My First Ever Trip Report - Inaugural NYC Cruise 05/25/12 & 4 Night NYC Stay

Wow - I really enjoyed reading your TR. We will be on the Magic out of NYC to Canada in September. I love the info you gave about Pin Trading. We have been pin trading since 2000. I will definately make sure to bring some traders with us.

I am so excited to be heading to Canada - but am alittle sorry we will not be heading to WDW.

Thanks,
Linda
 
Leaving the Ship and First Day in New York

So, today was the day when we finally had to say goodbye. We decided to do the buffet breakfast rather than sit down, but in retrospect that was a bad move. They don’t have nearly as much stuff as normal days (and no fresh omelette station which I love), plus Topsiders closes at 8.30, whereas our sit down breakfast wouldn’t have started til then as we were second seating, so there would have been less hanging around to get off. We must have sat in Rockin Bar D for at least an hour waiting for them to call the Minnie luggage tags to disembark.

Found our luggage fairly quickly, and immigration was literally just walking through, so out very quickly. Our dinner table family had suggested we could walk to our hotel in Times Square (Crowne Plaza) as it was only a few blocks, and as we docked on the pier practically opposite 49th street we decided to do just that. Took us about 15 minutes pulling our luggage, and wasn’t a bad walk at all.

Got to the hotel around 10am, and did the check in paperwork but were obviously too early to get into our room, so left our luggage and had a walk round Times Square. First photo:

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Also being a police officer, I had to take a picture of the police box:

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We went into Toys R Us, as I wanted to look at the Ferris wheel, which I’d heard so much about. I thought it looked really cool:

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Dom wanted to look at the lego as he is a massive fan, and he wasn’t disappointed:

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Looked in the Disney store, and was very surprised that they only had about 3 different pins in there for sale, I thought they would have stacks. Also, the staff didn’t wear lanyards so there was no trading in there.

Continued wandering around, just soaking up the atmosphere and getting our bearings, had a pizza for lunch then went back to the hotel around 1pm when they said our room would be ready. Our hotel was right next to the Hershey store, and opposite M&M world, both of which we had had a look in! Not a Hershey fan though I’m afraid, I think it tastes vile. You need proper English Cadbury chocolate!

Our room was on the 41st floor with a Times Square view, so that was cool. We all decided to have an afternoon snooze as we were all tired, so slept until around 3.30pm! I then made us get up and decided we would go to the Rockerfeller Centre and up to the Top of the Rock.

As we walked down to 5th Avenue there was a street market on, so had a look round that. Dom bought a spiderman t-shirt, and I bought him some pyjama bottoms! We then went into the Rockerfeller Centre and bought our tickets to go up to the top. The elevator travels 67 floors in 43 seconds and the elevator shaft lights up and you can see out, which is a bit weird! You can then go up a further few floors by another elevator and stairs to the final outside viewing area.

View was amazing:

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However, we saw something even better, which totally made our day. Look at the below picture, and tell me what you see…………

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Its only the gorgeous Disney Magic sailing out on her next voyage!! I was a bit gutted I hadn’t thought to go up 30 minutes earlier, then we could have seen her sail up the river, but even so, it was great to see her. Izzy had woken up crying after her nap as she was already missing her friends from Edge so much, so she was pleased to see it as well. Stayed up there for ages watching through the binoculars until she went out of view.

After that we went back down, as Izzy doesn’t like heights much and started feeling a bit unwell up there. Meant we didn’t go up the Empire State Building later in the week but not to worry, at least we’d got to do one of them.

Dinner was Mcdonalds for the kids and a Subway for me (can’t believe the McDonalds in USA don’t do a veggie burger like they do here in England!), then back to the hotel where we watched some tv before all flaking out around 9.30. Kids had a lot of sleep to catch up on from their late nights out at the clubs!
 

Second Day in NYC

A short report for today, as we took the bus over from the Port Authority Terminal on 42nd to Jersey Gardens Mall in New Jersey. I'd read about it online and home and seemed perfect for our shopping requirements - in fact all my daughter wanted was Hollister and Abercrombie and Fitch and it had both!

Bus was $12.50 each return, and only took about 25 minutes to get there. Had some great views of the Manhatten skyline as well, was a beautiful day.

What can I say, we shopped? The one and only thing I bought for myself was a pin in the Disney Outlet Store! Dom bought himself some new trainers - the aptly named skele-toes:

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Very weird looking, but his own money used and he was happy, so that was the main thing! Izzy got stuff in both the above mentioned stores, so she was a very happy teenager! I also bought them both a couple of bits in Gap. It took us 6 hours to get round the whole mall - phew!

