I want to wish everyone reading this the merriest of Christmases and the happiest of New Years. Happy holidays to everyone. This is a great time to enjoy the reason for the season with your family and friends. I hope over the past couple of years that you have enjoyed reading what I have shared on the topics of travel, finance, and auto racing. Today I’m going to tell you about this month’s experience, traveling to the most interesting city in the United States, and possibly the world… New York City. I have a basic philosophy about buying “stuff”. In most cases, I am intent on buying good stuff cheap…or at least with some sort of discount! I’m not much interested in buying cheap stuff cheap. They say you only buy quality once, right?
I have a lot of friends who live outside the United States. If they were to ask me which would be the one city I would recommend if they could only visit a single city in the U.S. my recommendation would be New York City. Of course, cities like San Francisco, Las Vegas, and New Orleans would be near the top of my list of places for my friends to see as well. I think any time of the year is a good time of the year to be visiting New York. However, I might say that going to New York at Christmas time is just a little bit more special. I conservatively estimate that I have been to New York City more than 50 times. I have some experience with the town. I’ve been there many times on business and probably twice as many times on personal adventures.
There’s no doubt about it. New York City is expensive. There are ways to mitigate that expense somewhat by buying things right (see above!). That is the case anywhere you go. Let’s not kid ourselves. New York is going to put a little bit of a dent in your budget unless you have a really big budget! Carol and I just got back from a week on the East Coast with four nights spent in New York City. We traveled with “others”. Others? That’s right, others. For reasons that I can’t explain in this note, the others that made up our New York City party cannot be identified. Is it OK if we just leave it that way?
Let’s talk about accommodations and moving around NYC. You are going to want the right place to stay in the right location. You are going to want to move around quite a bit because there is so much to see and so…and of course places to eat.
Accommodations are all over the board when you’re going to be staying in New York City. New York City has five different sections called boroughs. Those boroughs are the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. I’m going to highly recommend that if you come to New York, you stay in Manhattan. Otherwise, you’ll spend most of your time getting into and out of Manhattan! You really don’t want to do that. Even within Manhattan, there are all kinds of locations to choose from. We stayed near Times Square and our traveling companions were near Central Park. Both of those places are excellent choices compared to the alternatives of lower Manhattan or maybe Harlem.
I booked our hotel using Priceline at the Hilton Times Square in New York City. The Hilton was located on 42nd St. between 7th and 8th Avenue. That’s a pristine location in the midst of all of the Broadway theatrical opportunities. I’m not gonna tell you exactly how much we paid for the Hilton. You could just about solve for “X” if you wanted to know what we did pay. I will say this. I don’t think I can ever recall paying more on a per-night basis for a four-night stay than what we paid at the Hilton. On the other hand, I think we got a fantastic deal using Priceline. I booked this hotel about three weeks in advance on a refundable basis. We could cancel up until a couple of days before we would actually arrive at the hotel.
Each day I checked Priceline to see if the price was changing and it was. One day I noticed I could save $123 by rebooking the reservation which is exactly what I did. Using that approach and logic I thought after a few more days I might be getting the Hilton in Times Square for the price of a Motel 6 in Sheboygan. That would not be the case.
After I rebooked that first time saving $123, the price went up every day as the time got closer to our pre-Christmas arrival. Just a couple of days before we came to New York City the free cancellation period ended. At this point, the price of our hotel room on Priceline had increased by $350 a night compared to what we paid! That meant by booking a couple of weeks ahead of time with Priceline we had saved $1,400 against Priceline’s best price. We saved more than $2,000 for our four-night stay compared to the least expensive price Hilton was charging on their website. Yes, what we did pay was expensive for us. But our price was less than half the price of what Hilton was charging. I’m going to call that a major success. This was an outstanding example of buying good stuff cheap…well cheaper.
We booked our airfare round-trip from Los Angeles (LAX) to Newark (EWR) with Alaska Airlines. We have the Alaska Airlines credit card. Each year we can buy one ticket at the regular price and a ticket for a second person for just $99 ($121 with all taxes). For this trip that probably saved us about $300 or maybe a bit more. I love Alaska Airlines. I think their service is the best of all major American airlines. We landed about 20 minutes early into EWR. However, when we landed there was no gate ready for our plane. We probably waited for that gate for about 45 minutes making us 25 minutes late to the gate. Alaska sent me a text message saying that because we were arriving later than scheduled Carol and I could both get a $100 discount on our next flight with Alaska! That’s great customer service. Getting to New York City from our SoCal home, and then enjoying New York City would end up having us use nine different transportation methods. Have you ever been on a personal vacation where you used nine different transportation methods? As you read through this message you can try to count those nine transportation types if you like.
