This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Hello everyone, Sarah here. I’m the intern this semester at Ambassador Travel and I just got back from a trip to New York City!
I have always wanted to go to NYC. I wanted to see shows on Broadway and walk around Times Square, to explore Central Park and to hopefully bump into (attractive) celebrities. That said, I had never looked into what New York was actually like, I just went off of what I saw in movies. I never realized just how big New York City is until I was walking around the city. I’ve traveled around to many different cities in Europe, but nothing can prepare you for how different New York City is. Manhattan is an island of skyscrapers.
One of the biggest difficulties about any trip was deciding what to do with the time you have allotted. I flew in on Saturday and didn’t leave until the following Monday, which seemed like a lot of time to me. I didn’t think my plan was too jam-packed. When I started out on my trip, I had six shows I wanted to see, two museums I wanted to go to, 2 attractions I wanted to visit and a list of foods I wanted to get authentically, (aka New York Style Cheesecake and a slice of pizza.)
When I think about New York the first thing that pops into my mind is “BROADWAY!” I’m a huge fan of seeing shows, (mainly musicals), and there is hardly a better place to see theatre than on Broadway. I ended up seeing SIX shows on Broadway! I already had 3 tickets purchased, but I had to “rush” the other 3, and I ended up getting to see all of them, which was really lucky! They were: The Importance of Being Earnest, American Idiot, The Book of Mormon, La Cage aux Follies, How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying and The Addams Family.
While I didn’t see a single celebrity roaming the New York City streets, I didn’t let this bum me out too much, because there were famous people in some of the shows I saw, including Harvey Fierstein In La Cage aux Follies, Bebe Neuwirth in The Addams Family and, my favorite, Daniel Radcliffe in How To Succeed in Business.
Other than Broadway, there were other things on my to-do list. One of the toughest decisions we had to make was whether we wanted to go to the top of the Empire State Building or the Rockefeller building. Our thought process was as follows:
- Empire State building: Iconic, dollar cheaper, taller than the Rockefeller
- The top of the Rock: You get to see the Empire State Building in the skyline
So I ended up going to both! I went to the Top of the Rock at night, so I could see the Empire State Building all lit up, (along with every other building in the city.) Then I went to the 102 floor of the Empire State Building during the day. Both offered amazing views and neither had a very long line when I went.
I explored normal NYC attractions, including The New York Public Library, which offers some beautiful architecture and beautiful pictures. Times Square is impressive no matter what time you’re there. There were days where we’d have to get into the city by 10 in order to rush for tickets to some of the shows, and even then the area was fantastic to look at. At night it’s even better. You can also see the ball that gets dropped on New Years. I spent an afternoon wandering around the Museum of Natural History and the Rose Center for Earth and Space. I wish I would have had more than the 3 or 4 hours that I had, because it was an amazing museum and I highly recommend it, especially if you are traveling with kids.
Little Italy and Chinatown are an experience. If you’ve travelled around Europe before then you’ll feel like you’re there again when you walk through these two areas. Chinatown is a lot bigger than I thought it would be, but it’s full of shops and foodstuffs, and also a street full of fish on ice that I would not want to walk down on a warm day. Little Italy is an adorable stretch of restaurants with outdoor seating and people trying to convince you to choose their restaurant. We ended up finding an adorable pastry shop called Ferrera, (I recommend the Dacquoise, and, of course, the cannoli,) and got desserts to go.
Central park is huge. I know they say it’s big, but it’s really big. I never realized how big it would be either. We explored on the bottom half of it. We played at the Central Park Zoo, (I love zoos, but this one really didn’t impress me that much. There aren’t very many animals.) We also walked around and saw Wollman Rink, Belvedere Castle, Strawberry Fields and Bethesda Terrace (which didn’t have any water in it at all, but was still very beautiful. I can image how gorgeous this would be in the summer.)
I took the ferry out to the State of Liberty and Ellis Island. I would most definitely recommend reserving your tickets before you go, because the line was SO long. We had reserved our tickets but still had to wait 30-40 minutes in a line. The Statue of Liberty, while amazing, is so much smaller than I expected! There also isn’t very much to do other than just look at her for a few minutes, then get back on the ferry. The Ferry then takes you to Ellis Island, which one of my travel companions adores and I found extremely boring.
If anyone out there is a fan of Cake Boss on TLC then you’ll be excited to know that I took a trip out to Hoboken and saw Carlos Bakery. Let me tell you, the desserts there are delicious! It took us about two hours to get through the line and get out of there with a box of pastries, but it was worth it. The only bad thing for me was that nothing was labeled or had a price on it. I didn’t want to spend $20 for a cannoli because the bakery was famous. Everything turned out to be very reasonable, though, because I bought two mini cannoli’s, two different types of cookies and a napoleon for $11. Not too shabby.
One last highlight of my trip was the fact that I got to spend three nights at the Waldorf=Astoria. Now, being a small town girl from Economy, Indiana I can tell you that I’ve never stayed in a place as fancy as the Waldorf. The view from our room was of the Chrysler building, one of the prettiest skyscrapers in NYC in my opinion. It also has the best breakfast buffet I’ve ever experienced, (and it wasn’t even the “fancy” breakfast buffet, because there is a $100 a person “fancy” one.) One fun thing about the Waldorf is that they leave the “impressive” rooms unlocked, ready for exploring. They don’t have furniture in them anymore, but you can see the sheer size of what was some of these suites.
So that was my trip! I didn’t do everything I had on my list (no frozen hot chocolate from Serendipity,) but I definitely feel satisfied about my trip.
If you want to know anymore, feel free to call or comment!
Like this:
Be the first to like this post.