Celebrating in the Concrete Jungle

For my 30th I had always said I wanted to celebrate in New York, and specifically actually be there for the day of my birthday, and this is what I was going to do!

So a couple of weeks ago my husband and I flew out to the big apple for a 4 night trip and wow what a city!

I had planned a jam packed itinerary to make the most of our days and i can truly say after just day 1 my feet and legs were sore! If your heading to New York you must be prepared fir a lot of walking!

We stayed at a gorgeous boutique hotel on west 44th st called the Royalton, if your looking for something a little more modern in the city with a funky bar area this is the hotel for you. and the best part, the bathroom! a huge round bath tub decorated with sparkly tiles, perfect for soaking after the long cold days of walking around the city!

And location wise, amazing! Turn left out of the hotel and walk for 2 minutes and we were in the heart of Times Square.

On our first day we visited the Empire state building, after doing some research before i went it seemed best to either visit first thing in the morning or late at night to miss the ques so at 8am on the dot we were there, with pretty much no queues. we headed up in lift 1 to the 8th floor, where you then have to change to a second life which then takes you to the observation deck on the 86th floor. You can then walk the full loop and and see the most amazing views of the city, we were lucky to have a clear sunny day and could see for miles. The views are truly stunning and this was one of my favorite parts of the trip!

We then headed to Madame Tussauds, this isn’t normally something we would as its not our ‘thing’ do but we thought why not! Located in Times square you head up in a glass lift and explore the various floors and themes of wax works plus a 4D cinema, which was my favorite part!

The following day was my 30th, I will save details off this magical day for my next installment!

The day after this we headed off on a circle line cruise to see the statue of liberty, I chose the circle line as it was a convenient pier to get to, located midtown 42nd st so we could walk this from our hotel. the cruise lasted approx 1 hour with running commentary throughout but of course the main attraction and why everybody was onboard was to get those important photos of the statue of liberty, and yes she is definitely smaller than i imagined! we sat on the open deck as we wanted the best views but be prepared for the cold, it was freezing!

My husband and I have always loved the film serendipity filmed in new york, and we wanted to pop along to the serendipity cafe, we managed to find it ok but were hugely disappointing that the host was pretty rude when we asked for a table so we didn’t stay for a coffee and cake as we had hoped, that burst the illusion of that film for us!

Central Park is a great morning out, and such an escape from the city surrounding it! We visited the zoo, there arent many animals but we enjoyed it and the bird enclosure was fantastic! We set of on a bit of a ramble through the park and even found our self stumbling across a NYPD incident, we quickly hurried along from there!

As we were up this way we also visited the museum of natural history, thinking the museum may resemble something from the ‘ Night at the museum’ films we were quite excited to see the building and interior but even from the outside it was a slight let down but we made the most of a walk around in the warm!

New York really is an amazing city with so much to see and do, so many beautiful building that you just really must see at least once in a lifetime!