Mike Jones
<font color=993300>....nothing clever to say... ju
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2003
- Messages
- 1,372
Hi Disers! I'm back! Been quiet for a long time, due to big life changes and so on... anyway, just back from the US, so thought I'd share this with you....
PART 1 PRE-TRIP NOTES AND DAY 1
Cast: Mike, 42 Florida veteran, NY virgin!
Amanda, 33 US first timer.
Brief pre-trip notes only as some of you may know, my personal circumstances have changed significantly in the last year or so. Suffice to say I am now in a new relationship with the lovely Amanda and, apart from a 4 day jaunt to Florence in February, this is our first proper holiday together. Amanda missed out on a trip to New York a while back, and has always wanted to visit Americas true capital, and, naturally, Mike spotted an opportunity to slip southwards after the event!
So as usual for me, vague thoughts about should we look at the possibility of a few days in Florida soon turned into a huge Visa bill! Our Scotland-based travel agent, Val, bless her cotton socks, came up trumps again and sorted flights with Continental, from Manchester to Orlando via Newark NJ, effectively a free stop-over of three nights. Accommodation was provided by Travel Counsellors too, with us deciding on the centrally-situated, Hudson Hotel on West 58th Street, and Val booked us a last night in Orlando at Universal Royal Pacific Resort Hotel. The first six days in Orlando were booked at Boardwalk Villas through a good friend and DVC member renting points to us, effectively saving us close to a grand!
Oh, and we booked a convertible for the Orlando leg!
Now all we had to do was tick off the days .. 140, 139, 138 ..
By the way my trippies do tend to be quite detailed. I make no apologies for this, and for those that prefer comics, therell be plenty of pictures, so feel free to skim the text as you prefer. I enjoy writing (although not typing!) the reports, and use them personally to relive holidays after the event. Accordingly, many small details that are irrelevant to most readers may be included, as these trigger fuller recollection for me.
DAY 0 - FRIDAY 28TH APRIL 2006
Wed had custody of the kids this week and normally return them and their gear to their mums on Friday evenings. However, as we have to take our dog Ruby to the dog sitters 24 miles away this evening, I drop Adam and their luggage at Heathers at about 8am before taking Beth to school and going to work. Amanda is off today, getting her hair done and doing final packing. I should point out here that we are not taking large suitcases, having managed to pack all our essentials into carry on bags (18kgs each with Continental). My day drags interminably, with the only highlight being when I print off our boarding passes from Continentals online check-in.
I manage to escape just after 4pm and return home. We have a light tea and then make our way to the dog sitters near Wigan. Back home around 8pm we have a final check through the travel documents and then spend the rest of the evening in our local! Bed around 11.30pm.
DAY 1 SATURDAY 29th APRIL 2006. THE JOURNEY, CENTRAL PARK, 5TH AVENUE, TOP OF THE ROCK
I always struggle to sleep the night before a big holiday, and tonight is no exception. Up at 2.30 for a coffee and a final wander around the boards before being joined by Amanda at 4am. We check our flight online and are pleased to see that it is on schedule. Showers etc, fed the cats (our neighbour is feeding them during our absence) and then stand twiddling our thumbs until mate Scott arrives at 6am. Traffic is light and we arrive at Manchester Airport just after 6.30am. We make enquiries of the Continental rep and are advised to join the line (see how the lingo has slipped back into place!) in order to have our passports and boarding passes security checked, even though we arent checking any luggage. This takes around 15 minutes and our DIY boarding passes are replaced by real ones (apparently these are easier for the machines to read).
We are selected (randomly?) for a security check of our baggage, undertaken by a polite, and very young, security officer. He does not find our hidden contraband or passengers and we proceed to customs. Amazingly neither of us set off the alarms or are selected for any body/cavity searches, and we present ourselves at Starbucks by 7.10am.
We both have our usual, filter coffee and breakfast paninis. For some reason these taste better than normal. There are loads of new, Starbucks mugs for sale, but sadly we have no room for them at present. (I collect Starbucks mugs). Never mind, theyll hopefully filter through (pardon the pun!) to the Manchester outlets in due course.
Its sunny and pleasant outside damn! I was hoping for rain! We complete our visa waiver forms and then take the mandatory wander around WHSmiths, Boots, Dixons and the Duty Free shops! Although there is no posted gate number yet, we stumble across the correct one at 214. We get three text messages, one from Bob and Dawn wishing us a safe journey (we are meeting up next week), one from my parents in Croatia where, sadly, the weather is lousy
.and one from Amandas mum, Sandra, advising us that she is having a wee! No I dont know why she felt it necessary to share this, although they have always been very close!
