NYC / LA / Anaheim

[welley]

Ok, I know this has been asked, but I thought I would ask again...

DH & I heading to NYC, LA & Anaheim in July / August. I would like to get your opinions on what are your:

Must do's
If you get a chance &
Overrated don't bother.

Its our first time to NYC (and we are super excited) so I am trying to get ideas on the best things to do.

DH & I also like doing "non-touriest" things (such as having a Pink's hotdog, visiting The Grove).

 

[Toy Story]

Hi,

I just posted a link to my blog in the April 2012 Take Two thread. This was our second trip to NYC (so I can't help you with the LA part of your trip) and my blog has a recount of both trips

We used the City Pass on this trip and liked everything we did, it is a good base to do some of the main attractions. We did not fell compelled to 'see everything' in each of the galleries/museums - we picked out the exhibits/rooms we wanted to visit. The view from the Rockefeller at night was amazing.

Free 'must-do's' that I would recommend - Central Park, NY Public Library and Grand Central.

We really enjoyed the Food Walking Tour of Greenwich Village (have highly recommended it to a lot of people), and the walk along the HighLine.

We did visit the 9/11 memorial, you need to book tickets. From the time wee booked our tickets it took an hour to get into the memorial site, we stayed for 10 minutes and left. We did not plan this part of our trip properly - so if you are interested in going, allow time to look at the venue where you pick up your tickets and maybe book a tour.

 

[alicia1506]

i totally get not wanting to do 'tourist' style stuff, but i do still recommend getting tickets for the hop on/hop off bus tours... we used grayline new york (and also grayline anaheim for our disney shuttle and tour)

it is a totally tourist-y thing to do but new york is huge and it allows you to get some really great info on the places/areas you'll be seeing, it gives you really great, on time, safe transportation around the city, and you can take some amazing photos from a really great vantage point. the other thing is it's a great opportunity to get from one end of the city to another in a relatively short amount of time (great if you don't have heaps of spare time) and you can get off at the places you really want to see (like rockefeller centre, empire state, statue of liberty etc) and stay on and just watch the world pass you by for places that you don't...

we loved it and we thought it gave us a bit more insight into the different areas/moods/neighbourhoods of NYC, as well as being a really fun way to explore the city on a budget...

 

[Ms. Shuttergirl]

Hi,

I just posted a link to my blog in the April 2012 Take Two thread. This was our second trip to NYC (so I can't help you with the LA part of your trip) and my blog has a recount of both trips

We used the City Pass on this trip and liked everything we did, it is a good base to do some of the main attractions. We did not fell compelled to 'see everything' in each of the galleries/museums - we picked out the exhibits/rooms we wanted to visit. The view from the Rockefeller at night was amazing.

Free 'must-do's' that I would recommend - Central Park, NY Public Library and Grand Central.

We really enjoyed the Food Walking Tour of Greenwich Village (have highly recommended it to a lot of people), and the walk along the HighLine.

We did visit the 9/11 memorial, you need to book tickets. From the time wee booked our tickets it took an hour to get into the memorial site, we stayed for 10 minutes and left. We did not plan this part of our trip properly - so if you are interested in going, allow time to look at the venue where you pick up your tickets and maybe book a tour.

Toy Story - can I ask a little more about your 9/11 memorial experience. I didn't realise it would take so much longer to get in and that private tours were an option. Any further info would be awesome.

 

[welley]

Thanks Toy Story. I will check it out.

Alicia - Might be a good idea to get the hop-on-hop-off bus. Get your bearings and see the sites.

Can you recommend some places to eat that give you good food for a decent price in NYC.

 

[Toy Story]

Toy Story - can I ask a little more about your 9/11 memorial experience. I didn't realise it would take so much longer to get in and that private tours were an option. Any further info would be awesome.

Sorry Welley for the slight detour:
The 9/11 memorial site is surrounded by a construction site and construction workers and vehicles mixed with downtown traffic and a lot of tourists. It was spring break and the whole city seemed to be packed with tourists and school groups.

I booked our tickets the night before online, you had to provide details of each person in the party. The location to pick up your tickets is a block or two away from the entrance to the actual memorial. I would recommend allowing time to look through the stories in this building (we arrived at the time of our ticket allocation and did not get to have a look). It was small and it was busy. From the time we picked up our tickets it took us an hour to walk back down to the memorial site and queue to go through the security and enter. Once inside the site we viewed the waterfalls, we were a bit annoyed with people taking cheesy photos (it just seemed wrong). We stayed for about 10-15 minutes before leaving. You do exit via another smaller building that includes more monuments and stories and a memorial shop. I learnt later that there is volunteer guides for the site, and I think if we were visiting again we would look into this.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

T
Can you recommend some places to eat that give you good food for a decent price in NYC.

I started a thread about food around Times Square before our trip - which I will get around to adding info too.

We really enjoyed our lunch at Da Gennaro Ristorante - look at the lunch specials.

There is great cheap food all over NY - where are you staying?

 

[welley]

Sorry Welley for the slight detour:

I don't mind detours. You learn more that way

I started a thread about food around Times Square before our trip - which I will get around to adding info too.

We really enjoyed our lunch at Da Gennaro Ristorante - look at the lunch specials.

There is great cheap food all over NY - where are you staying?

Just off 5th Avenue near the Empire State Building. But are happy to go wherever.

DH is a huge fan of Seinfeld, so we are going to "Monks" cafe (AKA Toms Diner).