New York! Concrete Jungle Where Dreams Are Made Of.

New York! Concrete Jungle Where Dreams Are Made Of.

Kristyn Meyer is on a journey to make herself the best human she can be. These posts are a reflection of that. She welcomes your support via reading and through commissioned affiliate links within her posts! Please subscribe to her email list to stay up to date on all of her shenanigans! (psst… there’s a free gift involved)

It’s not every day that I quote an Alicia Keys song, but it seemed fitting for this particular blog. I have been wanting to write out our experience visiting New York City last December before I forget the various memories I have filed away in different places in my brain. Now that it’s been ten months, I think it’s imperative to sit down and do it, or it may be too late.

For the record, visiting NYC during Christmas has been at the top of my bucket list for roughly a million years. You see the beautiful snowy scenes that take place in the Hallmark movies, and you can’t believe it’s real life.

While my tiny little village is one of the closest things you can get to an authentic Hallmark movie experience, I wanted to see it all in the Big Apple. I’ve never been to New York City. We have ventured through New York State several times, but never the city.

How It Began

We didn’t plan this one very far in advance; the opportunity was just sort of there one day. As a bit of a backstory, we were supposed to go on an Alaskan cruise in September 2020. Obviously, this little thing called Covid came along and ruined those plans. While we were bummed, we accepted the future cruise credit and moved on with our lives, planning on taking a cruise when the time was right.

We thought that time was November 2021. We found a five-day cruise we wanted to take and booked it with our credits. Afterward, we discovered that our children could not get off the ship when we were at ports because they weren’t vaccinated. So we then canceled that cruise.

Getting our money back was a hassle, but thankfully, Capital One has excellent customer service and helped us out. As a person who wants to see it all (unless it involves outdoor camping or extensive hiking), I didn’t want to not have a trip planned. So I started thinking, which can sometimes lead to danger.

As I looked at different vacation inspiration ideas, I saw something about NYC. My heart started to beat faster, and I couldn’t start crunching the numbers soon enough. Everything was lining up cost-wise (apparently, the first week of December is a cheap time for NYC, by the way!) I still had to convince my husband.

Vacation PTSD

You see, we took a long weekend trip to Toronto back in the day. Being Michiganders, it’s essentially an extension of our state. Therefore, planning that excursion in January should have registered as a bad idea. Michigan is typically in the thick of white snow, and bitterly cold temperatures then, and our cousins to the north are also.

Needless to say, that trip was not ideal. At one point, we were trying to get to a nearby restaurant and had to walk backward on the sidewalk to avoid a violent pelting with ice chunks coming from the sky.

Therefore, he is a little gun-shy when he thinks there is any chance of being cold. And for that, I don’t blame him. However, I had weather.com on my side when it came to New York, as they predicted reasonable temperatures, so I felt good about the situation.

At first, he was apprehensive. But he has been hearing me talk about wanting to do this for most of our relationship, so he said yes. And with that, I was off to the races. But in actuality, I was off to the internet to plan everything out.

The Plan and Cost

Obviously, New York City isn’t known for being cheap. But I love finding ways to have a great time without a high price tag. Our costs came out to be around $2,000 before food and such.

• Airfare – free (Delta credits from the canceled cruises)
• Hotel – $1,225.04
• Central Park Carriage Ride – $150
• Rockettes Performance – $162
• Sightseeing Pass – $536 (would not recommend)

Total: $2,073.04 for 5 days/4 nights in New York City.

This total was only for the things listed above. The extra expenses of food, cabs, Ubers, shopping, etc., made the total much higher but not insanely. We kept plenty busy but had adequate downtime as well. The sightseeing pass allowed us entry into many of the more prominent attractions for no fee, and there are so many things in the city that you can do for free that you never feel like you’re left with nothing to do.

