The Big Apple!

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We arrived in New York after a relatively comfortable 3hour flight, the plane left on time which has been a plus on this trip. We jumped in a taxi and took in the sights while we drove to our hotel, however we’d only driven about 10minutes when we hit gridlock… utter utter gridlock. What should’ve been a 20minute drive from La Guardia airport turned into an hour long nightmare of horns and fumes. We finally got sight of our hotel and our spirits lifted. There it was, in a good location and across the road from an Irish pub. Fantastic! We paid the taxi driver and headed into the hotel foyer eagerly anticipating a nice hot shower. Or so we thought. We were informed upon arrival that a pipe had burst in our room, and that we were being sent to a sister hotel across town for the night, was this ok? Well no it wasn’t but what choice did we have. Chris really liked the look of the Bentley which is where we ended up but I wasn’t convinced. I would’ve preferred another sister hotel which was around the corner but granted, nowhere near as nice. As is turned out, the only hotel with a room available was the Bentley, so off across town we headed. After yet another hour in traffic (which we later found out was because the UN as sitting in town so all the roads around it were closed and traffic was diverted), we arrived at our home for the night, and yes I must admit it was a gorgeous hotel, very flash and very comfortable. This didn’t do much to lift my mood however, as we were in the middle of nowhere and not near a subway station but it was getting late so it would do for the night. The worse thing was when we went to catch a cab the next day and had to sit in yet another hour of traffic to get back to the Moderne, our hotel. Thankfully, and so they should be, the cab rides were covered by the hotel. One advantage to this debacle was that we were upgraded to a Junior Suite, which we were both thankful for but I’d hate to see how small a standard room would be. As it turned out, this was just the beginning of our problems with the Moderne hotel and in the coming days we would have a variety of problems, including the toilet being blocked and the aircon not working (in fairness though, maintanence came and fixed these within 5mins of us calling them). We found the door to be testy and had to triple check each time that it had been locked. We came back from our first day in New York to discover the room hadn’t been cleaned, we decided not to worry about it for that day but the next day we made sure the “please service room” sign was up, we came back after a day of sightseeing to see the sign no longer on the door but that the room hadn’t been touched at all. After complaining to the front desk, this was rectified. There was some concern as to the amount of noise at night but after the first night we were pleasantly surprised, this changed after the second night and the weekend came. Street noise from the pub, construction going on all hours, car horns and sirens all contributed to rather sleepless nights. After receiving free wireless for 2days, we then discovered we had to pay, we decided to do so only to find it didn’t work, upon calling the front desk to report this, we were given a number to cal. Umm no that should be your responsibility. And just when you think it couldnt get any worse, we came downstairs on our last day in New York to find a sign in the elevator "Water will be turned off from 12am to 2pm...." wtf!? 14HOURS OF NO WATER! You've got to be kidding! Luckily, they were kidding and it was a simple typo and the water was only turned off for 2hours but still.. every little bit adds up. It’s disappointing that there have been so many little problems with this hotel because it really is in a good location but it just adds to the frustration.

When you think about the US, one of the things that springs to mind is the tipping. Now leading up to New York, we have tipped when we felt it was deserved but nothing over the top. Upon eating our first meal on Broadway, we left a tip in coins (I had A LOT of coins!) only to have the bill bought back to us and to be told that ‘’In New York, most people tip 17%”. In shock we added a couple of dollars and left. It was only later when I worked it out to be a tip of $8 that she was after that I got really annoyed. Tips should be earnt, not automatically assumed and particularly not that amount! You don’t get an $8 tip just for taking my order! For a tip that good, I’d want the best service I’d ever received! In hindsight, I wish we’d taken out the small tip we had left so that she received nothing.. Height of rudeness! Going to another restaurant, we were given a card with the bill suggesting that 15-20% tip is appropriate, again a $6 tip for two pieces of cake and 2 beers, no way! Going back to that same restaurant the next night, a 15% was automatically added to our bill, a total of $6 again! The service definitely didn’t deserve that and needless to say, we collected all our change.

