Advertisement
Published: October 27th 2012
Our last full day in New York means our last full day in America. To say we loved it would be a massive understatement. Everything has been how we had hoped and in many instances better.
Today started off with us booking tickets to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum complex. On board the former USS Intrepid, a former WW2 air craft carrier and now home to all sorts of interesting things. The main exhibits include a Concord and the Space Shuttle Enterprise. The space shuttle is an astro nerds dream come true. To know you are within a metre of a space craft that had actually completed many missions in to space was beyond amazing.
From the Intrepid museum we headed off to Macy's for Vicki to have a look and get some last minute retail therapy done. On the walk up to catch the bus back to the subway from the pier to get to Macy's we were past by an interesting ute. Intersting, because on the back of the ute were life saved props for Halloween. Witches, zombies and even a guy in an electric chair.
I have to say that Macy's New York
is massive to the point of intimidating. It is 10 storeys high and takes up a whole city block on 34th Street, between 6th and 7th Avenue. That is where my positive comments end, total spend Macy's NYC $0. Macy's NYC may well be the largest department store in the world but it is bad verging on pathetic. The NYC store could learn lessons from San Francisco. The NYC store has nowhere for people to sit and catch their breath. San Francisco had a visitors room and complimentary wifi, their NYC store has a bench with two staff answering questions and not a comfortable chair in site let alone wifi, not even in the Starbucks I went in to. Mind you there are three Starbucks in the store, as well as McDonalds and a number of other fast food eateries.
So after a bit of waiting practice for me, Vicki and I headed off to have a bite to eat prior to boarding our 6:30 twilight cruise on the Hudson River. We found a little cafe opposite the Metro Hotel enjoyed a double shot and something to eat. We then went for a walk around New York City to
get back up to 42nd Street to get the bus down to the pier for the cruise.
The cruise was fantastic. It went for 90 minutes and took in all the sites, including the main bridges crossing the Hudson River as well as Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Plenty of photo opportunities but it is quite an effort to keep the shutter open long enough when the boat is bouncing and rolling around. The commentary on board was interesting most of the time but we could have done without the reminder prompting passengers that they need to tip on the way off the boat.
After disembarking from the cruise we hopped on one of the cross town buses and we ended up at Grand Central Station. We enjoyed a great meal at The Oyster Bar and then hopped on the subway for the last time on our trip home.
We have both been blown away by New York. The place is massive and the people are really friendly and welcoming. We have also been amazed by the efficient and clean public transport system. New Yorkers are proud of their city and they have every right
to be.
And one last example of great American service was this morning. We went to the ticketing outlet for our twilight river cruise, it was quite cool but really humid and I HATE humidity. We were asking the young lady attending to us if she had some spare maps as we had left ours at home. After she gave us not one but three different books with maps, I asked her about a bus to the piers. Not only did she give us directions she came out of her booth walked us down the street to the McDonalds for more tourist information, and gave me some napkins to dry my sweaty brow, and then proceeded down the street with us to show us the bus stop on the other side of the road where the bus left from.
We have just about finished packing, we have a limo picking us up in the morning at 10am, we fly at 1pm to Los Angeles and then depart LA at 9pm Friday night local time.
See you Sunday morning Sydney.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.132s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 10; qc: 53; dbt: 0.0533s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Traveling with Roger and Karen
Roger and Karen Karnehm
McDonald's and Wine???
Thoroughly enjoyed following along on your US Holiday. Can't believe though that you stopped at McDonald's on the same day that you had that fantastic meal w/wine on the Wine Train. Made me smile. It sounds like you had a wonderful holiday (vacation as we say here in America), with many unique experiences. May all of your future travels be filled with wonderful memories. Roger (Traveling with Roger and Karen)