Hi all,
Sat. a.m. We got home yesterday afternoon about 4:00 after a fabulous,
tiring 3 day trip to New York. This may not sound nice, but for once in
my life I did a wonderful job of planning all we could squeeze in
considering our ages, tastes, etc. Could not have done it without
debbit@nycvp.com and answers-support@google.com.
I read about nycvp in he travel section of our local newsopapers (they
were the ones to contact about one of the advertised trips). We also had
recommendations from friend, Moe, who had been there.
Left Mobile at 7:00 a.m. on Tuesday, 29th - arrived at LaGuardia - picked
up our luggage & contacted travel desk for them to call for pre-arranged
transportation to hotel Edison, arriving there about 1:00 p.m. After
checking in, we hailed a cab to Central Park and took a carriage ride
around the park. (this we did on our own). It was fantastic, huge. such
a peaceful restful place tho there was a lake where ice skating was done
during the winter; other lakes; famous zoo; stages for plays, etc., etc.,
etc. Many famous people live/lived in areas across from the park - Jackie
Kennedy = John Lenon was shot there to name a couple.
We ate at an Irish pub we passed - the food was excellent and portions
were too huge!! Then we returned to our hotel, relaxed a short bit and got
dressed for the play Rent that evening. It was excellent. We got back to
the hotel about 11:00 p.m. and fell into bed!!
Had to get up early as we had a comprehensive, narrated tour of NY booked
for 8:45 the next morning. This was by Greyline - I will try and recall
most of what it encompassed - actually - I've copied & pasted the ad for
this tour. Here 'tis:
Manhattan Comprehensive Accompanied by a professional tour guide, see all
of Manhattan from Uptown to Downtown - the new Times Square, the Empire
State Building, Madison Square Garden, the Flatiron Building, Greenwich
Village, SoHo, Little Italy and Battery Park, where you will board a ferry
on a one-hour cruise with close-up views of the Statue of Liberty / Ellis
Island and Brooklyn Bridge. Resume tour at Battery Park driving up to
Central Park, the Cathedral St. John the Divine, Grant's Tomb, Harlem, the
Museum Mile, Fifth Avenue, Rockefeller Center and more. Includes lunch,
ferry ticket and admission to Empire State Building Observation Deck.
Daily at 9am except holidays.
** nycVP Highly Recommended **
Actually, on this day the Empire State Building was substituted with tour
of United Nations Building. On the way to the ferry, we passed near
Ground Zero of 9/11 - impressive. We couldn't go on the Statue of Liberty
- it's been closed to the public for some time, but we were "right there"
- we did get off the ferry and tour Ellis Island. It was interesting. I
had studied that so much doing genealogy, it was interesting actually
being there. When we toured the UN - it was our last "off the bus" tour,
we were so tired, we were tempted to sit it out. Glad we didn't. We were
divided into groups of 14 for guided tour - our guide was from Guyana -
fantastically good, she spoke 6 languages. We were in several "chambers"
and had opportunity to sit while she made explanations, entertained
questions, etc. It was fantastic. We passed St. Patrick's cathedral
where the Kennedys were married and several other impressive, huge, ornate
churches. We did not return from our tour until 6:30 - spent!! We ate in
the hotel dining room, which proved to be an excellent choice - it was
always crowded, owned by two 70+ year old Polish brothers, one of whom was
ALWAYS there!! The food was ethnic, very good, huge portions, and
reasonably priced. We had breakfast there the following morning!
Besides the airplane tickets, hotel accomodations, transportation to and
from the hotel, tour, and 2 plays, NYCVP also included in the package 3
additional coupons - one for a choice of 2 walking tours if we were there
on Sat. (which we were not & happy not to have to walk,ha); one for a
choice of Natural History Museum or Museum of Modern art; and choice of
Rockefeller Center or Empire State Observatory. After breakfast on Thurs.
we took a cab to the History Museum (Charlie's choice - see how good I am
to him) - it was 4 stories - numerous rooms on each floor - and I do
believe it covered everything that transpired since the beginning of
time!!!! We then took a cab to the Empire State Building (chose that as
it seemed the least tiring) - had a light late lunch in a food center
there - then took elevators to the (2) to the Observatory. It was
fantastic. We took some pictures (several places) - haven't put them in
the computer yet - hope they're OK, photographers we're not!!!!) - then
took a cab to a music store near our hotel as we wanted to get Andy a
birthday present (see, you thought we forgot!!!) - we had already picked
up a few souveniers - then went in at Maxie's (a kinda famous NY cafe),
which was very near and ordered a coupe of appetizers to share (only bad
thing, we were always too tired to be very hungry) and a drink and they
were very good - had Maryland crab cakes and calamari, yummmmm.
Then that evening - our last, we went to our other show --- I maybe
shouldn't share this, but can't resist. I was so careful to make all our
selections - Rent was a fairly recent one which was a hit and "Take Me our
to the Ballgame" I thought was a take off from the clean cut old song - or
the song was peculiar to the play or whatever - anyhow I figured it was a
good old "all American" which had been around for ages!!! Did I forever
get fooled. If it wasn't actually Porno - it was about as close as you
could get, I think - as bad as I claim to be, I'm no expert on that!!!
AAnyhow, I hope no one I've bragged to about the shows we were seeing knew
what it really was!!!!!
So, that was it. We called for transportation to the airport for 9:25
a.m. flight - they picked us up at 6:45 - takes longer to get to flying
now!!! But it's worth it!!! That whole trip which included everything
except food, taxis, Central Park ride and shopping was included in one
price which we felt was a good price (better than the one we planned which
was cancelled after 9/11 and included more).
NYCVP really puts together an excellent package. Another thing----- once
everything was settled on andd time came to book - they wanted our credit
card number - a natural thing = except I thought "I don't know anything
about them, dare I???? = so I called NYBBB and Chamber of Commerce,
neither of which had ever heard of them!!! I called the hotel and they
verified that they had done business with them, but I was still nervous
about it. So I got in touch with GOOGLE, the best computer search engine
I know of - lo and behold, they have a service for that for almost nothing
- I think $2.00 to join and $1.50 for each search or something like that.
They could find nothing, so I E mailed Debbie at NYCVP and asked for
address and phone no. --- Lo it was in Pennsylvania! I sent that to
GOOGLE and they came back and said they felt it was safe, so off we
went!!!
If it weren't for NYCVP and GOOGLE we'd have missed the trip of a life
time !!!!! Thanks to them.
Regards to all. ---- Excuse the small print, I lost my Font when I did the
copy and paste and couldn't get it back!!!! |
