Five days in New York - Itinerary for a family trip PART 1

2 Comments

Traveling to North America was always a dream, and the greatest of all dreams was to visit the Big Apple, New York. When we get the chance to do it, we reserved 6 nights to this family trip, which corresponded to 5 full days.

New York is huge and full of attractions, so this trip required a lot of planning and organization. As we travel as a family, we always try to organize our trips a little, so that we can get to know our destination to the fullest, and also make the trip as pleasant as possible for our son.

To make the most of our time, we did an exhaustive hotel search so that we were well located and not too expensive. Of course, talking about extremely expensive hotel is always difficult when it comes to New York because it is generally a city with high prices.

After extensive research, we chose to stay at the NH New York Jolly Madison Towers Hotel, East 38th Street, New York, NY, USA (you can see it HERE on TripAdvisor page). We were very pleased with our choice. Although we chose a double room, the room was quite large and the bed huge, which allowed us a great stay.

So, we will share our itinerary and experience, hoping it might be a help when planning your family trip to New York.

So, for our first day, these were our goals:

1- 5th avenue
2- Korean Town
3- New York Public Library
4- Bryant Park
5- Macy's
6- Empire State Building
7- Times Square


5th avenue

One of our goals were to walk the most on foot. In Portugal, we have no skyscrapers, and this was our chance to get lost in the middle of New York, and that was how we spent the first hours of the day, just strolling through the buildings and marveling at the 5th avenue. Needless to say we were automatically in love with the city.

 This is the ideal avenue to shop but, the prices are high so, we were only for the views, because the stores of the big brands are above our "ideal" shopping value. However, only the tour is delicious and, in contrast to these expensive shops, there are others that are the ideal places to carry out your small shoppings and souvenirs.

Korean Town

Close to the Empire State Building, it is in Korean Town and this was our chosen destination for lunch. Everyone in the family is a fan of Asian food and this was without a doubt one of the best meals (so much so that we went back to Korean Town for another meal).


 An idea that we would like to leave in relation to meals. When we go to a restaurant in Portugal, the price of the dish is often reduced, but at the price of the same, it adds the cost of the entrees, the drink, the dessert, which ends up making the meal more expensive. In this and the different meals we had in New York, we found that no one asked us if we wanted anything more than a dish and that there was no problem in drinking our water throughout the meal.

So in this way, we can say that at the budget level, meals in New York were not very expensive and we tried to have as many gastronomic experiences as we could, and we really had great (good) surprises.

New York Public Library

We love books and, since the birth of our son, we have tried to convey this taste to him, so a visit to a library is always something to his liking, as well as his parents and this is a beautiful library that you have to do part of any itinerary in New York, with or without children.

From its monumental entrance, protected by lions (which our son loved), everything is imposing and graceful. Then the part of the children's library did the wonders to our son, so we spent a good part of the day on his farm.

Bryant Park

Just behind the Library, which is on 6th avenue between 40th and 42nd Streets, you will find Bryant Park. And this delightful park, surrounded by buildings, manages to bring calm in the midst of the bustle, which makes it perfect to rest and watch the inhabitants of New York.

In the summer, this is one of the favorite places to play games, have coffee or just sit on the grass, something that we also did and it was just great. In the summer, it’s usual to pass free movies at night, check it before you travel, it may be the perfect scenario for one night in New York.

Macy's

Next we went to visit Macy's, known for being the largest store in the world. Despite our visit, we felt that it was not possible to get an idea of ​​the immensity of this logo, because it is really immense !! Although we do not advise a full visit, especially for those who travel with children, we recommend the visit.

Empire State Building

Then, as the end of the day approached, we headed for one of the great goals of our visit, the ascent to the Empire Estate Building. Of course throughout the day we could admire its facade of the floor but, we were desirous to rise.


 Luckily, when we got there, the queue was not very large, as opposed to the fear we had of huge queues due to the comments we had read on the internet. That being said, the entrance was quick and the view stunning.

We loved this view. It was the only skyscraper we climbed during our trip, just for economic reasons but we found it perfect.

To save time, you can buy the tickets online (click HERE to find out more), which will allow you to advance directly to the entry queue. Tickets are valid for up to one year from the date of purchase and the building is open every day from 08:00 to 02:00.

In the purchase of your ticket you are entitled to an interactive multimedia tour which will allow you to know the history of the building better and you can find the different languages ​​available: English, Spanish, French, Italian, Mandarin, Portuguese, Japanese and Korean.
At the time of purchasing the ticket, you have two options, the most usual, going to the 86th floor or, more expensive, go to the 86th and 102nd floors. In our case, we stayed for the 86th, also for financial reasons.

Price
86º floor:
Adult - $ 37 Child - $ 31 Senior - $ 35

86º and 102º floor:
Adult - $ 57 Child - $ 51 Senior - $ 55
(we always ask to confirm the prices on the official sites, as they may be outdated, and you can also get some promotions that are more advantageous).

Address:
20 W 34th St, New York, NY 10001, USA

Times Square

For the rest of the first day (and it was already a great day), we drove to Times Square, making a mandatory stop to eat dinner which was a huge and delicious pizza, something we at home loved and we were not disappointed at all .

Getting to Times Square is crazy !! We were flooded with colors, lights sounds!!! Even a real madness, which we always dreamed of living, but we did not stay long because it also turns out to be an excess of stimulation for our son.


 We still intended to stroll Broadway on our first night, and it was a perfect way to finish the day.

It was not our goal to watch any play, the ones we wanted to see we could not watch with our son. If you would like to see any Broadway play, we invite you to click here and check this post from Katie, who, on the Creative Travel Guide blog, provides fabulous tips for getting Broadway tickets at the best prices.

And so we closed our first day in New York and went for the hotel. Just one thing, we were already in love with New York! And it was only our first day.


We hope these ideas will help you prepare for your trip to Machu Picchu. If you still don't have a place to stay on your trip, we always do our reservations with booking, they are our partners and its with them that we get the best deals. You can look for the best deals by clicking here, it will not cost you any money and it helps us to support our blog.


Booking.com

We would also like to invite you to leave your opinion and questions, in case you have already visited Machu Picchu, let us know what you think is the best time of the day to visit. Thanks for your visit to our Non Stop Family Travel Blog, come back often and, if you liked our article, do not forget to share it with your friends.

Tags:

Share:

2 comentários

  1. Maartje16 de outubro de 2018 às 03:26

    Great itinerary, not just if you're with kids but in general! Definitely going to some of these places if I'm ever there!

    ResponderEliminar
  2. Unknown9 de novembro de 2018 às 08:32

    Looks like a great itinerary for New York. I like that you have included the map!

    ResponderEliminar