To begin with, I drove my personal car from our home in San Clemente up to the Los Angeles International Airport. Then we flew from LAX to Newark, New Jersey. There are three major airports travelers can use to get to New York. Those would be Newark, JFK, and LaGuardia. Each airport is roughly the same distance from Manhattan. It doesn’t matter all that much which New York airport you fly into. The first two days of our trip would take us to Pennsylvania and Maryland. For that, we needed a rental car. Of course, we needed to ride an AirTrain/tram from the airport terminal to the rental car location. We just happened to be in this part of the country for one of their major rain storms. It rained continuously for two days.
As we drove through Allentown, Pennsylvania we stopped at the America on Wheels auto museum. We had a good time there. Our docent was outstanding. Well done, Bonnie. We dined at Sheetz twice. If you’re familiar with the area you know Sheetz. A major part of this entire trip was to see UCLA play basketball. In Maryland we watched the UCLA Bruins beat the Maryland Terrapins on their court by a score of 87-60. We were ahead by 38 points in the second half giving Maryland the worst defeat they have ever had in the Xfinity Center in College Park, Maryland.
I might add just one more item about tonight’s basketball game. When we arrived at the arena we looked for a place to park. We pulled into the parking lot right next to the stadium. Wouldn’t you know it? That parking lot was reserved for major donors to the University of Maryland basketball program.
I asked where we might be able to park. I was told we should exit the lot make a right at the first light and a left at the second light and ride a shuttle to the stadium. It was raining. That sounded like a lot of effort.
I looked at the parking attendant the way you are supposed to look at a parking attendant in these circumstances. I pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and said, “How about if we park in that spot just 15 yards away and call it a night?” The parking lot attendant understood what I was saying. He accepted my “gratuity” and made me promise not to tell anyone. Now, I am asking for that same promise from you. Please don’t tell anyone. We good? But wait! This report is not about touring in Pennsylvania or Maryland. It is all about coming to the Big Apple, Gotham City, Manhattan, New York City. We returned our rental car to Newark, and then looked at the transportation options to get us into the city. We could take Uber, ride a bus or take the train and the subway.
Because it was raining cats and dogs we elected to go with Uber. The one-way Uber fare from Newark to Manhattan was $76. The cost of the fare itself was only $41. With the additional expenses of tolls and various taxes Implemented by the New York governments, we got our total Uber expense to $76. The bus or train would have been less expensive. It was interesting to note that the one-way fare for Uber from Newark to Manhattan was $76. At the very same time, the one-way fare from Manhattan out to the Newark airport was $122. That seemed unusual to me. We never did ride in a taxi during our visit to New York City. Taxis used to be a staple for our NYC trips. Our Uber driver told us that on the last day of our trip taxi prices were increasing by 25%. Uber was going to keep its prices at the same level they were previously. The Uber driver didn’t like that because that meant less money for him.
A couple of people also told us the value of a New York City taxi medallion has plummeted in price with the coming of age of ride-sharing companies. The medallions used to sell for more than a million dollars. Now they go for $100,000.
Checking into the Hilton Times Square was easy. I “talked” the front desk manager into giving us a corner room. OK, let’s be honest here. I didn’t really talk him into anything but we did talk about our getting a larger room. He ended up giving us a corner room with huge windows on two sides of the room. We had a great view of the Empire State building (it’s the white light on the left of the above photo) and much of Manhattan in general for $40 more a night. It’s only money, right? Oh yeah. New York City hotel rooms are almost always small. Our room was huge. The Hilton was also charging a $30 resort fee. Lots of times these resort fees give you just about nothing of real value. You might get free Internet and pool towels and the like. At least the Hilton’s $30 resort fee could be used for breakfast and the hotel bar. In a way, they were really just forcing us to use their breakfast restaurant and bar which wasn’t the end of the world. Remember, what I mentioned? New York City ain’t cheap. I told you that the other couple we were traveling with could not be identified. They were staying up toward Central Park. We would meet them for all of our meals and we ate well. I have always said that San Francisco and New Orleans are my two favorite restaurant towns. However, in point of fact, I really have three favorite restaurant towns, those being San Francisco, New Orleans, and New York City.
On our first night in the city, we ate at a place called Kin Ramen. This was a Japanese-style ramen noodle restaurant. I guess you could call the place a chain. They have one location in New York City, and one in Tokyo! Once inside the restaurant, we would have had a very difficult time knowing if we were in Tokyo or New York City.
