A day in the Big Apple

At our arrival at the hotel in Jersey last night, we purchased tickets for a complete Grayline Hop-on-hop-off bus tour of New York.  What we purchased was good from 8:00AM to 8PM for two nights, although we only planned on using one day's worth.  

We also had the foresight to use shuttles and/or public transport exclusively so we could avoid driving and trying to find parking in downtown Manhattan.  From the looks of the traffic we encountered while walking around, it was a good call. 

 Saturday was overcast and about 60 degrees for the high.  A sharp contrast to the weather for the past couple of days.  Quite pleasant for us northwesterners, although a little chilly on the open top deck of the tour bus. 

 The shuttle on Saturday had us at the tour bus terminal a few minutes before the tour began. That gave us enough time to grab a little breakfast from a nearby deli. 

With the time we had to see New York we could only take the Downtown tour, the Brooklyn tour and the Hop on/off Ferry Tour.  I guess we'll save the Uptown and Bronx tours for another time.  

 

 The water tour went out to the Statue of Liberty and to several stops around Manhatten Island. We hopped off in Brooklyn to take on the bus tour there. 

Interesting place, Brooklyn. Interesting to hear the history and of the rivalry between itself and Manhatten.  

We walked back from the Brooklyn tour across the bridge rather than taking the water tour boat.  It seems we weren't the only people in the neighborhood doing that.  The walkway was packed with people and bikes and strollers.  Dodging them all kept us on out toes.  Once back in the big borough, we walked over to see the 9/11 memorial. 

  Both the walk and the memorial were well worth it. 

There are two fountains depicting the missing towers.  Water cascades down the sides and down a hole.  Quite a solemn place.

We continued the tour a short time later, to see the remainder of the downtown area. That finished around 5:30.  It just so happened that we had become weary from our all day touring by now and virtually simultaneously, we decided it was time for a libation or two which would lead us into the dinner hour. 

 A lovely little Irish pub with a friendly staff, fit our requirements perfectly.  

We had a little time before the shuttle was scheduled to pick us up.  All day long, everyone was talking about how good Juniors Cheesecake is.   I'll be darned if we weren't able to find the famous place. Not too hard to pick out; people were lined up, down the street, waiting for their chance to enjoy the highly touted desert.  Not something we normally do, but we had to try a slice too. 

 

The shuttle back to our hotel in New Jersey was a little more troublesome than we had expected.  It was supposed to pick us up at 8:00 PM.  We made our way back to our starting place with about 15 - 20 minutes to spare.  Just so everything went smoothly, we went into the tour/ticket building to find out exactly where to catch our ride.  That's when we learned that: "oh, he's already been here and has left" (on the last run of the evening).  What to do!?

In a semi panic, we hailed a cab only to learn it would be around $70 to take us all the way across the George Washington Bridge to our hotel.  Probably reasonably for the cabby, but far from the cost of the included ride we were expecting.  Fortunately I had the name and number of our booking agent, who also happens to drive a different shuttle in his off time.  After an appropriate amount of expressing our disappointment with his booking our trip, he ended up shuttling us back, only an hour and a half later.  

Good day.  Off tomorrow for more sights.