NYC Day 5 and Q&A

Friday morning we were up and at 'em for one last "first breakfast" in the lounge...

NYC - Part 4

 We were in our room LATE Wednesday night when we looked at the forecast for Thursday and saw that it was going to be drizzly in the morning and after a busy few days decided to re-evaluate our plans to walk to Bryant Park, the public library and Grand Central Station.  I think that they really would have enjoyed seeing those things BUT I think it would have been A LOT so instead we booked a carriage ride through Central Park!  

NYC - Part Three

Wednesday started off on the early-side with 9 am tickets to the Top of the Rock observation deck at Rockefeller Center.  We had "first breakfast" at the hotel (of course!) and then decided to check out Black Seed Bagels in Rockefeller Center...

NYC - Part TWO

Before I get started with the details of Tuesday in NYC I thought I'd share about where we stayed.  

NYC - Part ONE

 EEEEK!  I've been DYING to tell y'all but we surprised the kids with a somewhat impromptu trip to NYC and had the absolute BEST TIME.  So here's a little back story... we had this week in June with nothing planned and I started looking into taking the kids somewhere solo like the JW Marriott in San Antonio, Sea World, etc.  I wasn't sure if Dave would be able to make his schedule work kind of last minute but when he was able to I started to expand my search to include beach rentals.  I know that some people are LOYAL beachgoers.... particularly 30A loyal beachgoers BUT I grew up going to beaches in NC and SC and, honestly, the thought of having to rent chairs and being 3 rows back from the water and all of that sounds not all that appealing (SORRY loyal beach people... I don't have any desire to go to Disney World either so there I go offending 90% of people - hahahaha)  Not saying it will never happen but I just need more details on how to not be stressed about it ;)

I started looking into going to Edisto Island (one of my FAVES from growing up) but things were pretty picked over and we decided to table that idea for an upcoming summer where we wouldn't be scrambling to book something (see... I'm not anti-beach!).  I decided to look into NYC and after a night of googling, researching, pricing, etc. we booked flights and a hotel!  (I booked all of this on 5/29 and we left 6/13!) 

We flew Delta into LGA and booked a hotel in the midtown/Central Park South area.  We knew we wanted to take the kids to see all the "touristy" things and so we bought each of us a  CityPASS which made it SUPER simple to book activities and then allowed me to kind of plan our days around those times.  The CityPASS gave us choices of activities (i.e. Guggenheim OR Top of the Rock) and saved a TON of money vs purchasing individual tickets.  We also had access to discount Broadway Tickets through CityPASS which was great as well.  

We decided not to tell the kids about the trip because what's better than a trip to NYC?  A SURPRISE trip to NYC ;) Mason had a football game last Sunday evening and when we piled back into the car all hot and sweaty they asked why we couldn't go out to eat with friends and I said... "oh... because we have to go home and pack... because we're going to New York tomorrow!"  Their reactions were HILARIOUS - you can see Luke just processing things, Mason is over the top excitement and Griffin burst into "happy tears" which, honestly, looked super sad. hahaha

We went home, packed and then everyone was up way too late with excitement ;) We left bright and early the next morning and couldn't have asked for a better experience.