Anyone have any suggestions for a budget place to stay the night before our flight and leave our car for the week? Right now the best deal I found was at Hilton Garden Inn Queens but it is $280
Trust me, you do NOT want a budget hotel near JFK! My advice is to go the boards on cruisecritic.com, east coast section, and post your question there. You will get really good responses about priceline, and acceptable hotels. Bad hotels are BAD.
I just parked at JFK last month and used smartpark and it was 118.00 for 7 nights.
I have used a few different offsite lots and they are all fine. Smartpark has nicer, larger shuttles.
You may want to consider parking there and look for just a hotel room elsewhere.
We live on Long Island so I am not familar with hotels. I do know that tourists looking for cheaper, but acceptable hotels are often pointed to Long Island City, when asked on tripadvisor.com. You may want to post your question on the NYC forum there and see what they say.