Mission: 13 hours in NYC

It all started when I decided that it would be wonderful to visit New York City, then I started pricing hotels and airfare and it was quickly adding up. There is so much to see and do in NYC that I knew it would be impossible to see and do everything in one trip. I decided to focus on sightseeing NYC iconic sites for this trip. I remembered that there was a trip that is very popular that is offered by a bus company that they call the NYC red-eye and costs $110pp. This trip picks up its passengers in the evening and transports them during the night to New York City, where upon arriving at Rockefeller Center at approximately 7 a.m. , they have 13 hours to explore before meeting at the same spot at 8p.m. to ride back home during the night. Whew! I decided that this was the perfect trip for my son and I and started planning. This trip was in June while school is out and New York is hot.

Our morning began about a hour outside New York City at a Travel plaza to change and buy some food before heading into the city. While diving in, we were given a quick run down of what to expect and some travel pointers and opportunity to ask any questions. We rolled in and were set loose on the city!

From here we headed to Grand Central Terminal. Along the way we passed St. Patrick’s Cathedral. After taking the obligatory selfie at Grand Central Terminal, we walked to The Empire State Building passing the New York Pubic Library. We had purchased a GoCity Pass before arriving and used this for our entry fee. One way to save money when visiting major cities is to compare prices of the places you want to visit and the entry fees against buying a pass in advance. For this trip I chose the 3 sites, pick as you go option to keep things flexible. We arrived close to opening, so our wait wasn’t long before we were whisked up to the Observation Deck via two elevators. Before going to the Observation Deck, there is a self guided tour about the history of The Empire State Building to walk through. On the ESB app there is an audio tour available. I actually listened to the audio tour at home before our visit, but download at home before visiting if you want to do this.

From here, we used our next option on our GoCity Pass and boarded a double decker tour bus that had a stop about a block away from the ESB. There were a plethora of people trying to get you to buy tickets for various tour buses and they seemed to be willing to negotiate prices, but I would not trust that they were legitimate, always buy tickets from the ticket office if you didn’t pre-purchase online. We rode through various stops, such a China Town and Wall Street, getting off at Battery Park.

Notice the building in the background of above photo, that houses the Sea Glass Carousel. At the time we went, it was $5.00 per ride, cash only, but there was an option to buy more rides at a better rate. My son, of course, had to try this out. Afterwards, I gave my son the choice between walking over to catch our view of The Statue of Liberty here at Battery Park, just like in those Liberty Mutual commercials, or catching the Staten Island free ferry for our view. To be honest, I was starting to flag a bit at this point and just didn’t have the energy to do both, so after he chose to ride the ferry, we trudged over to the building to board. There was a hoard of people who were doing the same thing we were. Just as we were entering the building, they allowed boarding for the next ferry, but there were too many people ahead of us, so we had to wait for the next one. Fortunately, it was cool in there and surprisingly easy to find a seat on the benches to wait. To visit The Statue of Liberty, would take several hours, so taking the Staten Island free ferry is a popular option to get as close to the Lady as possible for free. After boarding we had plenty of time to wander about and catch the views from various angles. The ferry is about 20 minutes in duration and you must get off the ferry and re-board to go back.

It just so happened that we were at the gate at the time the ferry docked at our destination. As soon as they let us off, several people started sprinting around to the boarding side to get back on the ferry for the return trip. As soon as I realized what they were doing we tried to hurry after them, but it was to no avail, as too many were lined up for the return trip and I don’t believe any of us made it. It just so happened that there were two police officers making their rounds as I was walking by and one chuckled and said “well, you’re stuck on the rock for another 20 minutes” to no one in particular. I kind of laughed to myself about his comment, because this same same scene had to repeat its self over and over again every day. We just waited in the terminal for our return ride and my son entertained himself by taking a million photos of the fish tank there.

After arriving back in Manhattan, we were ready for lunch. We decided to take the subway station located right there next to the ferry terminal to get to our next stop, which was the American Museum of Natural History, that conveniently has a Shake Shack next to it. This subway stop didn’t have a direct line to the museum, so I decided to get as close as we could and walk the rest of the way. Shake Shack was swamped and we got our food to go and sat on one of the benches that surround the grounds of the museum. On researching for this trip, I read that the museum does sell food, but that it is pricey and decided that eating before visiting the museum was our best bet, plus we don’t have Shake Shacks were we live. We planned our visit to the museum for the hottest part of the day for this 13 hour marathon. We used our last option on our GoCity Pass here, but the museum does have a Pay-what-you-wish ticket option available only at the ticket counters. I would advise checking out the web site before you go to get an idea of what you want to visit and to make sure the museum is not closing early for a special event. The museum is vast and you can spend quite some time here.

After leaving the museum, I had planned on walking across the street to Central Park and at least see a portion of it, but we were not up for it, so we took the subway stop at the museum to Times Square. We took the opportunity to get our self some New York pizza at John’s Pizza Times Square

From here, we walked through Times Square and back to our meeting point at Rockefeller Center. No one wanted to miss the bus as most of our bus mates all showed up with a hour to spare. We prepared ourselves for the ride back at the restrooms available at Rockefeller Center and when we came out we got to meet some of the police horses!

What a perfect end to our day in New York City! We boarded the bus for home and settled in for our ride home.

Overall, we loved this trip even though it was exhausting. I thought it was a perfect budget compromise with seeing somewhere we had never been before without spending hundreds of dollars. We did miss a couple of sights that were originally on my list, such as the 911 Memorial and Central Park, but we hit so many sights, that this was a perfect 1st trip for us. If you want to go to a major city on a budget, look for a similar experience near you.

Apps used for trip