April 2012 - Disneyland, NYC and more

[periwinkle20]

Hi All

I am starting my countdown today 100 days until we fly out and I'm getting excited again after booking flights and accommodation a few months ago

I will be travelling with my husband and two daughters who will be 13 and 10 when we go. I was last in Disneyland exactly 20 years ago so a long time between drinks so to say. We are also going to Las Vegas, San Diego and New York. New York was the clincher for my husband as he has never really been interested in DL. He is slowly becoming more excited about DL now though and I am really excited about NYC as I didn't do the east coast on my trip 20 years ago.

What worries me a little is after reading all of the posts on here is I am already thinking about the next trip when we haven't even done this one!

So this is what we will be doing in April/May this year:

SYD - LA
Anaheim for 8 nights at Candy Cane Inn
Will use Anaheim as a base to do day trips to LA, Universal, shopping etc
LA- NYC
4 nights at Hotel Beacon
Have bought the New York Pass so hope to see as much as possible
NYC - LA
Back to Candy Cane 2 nights - hope to catch baseball game, more shopping
LA - Carlsbad/San Diego
Hire Car - 4 nights in Carlsbad - Legoland, Zoo, shopping etc
Carlsbad - Las Vegas
2 nights in Vegas
Vegas - Anaheim overnight then fly home

I still need to book my transfers, get 14 day Disneyland pass and arrange the hire car.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated, particularly shopping tips as you can see with two girls it will rank highly!

Have loved reading all of your trip reports .... which have me planning a trip to DW and dreaming of a Disney Cruise

 

[Ms. Shuttergirl]

Sounds like a wonderful trip. I'm sure your girls will have the most wonderful time. I've heard great things about the Candy Cane Inn so good choice there.

You will wish you had more time in NYC, but you could go for 2 weeks and wish you had more time .

Macy's is great shopping in NYC.

Definitely take the time to go to the baseball. www.stubhub.com is a great place to get tickets. We saw the Yankees in NYC in 2010 and it was a real highlight. Plus, I'm sure your husband will fall in love with baseball and that will make it easier to convince him to take more trips to the US. I'm always thinking .

 

[alicia1506]

if you go to macys, go to the customer service desk with your passports and you can get a discount card for 10% off everything - this is for international travellers and basically they're waiving the sales tax, but a discount is a discount!!

the miracle mile shops inside planet hollywood are fun, as are the forum shops at caesars, but they will set you back $$$.

we did most of our shopping at the outlet malls in vegas and orlando, so if you're looking at shopping, i do recommend macys in nyc and the outlet malls in vegas

 

[aussietravellers]

What an amazing trip you have planned!

Shopping... well that is something that takes up large quantities of my time whilst travelling South Coast Plaza is great for shopping when in Anaheim, there is a shuttle bus that picks up from local hotels. It isn't free but is not expensive for a return ticket. Outside South Coast Plaza are other shopping centres, I think there is a Marshalls and there may be a Ross dress for less too (which can be great for designer brand bargains). For NYC, yes Macy's is an amazing department store, it's the largest department store in the world apparently (according to them), but NYC is just a shoppers paradise, you can walk all day and night with shop after shop. Tiffany & Co, the apple store (a glass building beside FAO Schwarz) are such cool stores, just from the outside.

Any outlets you are going to (carlsbad), make sure you register with them online before you go. Many of them you can print out a coupon from home to take to their info centre and get a coupon book to use whilst there.

The Macy's visitor card is a must, with 10 to 11% (it keeps changing) off (not off cosmetics or fragrances). If you get the international visitors one (there is a local US out of towners one at some stores, that is only for about 5 days), it will last for 30 days so you will be able to use in at any Macy's in the US (you get it from the customer service or gift wrap department, in NY it's up on the Mezzanine level), at other Macy's it's often on the upper levels (Honolulu I know it's the 4th level). But other department stores do similar things. Bloomingdales do it too, they had a 10% off once or a gift with purchase once.
Macy's often have these 25% off one day storewide sales too. So if you find the discount rack (which is great for us as it's our current season) it can have say 25 to 50 % off, then you get the 25% off from the one day sale, then you get the 10% off! I have got jeans that were hundreds of $'s down to $12 before as they were on a 50% off rack, it was a 25% off storewide and I used the 11% (as it was then) overseas card, I got 86% off! BARGAIN!

South Coast Plaza have a parcel check (that's free). It is SO handy when you are getting a bit piled up with shopping, you can drop it at the parcel check, then go and pick them up as you are leaving. We even left a balloon there last time
South Coast Plaza may also have a coupon book, this changes from time to time, you can check online and there may be a coupon to print out.

I recommend checking places like Coupon Cabin.com and other printable coupon sites and print them up before you go. We have had coupons for Gap, Banana Republic, Sunglasses Hut, Build a Bear, JCrew and many more (there are coupons for Mimis and IHop restaurants etc). Sunglasses hut, it was a coupon for $100 when you spent a certain amount, well that was a massive saving for us on a pair of sunglasses!

As you can see, I get excited about shopping

 

[Mum from oz]

I am sure you will have a fabulous trip and there's no doubt you will come straight home and plan another, no matter how far in the future.

You already have awesome advice on shopping so there's nothing else to add other than you will love it no matter where you shop and there's bargains to be had everywhere. I hope you come back and let us know how your trip goes!

 

[Ms. Shuttergirl]

And on the coupon websites, you can usually find a 10% discount coupon for Planet Hollywood which is right in the heart of Times Square and a fun and cool place to unwind and eat a nice meal.