Oh well, putting all that aside, it was time to explore New York! We started our experience by going for a walk to Times Square. On the way we signed up to a City Sightseeing tour that gave us several tours for a good price, so we took the first one “the Downtown Tour”. A great tour as we got to learn many things about downtown New York. We really were spoilt on this tour and regretted not giving the guide a tip after the next 2tours. A night tour which we were extremely excited about proved to be disappointing with a rather strange and bland tour guide that we couldn’t hear. Although we had seen nothing when it came to strange tour guides as we learnt after the “Uptown Tour”. This one was just rude and once again we couldn’t hear a word he said. He took us through Harlem and couldn’t say bad things about it, however neither Chris nor myself were overly inspired by an area filled with government housing which unfortunately truly represented the demographic, from what we could tell anyway.

Getting up at the crack of dawn we had our first experience with the subway system as we caught the train to Battery Park to catch the Ellis Island Ferry to the Statue of Liberty. We’d been smart enough to purchase our tickets online so got to avoid the ticket queue and jump straight into the security queue, going through we hopped onto the ferry and headed to the Statue of Liberty. Being extremely smart, we were on the first ferry of the day so the island was nice and quiet and once again we got into a queue for security so that we could head up to the pedestal and the monument museum. Security here was taken that extra step and not only did we walk through a metal detector we also went through an air puffer to detect any particles on you. The Statue was a gift to the US from the French however the French didn’t have enough money to complete it and said to the US that they’ll build the Statue if the Americans built the pedestal for it to sit on. This is what we climbed 156 stairs up. The Crown on the statue was reopened in June but when we went to book this, we discovered it was booked out for the rest of the year, disappointing but we both agreed that there wouldn’t have been much advantage to doing this.
Catching the Ferry to Ellis Island, which was top of my list of things to see, we hopped off and began exploring the museum of the history of Ellis Island. It was very interesting to see how it would’ve been for the millions of immigrants that came through this island on their way to a new life in America.
After falling in love with the West End in London, one of my number one things to do in New York was to visit Broadway and we did this in style, booking tickets to the longest running show in Broadway history- The Phantom of the Opera. Fantastic!!

Visiting Grand Zero was an interesting experience. Both Chris and myself didn’t know quite what to expect however we were both left feeling disappointed. There is a large amount of construction underway rebuilding the World Trade Center. Maybe if you saw it just after 9/11 it would have greater impact.

Central Park was pretty, but again not quite what either of us were expecting. And no toilets!! its a park and there were no toilets!!! Shocking!! haha... but apart from that, it was pretty and nice, green and peaceful, but not what I was expecting of the post famous park in the world..

The Empire State building was built in 13months, an impressive feat for its time, even more impressing as it was down during the Great Depression. Once it was finished, it was the owners intend that people move in to these apartments but since no one could afford it, he hired guys to run up and down the stairs turning the lights on and off, to give the impression that there were people living there. Seeing the Empire State requires lots of queues.. First you queue to go through a security checkpoint, then you queue to buy tickets (which luckily we’d already done online), then you queue in two separate rooms before getting into an elevator that takes you up to the 80th floor, you then queue again to go up to the 86th floor and the observation deck, after wandering around here (and queuing to get your space to take photos) you then queue to get down to the 80th floor before going through the gift shop and then queuing again to get back to the ground *sigh*. We were quite lucky and didn’t have to queue that long but you wouldn’t want to go on a super busy day! The views were quite magnificent though and definitely worth the wait.

Our last stop in New York was a real highlight for both of us.. A Yankees Game! At the new Yankee Stadium vs the Boston Red Sox, which I was told was THE game to go see! It didnt disappoint, the atmosphere was incredible and despite the freezing cold temperatures I found myself not wanting the game to end. The AFL could learn alot from how these games are conducted, from the between innings entertainment to the general knowledge facts that showed up on the big screen, it was amazing...

Next Stop... London...

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Comments

[mumsie]

I had a good laugh about all the queues. At least security is good i guess. Enjoy London