The food and drink and atmosphere in this small below-ground level place made for a great first dinner in the city. We had spicy ramen and dumplings and drinks. We were off to a good start! I would not call Carol and me night owls. No one would call us bar hoppers, either. We weren’t even bar hoppers when we were young enough to be bar hoppers! However, when you’re in New York City, what you do stays in New York City, unless of course, you have your own newsletter. Tonight, we would be bar hoppers!
To barhop efficiently we would need the subway. We rode the subway everywhere. The cost of a one-way subway ride is $2.75. Riders over 65 years of age can apply for a reduced fare of just $1.35 per ride. We didn’t do that.
We did use the OMNY system with the subway. OMNY readers allow subway riders to “tap to pay” for their ride instead of swiping the iconic MetroCard. OMNY readers have officially been installed in every single subway station in NYC. This allowed us to tap our iPhones at the subway entrance. We simply put our phone over the scanner and breezed on through. I have never done that before. We all have mutual friends who live in Brooklyn. They are experts on New York City. They recommended a German bar called Rolf’s over on 3rd Avenue. The place has a Christmas theme. That’s an understatement. Rolf’s does Christmas 365 days a year. Rolf’s is also a difficult place to get into in the evening. We had to wait outside in rainy weather for about 15 minutes before we could get in on a standby basis. We were told the wait can be two hours or longer at times. With the rainy weather, I think that cut down on the outdoor “let’s wait it out” crowd.
The decor inside Rolf’s is 150% Christmas. Not 100%. 150%! The place is “asshole to elbow” with patrons as was often said during Marine Corps boot camp. No offense meant to anyone with that comment…just keeping it real. Rolf’s has a short menu of cocktails. Each cocktail was $30. That being the case I don’t recommend that you go to Rolf’s if you’re really thirsty. We had a drink, enjoyed the ambiance, and went to our next bar. Remember, tonight we were bar hoppers.
Our next bar was a speakeasy in the East Village. This is how things worked. First, we walked into a place called Grif Dogs. From all outward appearances, this was a simple sub-terranean hotdog establishment. Once inside Grif’s, if you know what you were doing, you discreetly entered a phone booth. Using a rotary dial inside the phone booth I dialed “1”.
Shortly after I made that call the far side of the phone booth opened into a darkly lit bar called PDT (Please Don’t Tell). We didn’t have a reservation and had to wait a little bit inside Griff’s for a table to open up. Once we were in PDT we enjoyed more cocktails and more conversation. I might add this. You can go through a decent portion of an IRA RMD just drinking in NYC! When it was time we rode the subway back to the hotel. Our first night in New York had to be classified as a major success!
When we go to New York City, we see a Broadway play just about every night that we’re there. We buy our theater tickets in the heart of Times Square at a place called “TKTS”. We refer to this as “half tix” although I don’t think that’s the official name anymore. At TKTS, you can buy your theater tickets on the day of the show at discounts of 20-50%. Normally TKTS opens at 3 p.m. However, on the days that matinees are playing, they open at 11 a.m.
Since it was still raining on Friday morning, I volunteered to go get our Broadway theater tickets at TKTS. The availability of shows changes every day. Normally there are at least 20-30 productions available at these lower prices. I was texting the other people in our group to see what kinds of shows they might like to see. I got a text back saying that we should consider the famous Rockettes – Christmas Spectacular performance at the Radio City Music Hall. That sounded like fun. Carol and I had seen the Rockettes a time or two in the past. We did live in Connecticut for just 15 months back in the early 80s. We loved going into “the city” for our entertainment.
At about 12:15 p.m. I was buying tickets for the Rockettes’ 1 p.m. performance. The Radio City Music Hall is a huge theater. It opened in 1932 and has a capacity of 5,960 people. I was wondering what kinds of seats we could get, on 45 minutes’ notice, for the last weekend before Christmas when New York was packed with tourists. I figured that people from all over the tri-state area as well as other tourists had snatched up the Rockettes tickets a long time ago. I might add this. I would rather go once to a theater and have a really good seat than go twice for the same total price and have nosebleed seats. We would get good seats today.
I would come to find out that the Rockettes’ 1 p.m. performance was sold out…at 1 p.m. We only learned that once we were inside the theater. However, at 12:15 p.m. the folks at TKTS were able to get us four seats in the center section of the hall just 15 rows from the stage for a price of about $65 per ticket. In New York City that was a double win. Great seats at a more than reasonable price. While I was at TKTS I bought tickets to another Broadway play for the evening.