Boarding begins at 8.45am, and, as we are in the front section (row 17) naturally they board from the back! However, we take our seats at 9am on this 767 400. We have a row of 3 seats in the centre to ourselves. The cabin crew are youngish, and one of the male stewards fancies himself as Tom Cruise!
The plane is equipped with personal, seatback entertainment systems and we are treated to a cheesy welcome message from Larry Kellner, the Continental Chairman (Hi Larry!) before the safety video. Push back at 9.25am, with a half full plane. We take off at 9.35am and entertain ourselves initially by browsing the Sky Mall magazine a bizarre mix of pet strollers, inflatable massage chairs and high capacity teeth cleaners (not sure if these are intended for people with excessive numbers of teeth or those hosting teeth cleaning parties for all their friends!)
The films start at 10.05am (05.05 US) and we both enjoy The Producers (may I take your hats, your coats your swastikas?) The 1st meal is served at 05.30, usual beef or chicken option. Certainly not gourmet but digestible. Half an hour later I make my first dollar purchase two whiskeys for $10.
We pass through turbulent skies for an hour or so. We are both nodding off periodically (doesnt it make a difference when you dont have kids with you?!) and I grab half an hour or so. 08:00 or thereabouts now, and we are offered a glass of orange juice. Im quite relaxed, somewhere below Greenland, according to the inflight display map, and pretty much in the zone the period roughly halfway through a long flight when you are far enough from your destination to start believing that you will be in this comfortable, tin tube for ever, with polite stewards serving refreshments every now and again and watching the odd film between naps.
I get up to stretch my legs and take a wander around the plane. Roughly 1/3rd of the seats are empty, and many passengers have nabbed a row to themselves, stretching out for a decent kip! I return to my seat and read the Skymall (.com have a look, its hysterical!) magazine from cover to cover. I resist the temptation to order an indoor fountain table piece or a dog ramp for the car boot, and attempt to play some of the interactive games in the seatback system. Amanda amuses herself with card games on screen.
Time passes. Drinks are served and consumed. Im fed up with monster-PacMan and read my book (A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby). At 10:00 they serve another meal, comprising a warm chicken and cheese roll (not as bad as it sounds) with a bag of crisps (chips) and a chocolate, followed by coffee and more water. Theres about an hour and ten minutes to go and we move from the centre section to a pair of window seats in front of a bulkhead (vacated by a mum with a baby and toddler who relocated to the rear section earlier for more space I passed her on my walk, desperately trying to nap whilst amusing her two, fractious charges!) in order to have a better view on the approach.
There are good views through clear skies down to flat, road-crossed plains with some large lakes. The cabin crew hand out customs forms which we complete. About 45 minutes to go, and we are descending gradually. We watch the scenery change as we follow the line of the Hudson River towards Newark. The weather is fine and sunny with no clouds. Although a fair distance inland of the river, we recognise Manhattan on our left and get excited at our first sight of the Empire State Building!
The pilot makes a perfect landing spot on 11:45. Taxiing takes 10 minutes or so. We are quickly disembarked, via the rear doors, and are well ahead of the pack as we enter immigration, but stopping to visit the restrooms (hey, self-flushing loos again!) loses us the edge and we are virtually the last in line at the desks. However the Americans are efficient and have almost all the stations manned, and we are through without issue in 40 minutes.
No hold luggage to collect (ha!) we exit the terminal dragging our £17 Asda cases and secure a cab at the adjacent stand. The price is fixed, being $50 to Midtown, plus tolls and tip. Our driver is full of a cold (thanks buddy!) and says little, but we dont mind, enjoying the mildly exotic 45 minute drive to Manhattan, via the Lincoln Tunnel (long!). Traffic is heavy but steady and we are soon at our hotel, the Hudson, on West 58th Street, a couple of blocks from the south west corner of Central Park.
The hotel is a relatively recently refurbished, hip place, with a strikingly bland, concrete façade in a traditional, brick tower block.
It looks a lot smaller than its 1000 rooms would suggest. The lobby is on the first floor and is a delight! It has a vine covered, glass roof
. and backs onto the hotels private park, a large, partly covered courtyard set in the centre of the building, with twenty odd floors towering above it and open on the rear, south side.
