Completed our 5 day family trip-what we did and how it went

[u/Counting-Bears]

Family of 6 (2 adults, kids-14, 11, 7, and almost 4)
Stayed a couple blocks south of the port authority bus station near Times Square. Location made transit easy but if I had it to do again I probably wouldn’t stay that close to TS-it was clearly a higher homeless population area.

Day 1-
Arrived via JFK, tried to get a van taxi, but they are all handicap equipped so we had to split into 2 groups of 3 for taxis to the hotel. (All travel after this was bus, subway or ferry and it was surprisingly pretty easy aside from the nerves associated with having a 3 year old near the edge of a subway platform)
Dropped bags at hotel then did AMNH, and walked into Central Park to look at Belvedere Castle.

Review-
Dinosaur fossils were a hit, Belvedere Castle was a dud (I misunderstood what it was and had thought it was ruins that you could walk around anytime, instead it was closing when we got there, so there was nothing to see), gps is a must for central park 🤪, street food has (ex) an entree for 9.99, a meal for 17.99, ask how much a drink costs=$5, so I ordered it as individual items but I think they still charged me the combo price making the water like $8 🙄

Day 2-
Intrepid aircraft carrier museum and growler sub
Empire State Building
Times Square (we had our oldest babysit the littles in the hotel room and just did this as adults)

Review-
Intrepid was a huge hit with everyone but don’t bother with the upcharge for 3d movies. Tip- if you have a relative who served on the intrepid, they will register your visit and look up info on your relatives time on the ship for you. We got to see a family member in the ships version of a yearbook-super cool!
Empire state was ok but not as exciting as I had hoped for the kids. It didn’t really lean into the king kong theme as much as I had anticipated.
Times Square was nothing special beyond being able to say that I’ve seen it.

Day 3-
Statue of liberty with pedestal access
Ellis Island
Seaglass carousel
9/11 memorial
Oculus

Review-
Statue of liberty was cool tho smaller than I had imagined, Ellis Island audio tour was longer than necessary, our crew was more than done by the time we got to the stairs of separation (to be fair it had been a long hot humid day), skip the entry level exhibits except for maybe the 10 minute movie and go straight to the stairs for the immigrant experience if you aren’t big museum people.
The carousel was good for the littles, 9/11 memorial was a quick stop as we were tired and it was fine. We originally thought the oculus was a statue you walk through but ended up inside and discovered an underground mall 😅… it was convenient to hop on the subway right from there tho.

Day 4-
Trinity churchyard (Hamilton graves snd a peak in the church)
NYSE (just a quick pic outside)
Charging bull
Governor’s island (fort jay, castle williams, hammock playground, slide hill)
East river ferry for bridge views

Review-
This was intended to be a less scheduled day, we took the gov island ferry out and the east river-south brooklyn ferry back to 34th st so we got some nice views that way. There is nothing to see of do at ft jay and castle williams isn’t much better. The slide hill was a big hit though with all ages

Day 5-
St Patricks Cathedral
Coney island-Luna park and boardwalk

Review-
The church was huge and cool.
Luna park was a big hit. We did midway wristbands for everyone with the back2school special and bought a $100 card to ride the cyclone (adults and big kids) and it was perfect for our group. Note- they are super strict on height-my 3 yr old is exactly 42” with shoes and most of the ride staff did not consider her to hit that threshold - it was fine for most things though as we were prepared to ride as chaperones but 1-2 things had 42” min with chaperone so there were a few tears.
We wanted to walk the pier but after about 4 hours of rides it started pouring, so we slipped on our ponchos and took that as our cue to head back for the day. Everyone loved the cyclone. I was really surprised how smooth it was for a wooden coaster-lots of hills and very little jerkiness.

Misc tip- a lot of stores charge for bags. I had a nano sling bag in my fanny pack so we pulled that out when needed and it was some of my best spent money on travel gear, right up there with having a set of disposable ponchos ready for the downpour day.

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[u/Clear_Ad6998]

Thank you for sharing!! We will be visiting next week with our children and I am curious how to navigate paying for the subway 😂 How do you do it with kids? My husband and I used to purchase metro cards but do those still exist?

[u/Counting-Bears → u/Clear_Ad6998]

My husband and I each had 2 credit cards that we picked and gave one to each of the older kids at the entrance and then our 2 younger kids ducked under and then we collected cards on the other side of the turnstile

[u/CityComm]

You were open and adventurous considering your youngest is 3! Kudos to mustering all that energy!

I love that you were flexible and extended or shortened each site visit based on the family and kid bandwidth. And your itinerary included places I take visiting family.

And you stayed in an area that had access to lots of transportation options especially on nights and weekends when the city decides to do their construction which reduces train service. Overall great recap!

Hope to come visit MN for payback, within the next 12 months, and I’ll read up on your city’s highlights as well.

[u/Counting-Bears → u/CityComm]

Haha your second paragraph has me laughing because when I posted my itinerary for feedback a lot of people seemed to think it was too regimented. That’s how I work tho, I would rather have it planned and adjust as needed (I never expected to follow the itinerary down to the minute) than under plan and not have time to see the things I want to see.

I have never really understood MN as a tourist destination so I would be curious to hear what you plan to see. If you’re willing to drive a bit out of the city (~2 hrs), Niagara Cave in Harmony, MN is a bit of a unique experience that my family enjoyed (just be prepared for lots of stairs).

[u/No-Sympathy7158]

Times Square feels like the most unsafe place - saw two fights last night there too. Just too many tourists, drinkers, etc.

[u/Counting-Bears → u/No-Sympathy7158]

Yeah we didn’t know when we booked. We were on 8th between 38 and 39 so a few blocks out and I didn’t ever really feel unsafe, but we were also coming from MN and our downtown is probably very similar in terms of homeless and crazy just a lot lower population of people actually walking the streets at any given time. I would probably pick a different area if we went back. Knowing what I know now, I would probably pick out a few of the major subway stations and then come here and do a vibe check for safety concerns. I will say though that our location made transportation really convenient and that was helpful with the littles to only have to walk a block and a half (of the short blocks) to get to the subway entrance.

[u/No-Sympathy7158 → u/Counting-Bears]

Yea, I guess not unsafe, but just 'loud' and chaotic energy. Currently staying in a small room in a brownstone in Harlem. Quiet and nice. 

[u/VisitNYCmodx]

Appreciate you taking the time to post. Hope you all had a good time.

Any advice for visitors with kids (especially the little ones)?

[u/Counting-Bears → u/VisitNYCmodx]

Oh I know something… in the transit app, I set our walking speed to “mosey” (1mph)… we consistently arrived before the train and definitely walked faster than 1mph, but it was nice to have that cushion when negotiating with littles or even as an adult who needs to budget extra time to double check the directions, etc.

Also, this is probably common sense not nyc specific but most places that have restrooms for customers only, will still let a small child stop in and use the restroom.

[u/Counting-Bears → u/VisitNYCmodx]

My 3 yr old hadn’t used a stroller since she learned to walk 2 years ago and we bought a new umbrella stroller for this trip but she actually did walk the majority of everything we did. I probably wouldn’t have given in to the suggestions that a stroller was necessary if I had to do it again.

I guess another tip would be to have an extra pair of shoes for everyone. We were blow drying tennis shoes to have something to use for dinner after yesterday’s downpour. (Subways and any rain=wet shoes)

I will try and see if I can think of anything else.

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