 

[PrincessInOz]

The Carlsbad Factory outlets are right near where you'll be staying. It's a smaller warehouse outlet but it has enough to keep me amused. Plus, because mostly locals shop there, I find that its not as crazy as the ones in the major towns. The bonus? There usually is stock in a broad range of sizes there. And as aussietravellers said....check the online discounts.

 

[periwinkle20]

Thank you so much for your wonderful shopping tips. I am sure we will put them to good use

85 days now, it's going fast yet I still have a few things to do...I really need to get on to it!

 

[Anaheim boy]

I'm not a huge shopper, but...
since you're driving to Vegas, you can stop in Barstow (unofficial half way point kinda) where they have quite a few factory outlet shops. Stop and grab an In N Out Burger while you're at it too.
At stateline (3 casinos lumped together in the middle of NOWHERE, you can imagine this is how Vegas started) you'll find another little group of fancier "outlet" shops. Never been in those, but it looks like some more nicer brands at discount prices. Just a couple more ideas for you.

 

[periwinkle20]

I can't believe we are going next month!

I'm at the stage where I'm excited but anxious that I'm forgetting something as I did all of our bookings earlier and we are just waiting for the days to tick by. Feels like I should be doing more but I have booked flights, transfers, accommodation, car hire, ETSA, travel cards, Disneyland Pass, New York Pass.

Started saving vouchers and have my shopping planned - what have I missed!?

 

[WAMUMOF4]

sounds like you have it all covered
another countdown now your at the exciting bit

 

[Toy Story]

Hi,

We stayed at the Beacon Hotel last time and loved it, Fairways across the street is fantastic. We bought fresh bagels every morning for breakfast, the mini bagels were great for kids.

What dates are you in NY?

 

[periwinkle20]

Hi,

We stayed at the Beacon Hotel last time and loved it, Fairways across the street is fantastic. We bought fresh bagels every morning for breakfast, the mini bagels were great for kids.

What dates are you in NY?

Great to know the Beacon was nice and thanks for the tip on Fairways I was hoping there would be a deli close for breakfast.

We are in NY from 29/4 - 3/5

 

[Toy Story]

Great to know the Beacon was nice and thanks for the tip on Fairways I was hoping there would be a deli close for breakfast.

We are in NY from 29/4 - 3/5

Fairways is more like a mini-suprmarket, with the Beacon Hotel having the mini-kitchenette we bought a container of fresh cream cheese on day 1 and bagels each morning - I posted on my blog about the early morning activity at Fairways.

We arrive in NY on the 4/4 and flying to Orlando on the 16/4, we had wanted to stay at the Beacon Hotel again but the price jump was huge, and this time we are only travelling with DD13 so did not need the extra pull out bed.

 

[austraveler]

I would lve to hear your NY plans for food. We usually pick our meal venues and then block n the day events around here we will be. I am trying to do our NY meal planning and am a little overwhelmed.

 

[aussieGeorge68]

Nice Trip. I would love to hear about the Beacon and Candy Cane Hotels when you get back.

It would also be good to see how you get on with a ten year old in NY and Vegas.

 

[periwinkle20]

I will be happy to report on all of the hotels when we get back

I have purchased the New York Pass and booked tickets to the baseball for when we are in NYC. I also want to catch a show - do you think it is better to get tickets before we go and if so who from? or do you think we should just take our chances and get last minute seats?

I want to take the girls to Cirque de Soleil and I'm thinking I should get them before I go but we could maybe catch another show in Vegas or NY

Toy Story - I had a look at your blog and photos...it has made me more excited. I love shopping...even supermarkets lol so I will look forward to checking out Fairways

Anaheim Boy - somebody else has mentioned stopping at Barstow (to fuel up too) so we will keep that in mind - thanks

 

[Toy Story]

Where did you buy your baseball tickets from, and to see who?

If you want to see Wicked or Lion King, book online through Ticketek as there tickets do not go on sale, otherwise there is the Last minute Ticket Booths, you can see what was available for the following week http://www.tdf.org/TDF_ServicePage.aspx?id=56.

 

[Melbourne5]

Hi periwinkle - we had good success with www.broadwaybox.com for NYC events. We saw Chicago, Priscilla and cirque de soleil in sept/oct 11 and saved . We brought before we went to save time and effort whilst there.


We did Vegas in '10 and saw lion king, jersey boys and cirque de soleils beatles tribute 'love'. Love was sensational. Again we prepurchased before going,Mathis time booking direct with ticketmaster but using coupon codes I had found in my many hours of researching the net. Ps there are about 6 cirques showing in las Vegas (. 1 not kid friendly the rest ok) so you have plenty of choice there

 

[periwinkle20]

Where did you buy your baseball tickets from, and to see who?
http://www.tdf.org/TDF_ServicePage.aspx?id=56.

We got our tickets to the Yankees through StubHub a few months ago. They are just about to release single game tickets on the Yankees website if you are interested.

Use your MasterCard® card for an exclusive opportunity to purchase tickets to 2012 regular season Yankees games before they go on sale to the general public. Tickets for individual Yankees games at Yankee Stadium will first be made available to the public through a MasterCard Pre-On-Sale online at yankees.com from March 22 at 10:00 a.m. until March 25 at 10:00 p.m. This Pre-On-Sale opportunity is exclusively for MasterCard cardholders.

Thanks for the feedback Toy Story and Melbourne5 on the show tickets. I think we have decided on Mystere while in Vegas and I will purchase before we go. I will then look for last minute tickets in New York if we can fit in a show.

Bought an iPad today so we can take it away and I have a few weeks to play with it and learn how to use it! I'm sure my teenager already knows it all