We are swiftly and professionally checked in by the polite staff and ascend to the 8th floor. The rooms here are noted to be small, and this one certainly is approx 200 sq ft at a guess, with contemporary fittings, a shower room and loads of mirrors to give the appearance of more room.
We like it its compact but comfortable and has everything well need for the 3 nights. We dont plan to spend any more time in than essential anyway.
We unpack and root through the cupboards and drawers. Theres a mini-bar of sorts, with criminally expensive drinks and snacks, plus a few extras, including an intimacy kit Ill leave the contents to your imagination, but suffice to say if the door hinges creak later well have something to lubricate them with!
We are eager to venture out into the big city and leave the hotel at 2:15. We walk a couple of hundred yards east along W58th (hey, theres a Starbucks!) and then left, north, one block to Columbus Circle, the recently renovated SW corner of Central Park. The roads are busy, and the Walk/Dont Walk signals on every junction are the only sane way to cross the corners. The Circle itself is an attractive sitting area with lovely wooden benches and surrounding water feature, having a Nelsons Column-type statue of Christopher Columbus at its centre. The buildings around the perimeter all appear either new, including the vast Time Warner centre, or are under (re?)construction.
Its warm and sunny, if a little breezy here, and we head across into the park itself. Theres a definite, holiday mood, with many people sitting and chatting, eating and drinking or walking into the green areas. We are peckish, and buy a sandwich platter (no, we dont want extra cheese, ta) and two coffees which we take into the park. It takes us a few moments to get our bearings this place is vast but in 10 minutes or so we are in the middle of Sheep Meadow, a lovely lawned area of a few acres, surrounded by trees and towering skyscrapers beyond. There are perhaps a few hundred people lazing on the grass around us.
Spring is obviously much more advanced here than back home in Manchester, where most of the trees are still bare. Everywhere is green and fresh and a delight to the senses. We finish our lunch, take some photographs, and wander on, northwards, deeper into the Park. At 2:45 we find ourselves at a Victorian building (Belvedere Castle) overlooking an ornamental lake and the Great Lawn to the north. A helpful volunteer guide gives us a great park map, which we use to navigate our way for the rest of our visit. We join others climbing the narrow stairs to the top of the building, enjoying great views on all sides.
We take the stone steps to the left of the castle and make our way past the lake to the Great Lawn, a splendid field of many acres, which includes several Baseball (Softball?) pitches currently being well used .
PART 1 PRE-TRIP NOTES AND DAY 1
Cast: Mike, 42 Florida veteran, NY virgin!
Amanda, 33 US first timer.
Brief pre-trip notes only as some of you may know, my personal circumstances have changed significantly in the last year or so. Suffice to say I am now in a new relationship with the lovely Amanda and, apart from a 4 day jaunt to Florence in February, this is our first proper holiday together. Amanda missed out on a trip to New York a while back, and has always wanted to visit Americas true capital, and, naturally, Mike spotted an opportunity to slip southwards after the event!
So as usual for me, vague thoughts about should we look at the possibility of a few days in Florida soon turned into a huge Visa bill! Our Scotland-based travel agent, Val, bless her cotton socks, came up trumps again and sorted flights with Continental, from Manchester to Orlando via Newark NJ, effectively a free stop-over of three nights. Accommodation was provided by Travel Counsellors too, with us deciding on the centrally-situated, Hudson Hotel on West 58th Street, and Val booked us a last night in Orlando at Universal Royal Pacific Resort Hotel. The first six days in Orlando were booked at Boardwalk Villas through a good friend and DVC member renting points to us, effectively saving us close to a grand!
Oh, and we booked a convertible for the Orlando leg!
Now all we had to do was tick off the days .. 140, 139, 138 ..
By the way my trippies do tend to be quite detailed. I make no apologies for this, and for those that prefer comics, therell be plenty of pictures, so feel free to skim the text as you prefer. I enjoy writing (although not typing!) the reports, and use them personally to relive holidays after the event. Accordingly, many small details that are irrelevant to most readers may be included, as these trigger fuller recollection for me.
DAY 0 - FRIDAY 28TH APRIL 2006
Wed had custody of the kids this week and normally return them and their gear to their mums on Friday evenings. However, as we have to take our dog Ruby to the dog sitters 24 miles away this evening, I drop Adam and their luggage at Heathers at about 8am before taking Beth to school and going to work. Amanda is off today, getting her hair done and doing final packing. I should point out here that we are not taking large suitcases, having managed to pack all our essentials into carry on bags (18kgs each with Continental). My day drags interminably, with the only highlight being when I print off our boarding passes from Continentals online check-in.