We got the 6.15pm bus back to the bus termial, and traffic was dreadful, took a long time to get back. We were so tired from all the walking round shops that it was the dreaded McDonalds and Subway again for dinner! Took an evening shot of Times Square:

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After that it was just chilling out in the hotel room, then bed.
 
Looks like you had a great cruise! I'm glad you're writing about NY. So after you got off the ship, you walked right to the hotel?? Didn't realize the pier was that close to Times Square.
 
It was just a few blocks, took us around 15-20 minutes tops, not walking particularly fast as we were pulling our luggage! I don't like walking and wouldn't choose to do it, but even I found it an easy walk!

Will try and get the TR finished on my next days off, am working 11 hour shifts over the weekend and just done one today, so a bit tired!
 
I'm loving your TR so far!! Sounds like you guys had a great cruise!
 
I really, really enjoyed your trip report. :thumbsup2 I loved the pictures. I've never been to New York. I've read 100s of trip reports and the pictures of the Magic being in New York were so surreal. :cloud9: Thank you so much! :love:
 
Right, I'm back! Sorry for the delay, but busy weekend working. Anyway, about to start the last couple of days in New York. :)
 
Day 3 in New York

Woke to a cold rainy day. Wish we hadn't gone shopping the day before, as today would have been perfect, but as I had already booked tickets for the 9/11 memorial we had to do that today.

Plans for the day: 9/11 memorial, staten island ferry, police museum and Brooklyn Bridge. Did we achieve all that? Nope, ran out of time and as per every other day our feet were killing us!

Managed to negotiate the subway - other than finding the correct place to enter the subway (we somehow kept managing to enter for the uptown entrance when we wanted to go downtown) it was easy.

When you come out of the subway, you can instantly see the new twin towers that they are building:

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You are just round the corner from the preview centre, which we went into, and also St Pauls Church which we looked around. I had only gone in there to use the bathroom (there are none at the 9/11 memorial, it warns you on the tickets) and I didn't know that inside the church was dedicated to that date, so I'm glad we went in. Some of the displays made me feel very emotional for my fallen colleagues and all the people that lost their lives. I lit a candle inside the church. Here are some of the displays:

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Our entry time was for 12.00pm, so we walked down to the site and joined the queue around 11.30am with no problem. It was a long queue, as you go through airport type security, but it moves fairly quickly. Probably took us about half an hour to get to security.

Once inside the site we didn't actually spend that much time there, probably about 20 minutes just looking at the two pools and the names inscribed round them. The pools are very big, but have quite a calming relaxing effect. I was really pleased that we had gone to see the site:

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From there we walked to the police museum, stopping on route at a deli and having what can only be described as the most expensive salad in the world - $43 for 3 drinks and 3 boxes of hot/cold salad, I was staggered! Back to the unhealthy junk food for us, its half the price!

On the way to the police museum we passed the entrance to the Staten Island Ferry, which I had planned to go on. However, by now it was around 2pm, the weather was still fairly miserable, and we had already seen the Statue of Liberty from the Cruise Ship, so I decided to abandon my idea of going on the ferry and carry on the the police museum.

The museum was great, and we even all got a discount for me being a serving officer in England (I had taken my warrant card just in case!). Quite small within, although 3 floors, but really interesting.

Would you let this prisoner out...........!!

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The line up:

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They had a lot of displays of old handcuffs, weapons, batons, guns etc plus how uniforms had changed through the ages. There was also a kids interactive area which my two loved playing in despite being rather too old!

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We had a good look round the shop which I thought was very reasonable and the kids brought some presents for their friends, and I bought the obligatory NYPD jumper to wear at home (not on duty!!).

From here we headed to (I think) the Seaport area (don't have a map to check!) and see the Brooklyn Bridge. Now, I had wanted to walk across it, as I'm told the view of the city is amazing, but it was still raining, and kids were getting a but moaney by this point that their feet hurt (and so did mine in fairness), so we abandoned this idea and I contented myself with a picture of them in front of the bridge!

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We asked a friendly policeman where the nearest subway was, and it was a little walk, so took a slow stroll to it, only to find when we got there we had walked in a huge circle and ended up back where we had got off in the morning. Anyway, got the subway back easily enough, dropped our things off at the hotel and had a bit of a rest.

