72 Hours in New York

I have been back from New York a week now. Wow what a trip. I would like to thank both Celebrity Cruises, British Airways and The Beacon Hotel for a fantastic few days.

The journey started for me with a short flight to London from Edinburgh down to Heathrow this is the first time I have transited through Heathrow I normally try to fly from Gatwick or get the train down to London. I know why now!! Heathrow is huge and having gone down with Virgin on the new Little Red service its a good job I went the night before otherwise I would have been more than a little stressed having to change terminals in Heathrow!! As it was I had an overnight hotel which made the journey ok.

Flying with British Airways gave me the chance to check out the fairly new Terminal 5. Its much bigger than expected and plenty of places for shopping and eating. We had the chance to try out the British Airways lounge so a chance for champagne before boarding the flight, well I was on my holidays! We flew out to Newark in Economy in my opinion this was fine even more so as it was a day flight and only 7 hours. Service on board was great and the staff were all happy to assist. There was also plenty of on board entertainment for all ages.

Once in New York it did take a while to clear security but I think everyone accepts that when heading to the USA. We had a private taxi meet us at the airport and take us to the hotel.

The Hotel Beacon was to be our home for the next 3 nights.  Located on the Upper West Side its not somewhere I would have normally placed someone for a 3 night stay. Having looked on the map before travelling out to New York I thought it was a little far out. How wrong was I!! The location was perfect, 2 blocks from Central Park and a Subway station at the end of the block. It was close enough to Time Square but the hotel was in a lovely little neighbourhood everything you needed was on your doorstep.

The great thing about the Beacon Hotel was the size of the rooms. New York is well known for the tiny rooms on offer and this was completely different. All rooms had a small kitchenette (perfect for families) They offer standard rooms and 1 or 2 bed suites. I was in a 1 bed suite which could comfortably sleep a family of 4. The kitchen was sufficient with a cooker, microwave, large fridge freezer and all utensils. To top it off there was a huge Fairways supermarket right opposite.

After a tour of the hotel it was time to get ready for dinner. The hotel offers FREE Wifi so it was a chance to catch up with my family back home. We headed a few blocks up town on Amsterdam Avenue and had a lovely meal. Amsterdam Avenue was just a few minutes walk from the hotel and had a huge selection of restaurants to chose from.

Day 2 – Sightseeing day!

This morning we took the express subway down to Times Square it took less than 5 miniutes. From here we jumped on the Greyline hop on hop off New York Sightseeing bus tour. We had a full ticket which covered Uptown loop, Downtowm loop, Brooklyn Loop, Bronx Loop & Night Tour. This is a great way to see all New York has to offer and to save your feet!! I only took the tour from Times Square, Down 8th Avenue,  onto 6th Avenue past the Empire State then back onto 5th Avenue where I got off. I decided to get off as it was really quite warm and traffic was pretty bad so I decided I would be better off on foot. We strolled down 5th Avenue and onto One World Trade Centre where we took some time at the 9/11 Memorial. This is a real must they have turned the area around with a really lovely tribute to those who lost their lives.

From here we made our way through Battery Park to take a circle line tour taking in some great views of The Statue of Liberty.

Now it was time for a bite to eat & shopping!! So once off the circle line tour we headed over to Chinatown you could pick up anything here! Although it looked fake!! It was great for the hustle and bustle after a bit of haggling with a few purchases we ended up in Little Italy, our feet were ready for a break!! We stopped off in a nice little Italian for pizza and ice cold beer!! Next stop Broadway well that’s the street!! We were still down near the financial district and found Century 21 a great department store, a shoppers paradise we all came out with more than a couple of bags of bargains!! We even got ourselves a new outfit as we were meeting for dinner and didn’t have time to make it back to the hotel for a quick change!!

Day 3 – Celebrity Summit

After breakfast we took a transfer to Cape Liberty for our morning on board Celebrity Summit (You will need to pop by next week to read all about that)

Some of the group were wanting to do a little more shopping so we headed to Jersey Gardens Mall after our visit on board Celebrity Summit. I have to be honest I was a little disappointed as I was expecting a little more from the shopping Mall however I did manage to find a couple of hand bags!! We took the local bus from here and made our way back to hotel to get ready for our night out. As we had eaten a fair bit for our lunch on board we decided to skip dinner and headed to the flashing lights of Times Square.

Day 4 – Home

Today was the last day in New York and I had a couple of things I still wanted to do. So I left the hotel and wandered through Central Park down onto 6th Avenue until I came to The Rockerfeller Centre. The top of my list before coming was to do Top of the Rock, this is the observation viewing deck at the top of the Rockerfeller Centre. We did have to queue for this. I would recommend you to take a NYC City Pass if you have a few sights you want to see whilst in New York. You can purchase it before you go and you can skip most of the queues.

I then headed back to Times Square for my last bits of shopping before heading back to the hotel for our night flight back to Heathrow. We were in for a treat as we were upgraded to World Traveller Plus on the flight back. This is the first time I have experienced this service and it was fab. I would highly recommend upgrading. You can upgrade for just the flight home and having a look at the cost its not too bad and sometimes is as little as £150 – £200pp to upgrade. I found the main difference was the legroom. It meant I could stretch out that little bit more. Im a terrible night flyer normally and can honestly say I slept really well, I even missed them bringing around breakfast!!

Overall a fantastic time was had in New York. I’m already planning my next visit!!