I must admit something to you. I’m not proud of this. At the same time, I don’t expect to change my behavior. Even though members of the audience are told not to take photos or videos, I do. How many other guests have newsletters where photos create such interest? You can do a lot of walking in New York City. I love to walk. I walked about 40 miles during the week of our trip. Even when we use public transportation we walk a lot getting into the subway and out of the subway.
New York City has a lot of on-the-street food carts. They sell hotdogs and corn dogs and chestnuts and pretzels. Just outside of Radio City Music Hall we encountered one of these street vendors. We ordered a hotdog which wasn’t that big and a corndog which wasn’t that big for the princely sum of $18 in total. Wow! I think they saw us coming.
Later in the trip, I would stop and ask different street vendors operating on busy corners what the cost of their hotdogs was. The response I got was a price range of $2-4 dollars. I guess we picked the wrong street vendor!
Everyone loved the Rockettes performance. When we got out, we made a beeline down to Macy’s Department Store. The Macy’s store is the largest store in the United States. If you have watched the movie Miracle on 34th Street, you know that Macy’s has been around for a long time in the Big Apple. The store was decked out for Christmas!!
From Macy’s, we rode the subway down to the “Little Italy” section of New York. This is where all of the longtime Italian eateries are located. The mafia was big here a few decades ago. As a matter of fact, several mafia members have been gunned down while frequenting Italian restaurants in Little Italy!
We pretty much ate it all. I’ll worry about the calories when I get home. We had appetizers, entrees, and of course some cannolis for dessert.
Everywhere we went the service was outstanding. In Little Italy, the food and prices at Benito One, one of the most highly-rated restaurants in the area, were spot on. The waiter even provided a sketch drawing of me when the check came. I’ll bet that little “extra” generates some good tips! I might take a moment to reiterate this point. Everyone in our group kept remarking about how friendly everyone serving us in New York was. Well, except for the cocktail server at our Hilton hotel.
I’ve heard some radio and TV broadcasters dissing New York City as an unsafe crime-ridden homeless infested hell hole. Oh my. We walked ALL OVER NEW YORK. We never felt unsafe for a single second. The place was packed. Everyone was having a good time. In forty miles of walking, I might have seen a total of four homeless people and they were not bothering anyone.
If you hear negative reports about NYC I suggest you cast a wary eye on the person or source dispensing that information. I guess a story telling people that New York is back and looking fantastic wouldn’t draw many eyeballs. New York City had never looked any better or safer to me on this trip.
Following dinner, in Little Italy, we hustled over to the Nederlander Theatre to see a performance of Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol. As mentioned we got our tickets to the show for about $100 each from TKTS. Inside the theatre box office, tickets were going for $119-179. We had great seats maybe 8-10 rows from the stage.
Tonight, the Christmas Carol was a one-man show. We’ve seen the Christmas Carol before but never with just one actor. What an amazing performance. Jefferson Mays starred as Scrooge. For nearly two hours he went into some of the most complex dialogs, sometimes playing multiple parts, that I have ever heard. When the show was finished all the four of us could say was “Wow”. Would I need to see this show in this format again? Maybe not. Was I glad I saw it once? Absolutely!
The next morning, Saturday, we decided to use some of our Hilton resort fee credits at the Hilton breakfast restaurant. The continental breakfast went for $18 per person. Their full breakfast including meats and waffles and the like was $41. Since we had to use up our credits we went with the full breakfast. It was delicious even if the price tag was just north of $100. The “others” we were traveling with were staying up near 5th Avenue. One morning their breakfast for two was $162. Luckily, well not luckily because these folks don’t do stuff based on luck, breakfast was included in their room rate!
The main event of our touring today was going to be a visit to Madison Square Garden. We are huge UCLA basketball fans. We have season basketball tickets to UCLA’s home game and follow them by traveling to the NCAA tournament games. Today UCLA was playing in the CBS Sports Classic against the Kentucky Wildcats. The preliminary game would be the North Carolina Tar Heels against the Ohio State buckeyes. We ordered our basketball tickets a few months ago. I told you that New York City was expensive, right? We ended up paying $300 for each seat, but we were just 13 rows from the court and inside the foul lines. Like I say, I’d rather pay a little bit more and have a great seat than pay a little bit less and have a bad seat.
We walked over to Madison Square Garden from our hotel using 8th Avenue. It was less than a 15-minute walk. The rain had left us. Our last three days in NYC would be rain-free with temps in the low 40s. That’s not that bad for the last half of December.