Decided to go out for dinner - I was sick to death of subway and pizza, and didn't want the kids having McDonalds yet again, so we went to Ellens Stardust Diner, which I had seen loads of reviews of that said it was great. It was only a block or so away from our hotel, so a couple of minutes walk. All the wait staff basically want to be "discovered" as singers/actors, and their dream is to be in a Broadway Show. In between taking orders and delivering food to customers, they get up on the furniture and sing songs, all of which was brilliant entertainment! Here is our waitress doing her thing:

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The food was lovely, and the desserts were amazing (but very large, be aware!). We had a great time eating here and were thoroughly entertained by all the singing. I would highly recommend it.

After dinner Izzy was desperate to go to Hollister and Abercrombie and Fitch to spend her money which was burning a hole in her pocket, so I let Dom walk back to the hotel as he really didn't want to shop, whilst Izzy was in teenage girl heaven in these stores! All I could think of is why don't they put more lights on - I'm obviously getting old and don't understand why it is "cool" to sell overpriced designer goods in a dark shop!! Anyway, Izzy was happy, it didn't take too long, then we went back to the hotel and were all in bed and asleep by 9.30p!!
 
Sorry you guys had a rainy day! What a bummer - but looks as if you made the best of it! I will definitely have to add Ellen's to my list! Sounds like a fun place! Great update! :thumbsup2
 
Day 4 New York

So, our plan for today was Museum of Natural History and Central Park. We love the Night at the Museum films, so were looking forward to seeing some of the character from there, especially Dum Dum!!

Negotiated the subway with ease and paid our "donation to get in". Queue wasn't too bad, about 15 minutes. We decided to start on floor 4 and work our way down, as that is where the dinosaurs are. The kids like the Natural History Museum in London seeing all the dinosaurs, but this was so much better. I probably have about 100 photos of dinosaurs (Dom went a little mad photographing everything!), so here are just a couple:

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We watched one of the videos about dinosaurs which was interesting, then just wandered through all the exhibits and finding Dum Dum:

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Started getting hungry for lunch so decided to leave and find somewhere. I asked the security guard who said turn right - I thought he meant turn right out of the door and keep walking, but later found out he meant turn right at the next block. So, we were walking and walking and there was no food other than the street carts, which in the end I bought the kids a hot dog from and I had nothing, as nothing suitable for vegetarians. We walked over to Central Park to eat them, and I was feeling a little grumpy as I was hungry! However, the view of the boating lake soon cheered me up, its one of those places you instantly recognise from movies:

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We people watched for quite a while, then walked back to the museum. I had really wanted to spend a lot of time exploring Central Park, but the good old feet aching had come back from walking round the museum all morning, and we wanted to get back and finish it off.

By this point I was starving, so we walked along the street that would have been the turn right we were supposed to do, and hey presto came across a shake shack. Now, this place had been recommended to me by a colleague at work, and I had looked up the menu online already and seen they did a vegetarian 'shroom burger, so I was straight in there. I did buy the kids a "concrete" to share, which basically just seemed to be like a big ice cream sundae, and they were very happy with! My burger was very nice, and I felt a lot happier with a full tummy!

We then went back to the museum and continued with the rest of the exhibits, although unfortunately a few had closed in the afternoon including the sea mammals, so didn't get to see the huge whales and stuff. Had a nosey round the shop, Dom bought himself some space food and tried on an explorers hat:

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When we were all done we got the subway back to Times Square, grabbed a pizza, then went back to our hotel with it. The kids then didn't move for the rest of the night! However, I went out during the dusk period as I wanted to get some evening shots of Times Square as I just loved all the lights. So, here are some of my favourite shots:

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Our hotel was literally next door to the Hershey store (shame we don't like Hersheys!)

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There are a few more pics to go in, but photobucket has just decided to stop loading up for me - so glad I didn't lose this post! Will update when working again.
 
Great update, Jody, thanks so much for sharing it with us. :)

I haven't been to the Sept 11th Memorial, but your photo of the pool emptying into the center really hit me hard. It reminds me of how the people just disappeared into the ground on that day. :(

Agh, sorry, didn't mean to get depressed in your thread!


I'm glad that you went to the Natural Museum History. I used to go there a lot when I was young (I grew up in New Jersey but less than an hour's drive to NYC). And I'm glad that you found your veggie burger! :sunny:
 
Thanks for sharing your trip with us. It looks like you and your children had a magical time!
 
Sorry I've never quite finished this, been having terrible computer problems. Keeps crashing, going slow, tonight it wouldn't even let me on until I switched the modem off at the wall then switched back on. Not sure whats going on!

Anyway, when I've got it looked at I will finish off the last day!
 
Really enjoying your TR! Waiting to hear about your last day popcorn::.
 

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