Flight To New York

One unique thing I did for our flight was book a hidden city flight. I didn’t even know this was a thing until I looked for airfare deals with which to use our credits. On the website Skiplagged, I came across a flight that originated in Detroit, had a layover at JFK, and continued to Miami. While I was not going to Miami (although it’s a beautiful city), the flight cost was significantly cheaper than just going from DTW to JFK.

Make that make sense to me, will you?

The catch with these flights is that you can’t check a bag. If you do, your luggage will be in the hidden city, and you will be enjoying your stay in the layover city. Therefore, it’s carry-on only. To get a cheaper rate on the way home, we actually flew out of LaGuardia instead of JFK. The things you do for a deal…

New York City Hotel

I have a confession. I am motivated in life by cinnamon rolls. Knowing that Holiday Inn Express (HIE, if you will) has what could arguably be the world’s best cinnamon rolls, my instinct is to book with them at every opportunity. New York City was no exception.

The room was super tiny, like a little fairy house but a hotel room. We had a great view of the brick exterior of the building next door. Our neighbors frequently engaged in herbal remedies, and the walls were relatively thin. However, the location was perfect, the price was right, and there were cinnamon rolls.

Except there were NOT cinnamon rolls! Was the cinnamon roll warmer in the breakfast area? Yes. Were there signs advertising cinnamon rolls? Also yes. Did I ever lay my eyes on an HIE cinnamon roll during my stay? Absolutely not.

And don’t think that I didn’t do any investigating. I showed up for breakfast at all different times, hoping to find them in the warmer. At times, I poked my head around the door’s threshold to see if the aroma wafted out. I did everything except for asking the staff if they had any cinnamon rolls. That seemed invasive. But in reality, it just makes sense. I should have asked. It would only have boosted my vacation experience.

Food

When we traveled to New York City, it was December 2021, which meant that everywhere you went, you had to show your vaccination card and identification. You could show them your card through a picture on your phone or as the real deal, but you had to follow it up with your physical driver’s license to verify.

This process was slightly annoying. It would have been better if it was summer and we weren’t wearing gloves and bulky coats. But we had to remove our gloves, unzip our coats, navigate for our license, and show the picture and card. It was tedious.

We opted to get food to go or through Doordash more often than not to avoid the whole rigamarole. Because of the time of year, we didn’t have many issues with long wait times. We just hated the process of stripping down and hunting for all the needed documentation.

Our Favorite Restaurants in NYC

With that being said, we had some great NYC restaurant food. For the very first time, we had Shake Shack, which Jacob really liked, and I thought was just okay. We decided to try the truffle fries, which was a horrible decision.

One of our first meals was at Dallas BBQ Times Square. We got right in, which was great because we were starving. The portions were huge, and the taste was terrific. Even the kids ate well, which was a miracle in and of itself.

We made a point to visit Black Tap Craft Burgers and Beer solely for the milkshakes. As parents, we said we were going to have dinner first, but we absolutely did not do that. I split a shake with Connor, Jacob shared one with Parker, and we were stuffed. There was no way that dinner was happening.

In all honesty, we frequented the pizza place on the corner more than a few times. You could get a giant slice of pizza and a pop for everyone for a reasonable price, and it was so good. We were happy, and the kids were delighted, as were our wallets.

Transportation

We took our travel car seats with us on our trip and primarily utilized Uber during our time in NYC. A few times, we hailed a taxi, but they were often more expensive, and the driving was insane. We felt safer in an Uber, so that’s the path we usually took.

At first, we were planning to use the Subway to get where we needed to go, but right before we left, Bradley Cooper told the story of being held by knifepoint in the subway while in NYC. That, coupled with other horror stories we came across, we decided to play it safe. Would we make it as locals? Likely not. Did we make it as tourists with young kids? Yup.

More To Come

I want to be able to devote enough space to all the fun things we did during our time in the Big Apple, so I am going to stop here with the basics of how we planned the central portions of the trip and then highlight the activities in separate posts. So stay tuned; the best is yet to come!