I manage to escape just after 4pm and return home. We have a light tea and then make our way to the dog sitters near Wigan. Back home around 8pm we have a final check through the travel documents and then spend the rest of the evening in our local! Bed around 11.30pm.
DAY 1 SATURDAY 29th APRIL 2006. THE JOURNEY, CENTRAL PARK, 5TH AVENUE, TOP OF THE ROCK
I always struggle to sleep the night before a big holiday, and tonight is no exception. Up at 2.30 for a coffee and a final wander around the boards before being joined by Amanda at 4am. We check our flight online and are pleased to see that it is on schedule. Showers etc, fed the cats (our neighbour is feeding them during our absence) and then stand twiddling our thumbs until mate Scott arrives at 6am. Traffic is light and we arrive at Manchester Airport just after 6.30am. We make enquiries of the Continental rep and are advised to join the line (see how the lingo has slipped back into place!) in order to have our passports and boarding passes security checked, even though we arent checking any luggage. This takes around 15 minutes and our DIY boarding passes are replaced by real ones (apparently these are easier for the machines to read).
We are selected (randomly?) for a security check of our baggage, undertaken by a polite, and very young, security officer. He does not find our hidden contraband or passengers and we proceed to customs. Amazingly neither of us set off the alarms or are selected for any body/cavity searches, and we present ourselves at Starbucks by 7.10am.
We both have our usual, filter coffee and breakfast paninis. For some reason these taste better than normal. There are loads of new, Starbucks mugs for sale, but sadly we have no room for them at present. (I collect Starbucks mugs). Never mind, theyll hopefully filter through (pardon the pun!) to the Manchester outlets in due course.
Its sunny and pleasant outside damn! I was hoping for rain!
We complete our visa waiver forms and then take the mandatory wander around WHSmiths, Boots, Dixons and the Duty Free shops! Although there is no posted gate number yet, we stumble across the correct one at 214. We get three text messages, one from Bob and Dawn wishing us a safe journey (we are meeting up next week), one from my parents in Croatia where, sadly, the weather is lousy
.and one from Amandas mum, Sandra, advising us that she is having a wee! No I dont know why she felt it necessary to share this, although they have always been very close! Boarding begins at 8.45am, and, as we are in the front section (row 17) naturally they board from the back! However, we take our seats at 9am on this 767 400. We have a row of 3 seats in the centre to ourselves. The cabin crew are youngish, and one of the male stewards fancies himself as Tom Cruise!
The plane is equipped with personal, seatback entertainment systems and we are treated to a cheesy welcome message from Larry Kellner, the Continental Chairman (Hi Larry!) before the safety video. Push back at 9.25am, with a half full plane. We take off at 9.35am and entertain ourselves initially by browsing the Sky Mall magazine a bizarre mix of pet strollers, inflatable massage chairs and high capacity teeth cleaners (not sure if these are intended for people with excessive numbers of teeth or those hosting teeth cleaning parties for all their friends!)
The films start at 10.05am (05.05 US) and we both enjoy The Producers (may I take your hats, your coats your swastikas?) The 1st meal is served at 05.30, usual beef or chicken option. Certainly not gourmet but digestible. Half an hour later I make my first dollar purchase two whiskeys for $10.
We pass through turbulent skies for an hour or so. We are both nodding off periodically (doesnt it make a difference when you dont have kids with you?!) and I grab half an hour or so. 08:00 or thereabouts now, and we are offered a glass of orange juice. Im quite relaxed, somewhere below Greenland, according to the inflight display map, and pretty much in the zone the period roughly halfway through a long flight when you are far enough from your destination to start believing that you will be in this comfortable, tin tube for ever, with polite stewards serving refreshments every now and again and watching the odd film between naps.
I get up to stretch my legs and take a wander around the plane. Roughly 1/3rd of the seats are empty, and many passengers have nabbed a row to themselves, stretching out for a decent kip! I return to my seat and read the Skymall (.com have a look, its hysterical!) magazine from cover to cover. I resist the temptation to order an indoor fountain table piece or a dog ramp for the car boot, and attempt to play some of the interactive games in the seatback system. Amanda amuses herself with card games on screen.
