NEW YORK
I have been to New York 5 times within my travel career and have stayed at The Beacon every time. A few of these trips were while working for Qantas Holidays where I escorted travel consultants to showcase the hotels, tours etc. On these trips, we inspected many New York hotels and experienced many tours.
Regarding accommodation, for price and room size I wouldn’t go past The Beacon. Everyone I’ve booked into The Beacon comes back highly recommending this property. It isn’t a high rise modern hotel or situated in the very centre of the hustle & bustle but located on the Upper West side. The benefit of its location is when you’re sick of pushing and being pushed on the New York sidewalks (especially peak times), you jump on the Metro train a couple of stops and walk on nice wide roomy sidewalks to your hotel room. You can then sit in your separate living room & watch TV, cook a meal in your kitchen or just rest in bed with the separate bedroom. The space is great to allow you to store all your shopping bags as well. You really get the feeling of how the locals live in this area and it’s a quick stroll to Central Park & a 24 hour supermarket straight across the road. If you really want to be amongst the thick of it all, the Affinia properties also have nice sized rooms however you will pay for the location.
Whenever I visit a new city I always do the hop on/hop off bus tour or a city tour to familiarise myself and get an idea of where I want to spend the most time or which sights I want to see. This is especially great if you have limited time as you can narrow down exactly the places you want to see so you don’t miss out. You also get great commentary on the history, geography and anything else of interest in the city.
Something you may not consider doing however I highly recommend is The Harlem Gospel Tour. The tour is cheaper on a Wednesday than a Sunday as Sunday is when all the Harlem locals dress in their very best and attend the church. Wednesday is still great as it’s all about the soul lifting Gospel music from the ARC Choir. This choir are all rehabilitated drug addicts who came together to raise money to continue rehabilitation for drug addicts. Their voices are powerful and beautiful and you will walk out of the service feeling exhilarated. You also get a Harlem bus tour stopping at the famous Apollo Theatre & Cotton Club. A really great tour.
If you’re not interested in getting right up close & personal with the Statue of Liberty, don’t forget you can see it free from the Staten Island ferry. This huge passenger ferry leaves from Manhattan to Staten Island return and cruises straight past the Statue of Liberty. Great photo opportunity, no crowds and best of all it’s FREE. You can jump off at Staten Island and board the next ferry back to Manhattan.
Magnificent views of New York City can be seen from both the Empire State Building and Rockafeller Centre. Empire State Building is taller but both have amazing views of the city. The benefit of Rockafeller Centre is you see the Empire State Building in your view whereas if you’re at the Empire State Building obviously you don’t see the whole building. Generally lines for Empire State Building are longer however Rockafeller Centre is also getting popular.
In winter you can go ice-skating at Rockafeller Centre however this is a very popular location for tourists to do this. We went ice-skating in an outdoor rink in Central Park. It was amazing and felt like we were in a movie. You can skate around while music is playing and look out at the huge New York skyscrapers. It was less busy when we went than Rockafeller Centre so would definitely check out this location if you are wanting to ice-skate.
There are so many more things I can talk about in New York and will do so in following blog posts however if you are thinking of visiting New York then let me arrange this for you.
Don’t forget to wear comfortable walking shoes as New York is best seen on foot to ensure you don’t miss out on seeing everything.