterwards was so cool. A real highlight for us for the trip!

Next day - Ellen's Diner.Just ok. it was nice the food was waiting for us when we arrived. Nothing that great. Amerstam Theatre tour was really nice. Props room was cool. We bowed out of the Dance Workshop. NYC was having a street fair so we opted to shop around a bit . There was around 5 hours of on your own time for everyone at this point. I wish ABD would have provided an optional activity here - museum hack at the MET? Row boats Central Park? I know we had several grandmas with grandchildren on the trip and I know they were a little overwhelmend with the 5 hour downtime. City can be intimidating for them etc. I wish ABD offered a choice....

Weekend ended with yummy appetizer party at the theater and incredible dead center 4th row back seats for Aladdin. Ideal. Cast came out at end to talk and this was very nice.

All in all - nice trip. best trip ever?> No. There is room for improvement on the trip. Filling in the deadtime a bit, making central park tour little longer, maybe losing the harlem walking tour etc. Because of the way I obtain gift cards, I pay for the trip completely with gift cards in which I receive a 22% discount on . This helped me rationalize the price a bit at 22% off. Meals were good. Guides super nice. Bus transportation perfect. With a city so big and Disney having so much pull I think a little more could be down to fill down time or make better use of the local tour experts.

All in all a GREAT way to see NYC but you really need a few add on days to see other things yourself. Hope that helps!

Thank you for your TR!! We're doing the same trip in Oct & I'm glad to see an newer review! Although @calypso726 also suggested arriving in NYC prior to the start of the ABD trip, our group was unable to do so & we could only add on extra nights at the end. The good news for us is that the NYCWFF (New York City Wine & Food Festival sponsored by Food Network) is going on that same weekend! I'm planning to squeeze in a NYCWFF event in that 5 hour freetime gap you mentioned. If we also skip the dance workshop, how much time would that give us? noon to 5pm?

I was also told by a ABD Vacationista that there's another gap of free time on day 2 btwn the Harlem Tour & the Tenement Museum tour (she said from 2pm-4pm approx.). Did you experience that also? I had hoped to squeeze in some extra time on the Lower East Side if that is how the tour is set up.

Another question, about what time did your nights with ABD end? Were you able to explore on your own during late night hours or was it straight to bed for a bright & early start everyday (besides the GMA morning which I'm sure is dreadfully early). Speaking of GMA, when do you have breakfast that day? do you just grab something to take with you while in the studio?

Thanks again for posting a detailed description of your ABD. It will be our 1st time trying out ABD in the hopes to shell out the big bucks for a longer one in the future (Central Europe?? China??).

 

[scottmel]

Thank you for your TR!! We're doing the same trip in Oct & I'm glad to see an newer review! Although @calypso726 also suggested arriving in NYC prior to the start of the ABD trip, our group was unable to do so & we could only add on extra nights at the end. The good news for us is that the NYCWFF (New York City Wine & Food Festival sponsored by Food Network) is going on that same weekend! I'm planning to squeeze in a NYCWFF event in that 5 hour freetime gap you mentioned. If we also skip the dance workshop, how much time would that give us? noon to 5pm?

I was also told by a ABD Vacationista that there's another gap of free time on day 2 btwn the Harlem Tour & the Tenement Museum tour (she said from 2pm-4pm approx.). Did you experience that also? I had hoped to squeeze in some extra time on the Lower East Side if that is how the tour is set up.

Another question, about what time did your nights with ABD end? Were you able to explore on your own during late night hours or was it straight to bed for a bright & early start everyday (besides the GMA morning which I'm sure is dreadfully early). Speaking of GMA, when do you have breakfast that day? do you just grab something to take with you while in the studio?

Thanks again for posting a detailed description of your ABD. It will be our 1st time trying out ABD in the hopes to shell out the big bucks for a longer one in the future (Central Europe?? China??).

Yes there was tiny gap on the Harlem day I am talking20 minutes bc Apollo guy went over so we had 20 minutes for Central Park optional tour it was super rushed but we didn't care bc we did it ourselves earlier in week. Dh went but I did not. Night one we were home 10 pm night 2 1130 pm and night 3 midnight! But we walked home from play and shopped thru Times Square though crazy crowded. Dance workshop was around 11 and I heard about 75 minutes.breakfast they had in Lobby bananas and donuts except for Diner day. It really was a fun trip!!!glad u can squeeze in few extra days at end u will be glad u did!

 

[scottmel]

One more thing this was our second Abd the first was backstage magic and I guess bc that is Disney owned I felt the value for dollar little higher there but honestly the nyc trip had some awesome things I cannot get without abd. U will live consider backstage magic too. Dh lives Broadway and thought cast talk back was priceless

 

[Judyat]

We did the NYC Dreams trip the first year it was available and loved it. Even though we live on Long Island just 50 miles from NYC it was a real treat. Nothing has really changed except the Broadway play. We saw Newsies.