Time passes. Drinks are served and consumed. Im fed up with monster-PacMan and read my book (A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby). At 10:00 they serve another meal, comprising a warm chicken and cheese roll (not as bad as it sounds) with a bag of crisps (chips) and a chocolate, followed by coffee and more water. Theres about an hour and ten minutes to go and we move from the centre section to a pair of window seats in front of a bulkhead (vacated by a mum with a baby and toddler who relocated to the rear section earlier for more space I passed her on my walk, desperately trying to nap whilst amusing her two, fractious charges!) in order to have a better view on the approach.
There are good views through clear skies down to flat, road-crossed plains with some large lakes. The cabin crew hand out customs forms which we complete. About 45 minutes to go, and we are descending gradually. We watch the scenery change as we follow the line of the Hudson River towards Newark. The weather is fine and sunny with no clouds. Although a fair distance inland of the river, we recognise Manhattan on our left and get excited at our first sight of the Empire State Building!
The pilot makes a perfect landing spot on 11:45. Taxiing takes 10 minutes or so. We are quickly disembarked, via the rear doors, and are well ahead of the pack as we enter immigration, but stopping to visit the restrooms (hey, self-flushing loos again!) loses us the edge and we are virtually the last in line at the desks. However the Americans are efficient and have almost all the stations manned, and we are through without issue in 40 minutes.
No hold luggage to collect (ha!) we exit the terminal dragging our £17 Asda cases and secure a cab at the adjacent stand. The price is fixed, being $50 to Midtown, plus tolls and tip. Our driver is full of a cold (thanks buddy!) and says little, but we dont mind, enjoying the mildly exotic 45 minute drive to Manhattan, via the Lincoln Tunnel (long!). Traffic is heavy but steady and we are soon at our hotel, the Hudson, on West 58th Street, a couple of blocks from the south west corner of Central Park.
The hotel is a relatively recently refurbished, hip place, with a strikingly bland, concrete façade in a traditional, brick tower block.
It looks a lot smaller than its 1000 rooms would suggest. The lobby is on the first floor and is a delight! It has a vine covered, glass roof
. and backs onto the hotels private park, a large, partly covered courtyard set in the centre of the building, with twenty odd floors towering above it and open on the rear, south side.
We are swiftly and professionally checked in by the polite staff and ascend to the 8th floor. The rooms here are noted to be small, and this one certainly is approx 200 sq ft at a guess, with contemporary fittings, a shower room and loads of mirrors to give the appearance of more room.
We like it its compact but comfortable and has everything well need for the 3 nights. We dont plan to spend any more time in than essential anyway.
We unpack and root through the cupboards and drawers. Theres a mini-bar of sorts, with criminally expensive drinks and snacks, plus a few extras, including an intimacy kit Ill leave the contents to your imagination, but suffice to say if the door hinges creak later well have something to lubricate them with!
We are eager to venture out into the big city and leave the hotel at 2:15. We walk a couple of hundred yards east along W58th (hey, theres a Starbucks!) and then left, north, one block to Columbus Circle, the recently renovated SW corner of Central Park. The roads are busy, and the Walk/Dont Walk signals on every junction are the only sane way to cross the corners. The Circle itself is an attractive sitting area with lovely wooden benches and surrounding water feature, having a Nelsons Column-type statue of Christopher Columbus at its centre. The buildings around the perimeter all appear either new, including the vast Time Warner centre, or are under (re?)construction.
Its warm and sunny, if a little breezy here, and we head across into the park itself. Theres a definite, holiday mood, with many people sitting and chatting, eating and drinking or walking into the green areas. We are peckish, and buy a sandwich platter (no, we dont want extra cheese, ta) and two coffees which we take into the park. It takes us a few moments to get our bearings this place is vast but in 10 minutes or so we are in the middle of Sheep Meadow, a lovely lawned area of a few acres, surrounded by trees and towering skyscrapers beyond. There are perhaps a few hundred people lazing on the grass around us.
Spring is obviously much more advanced here than back home in Manchester, where most of the trees are still bare. Everywhere is green and fresh and a delight to the senses. We finish our lunch, take some photographs, and wander on, northwards, deeper into the Park. At 2:45 we find ourselves at a Victorian building (Belvedere Castle) overlooking an ornamental lake and the Great Lawn to the north. A helpful volunteer guide gives us a great park map, which we use to navigate our way for the rest of our visit. We join others climbing the narrow stairs to the top of the building, enjoying great views on all sides.
We take the stone steps to the left of the castle and make our way past the lake to the Great Lawn, a splendid field of many acres, which includes several Baseball (Softball?) pitches currently being well used .
Great report, we're doing new york and orlando in 30 days! will be following these closely! 
