My son (19) and I did it last NYE! It was amazing!! BUT it was a fluke year and we just happened to luck out in every way imaginable! They were not filling the “pens” to capacity and they weren’t staring to fill them till 2 PM due to Covid. Also it was freakishly warm, close to 60 degrees, I never even zipped my coat up. We got in line for a pen at 2 but they shut the line down when we were only about 50 people back, they were all full. At that point the only way to get into the Times Square area was to have a dinner reservation so we quickly made one online for Ellen’s Stardust Diner. From what I understand that party usually sells out way in advance but due to Covid tickets we’re still available and had actually decreased in price. With our reservation we were able to get past the barricades and into the “frozen zone”. We had hours before the party so we just wandered around. Some streets had blockades but some we could get down. We eventually made it to a pen right up front by the marriot marquis. We stood outside the pen for about 15 minutes just watching everything going on. There were police and reporters everywhere. We kept thinking they would tell us to move because there were no other people around except in the pens. Eventually a very nice police officer we started talking to actually let us into the pen. We felt like we had struck gold and decided to forget about the party and stay right there all night. We took lots of photos and videos. Since the pens were only 25% capacity there was plenty of room to sit/lay down. Lots of people were using the foam hats as pillows. Some people were even getting pizza delivered! After a few hours we were getting a bit bored and decided to ditch the pen and go to the party after all. The party was amazing!!!! I would highly recommend Ellen’s!!! It was so fun! They let us out at 11:50 and we knew we’d have to watch the ball drop from farther back (Ellen’s is a few blocks away). Then something completely unexpected happened. Right before the drop a huge group of people who were on the street pushed down the small barricade and started running up the street. We would not have done this ourselves, but with everyone else running we ran too. We made it up the street and to the M&M store right by the Times Square stairs in time for all the confetti to fall. It was absolutely amazing!!! It will always be one of my best memories just for the freak nature of how it all came together to be the best experience ever. It would not have been so fun if it was cold and if we had stood packed in with other people for over 12 hours without a bathroom, that would have sucked!! Standing there while they play New York, New York and Imagine and confetti falls on you is pretty spectacular! We had a hotel just outside the frozen zone, the Royalton, so walking back was no problem at all either. Under normal conditions I totally understand why people hate it, but it always looked like a cool once in a lifetime thing to me and I’m so glad my son and I got to have the experience we did once!