The good thing about going over to MSG today was this. Penn Station is located right next to Madison Square Garden. We would end up riding a train from Penn Station back to the Newark airport on our departure day. Scoping things out this morning was the way to go so we wouldn’t get hung up when we needed to get to the airport.
The basketball was exciting. North Carolina ended up making a comeback and beating Ohio State in overtime. Then our UCLA Bruins beat the Kentucky team by 10 points. Having beaten both Maryland and Kentucky on the road made that part of the trip extra special.
Following the basketball, we found another Italian restaurant called Tavola for dinner over on 9th Avenue. We dined on some really delicious New York pizza and drank our share of wine. All of the restaurants we visited were packed. Nevertheless, we got in quickly without reservations and the service was surprisingly quick and always, no always the service was superior and friendly.
Today, Sunday was going to be a busy day. Well, to be honest the entire trip had been busy but we like it that way. We stopped at the famous Saint Patrick’s Cathedral for early morning Christmas church services. Then we rode the subway over to Brooklyn. We have some good friends who live in a high-rise condo building in Brooklyn. We went over to their place to watch the World Cup finals between Argentina and France. It was fun seeing our friends. What a beautiful and kind family they are. We hadn’t been with them since Thanksgiving in 2018 when they came to our house.
The cool thing about their condo, which is on about the 20th floor of their building, is they have a killer view of Manhattan from every room in the house. We were there during the day. The view was outstanding. Then they gave us a picture of the view at night. If possible, the nighttime view was even better than what we saw during the daytime. I would take their view and their city and our climate in a heartbeat.
From Brooklyn, we rode a ferry boat over to Manhattan. Then we hopped on a city bus and took that back toward our hotel. On the ferry, I had a canned Mai Tai cocktail. I don’t know if it was because I was on an empty stomach or what but that was a STRONG cocktail.
We walked from our hotel to tonight’s restaurant and passed Times Square. There was a MAJOR celebration going on there celebrating Argentina’s win in the World Cup soccer final. Fans were going wild!
We have been eating in some really good restaurants. Tonight, we ate at a place called Indian Accent. This restaurant has a Michelin star. I don’t eat in a lot of restaurants that have a Michelin star.
What is a Michelin star and how is it awarded? Here’s the definition I found. “A Michelin Star is awarded to restaurants offering outstanding cooking. We take into account five universal criteria: the quality of the ingredients, the harmony of flavours, the mastery of techniques, the personality of the chef as expressed through their cuisine and, just as importantly, consistency both across the entire menu and over time.”
After having eaten at a few restaurants of this type, I have learned two things. The food is outstanding, and the food is expensive. That was the case with Indian Accent. The food and the presentation were over the top. Check out the photos of the delicacies that we dined on. It was fantastic. Following our Indian dinner, we went to an off-Broadway play. Once again, we purchased our tickets from TKTS. Did you know that off-Broadway plays are defined as being theaters that accommodate 100-499 people? An off-off-Broadway production is performed in theaters of 99 people and less. That leaves Broadway plays performing in houses that seat 500 people or more.
We saw the production titled “The Play That Goes Wrong”. This was an English slapstick comedy. Overall, it was a little weird, but a little weird is often what we are in search of when we get tickets to an off-Broadway play in New York City. On Monday morning Carol and I were up early. One of the things that I absolutely hate about the East Coast is the time zone. Our wake-up call came at 4:50 a.m. New York City time. That was 1:50 a.m. California time. How often do you begin your day at 1:50 a.m. in the time zone you are most accustomed to? I really don’t care what your answer is to that. I never want to do that!
We walked about 15 minutes from our hotel to Penn Station, which as mentioned is right next door to Madison Square Garden. At this early hour, there wasn’t much happening. We were early for our 6:47 a.m. train to the Newark airport. If you are not early you are late! We were so early that we had one minute to catch the 6:15 a.m. departure. We did just that. Once at the airport, we rode the AirTrain, which is a tram that takes you from the train station itself to the airport terminal. We had also ridden the AirTrain tram to pick up our rental car when we arrived in New York. If you go back through this post, you will see the nine different transportation methods that we used. They all seemed to fit the bill at just the right time. In general, the overall cost was reasonable. Our flight back to Los Angeles from Newark was uneventful. When we land from one of these big trips, I will walk with my luggage about a mile back to our airport parking garage. Carol will corral whatever checked bags we have. Then I will return to the terminal to get her and the bags. This is been our method for decades. Despite having eaten, high-quality, rich, and in some cases expensive food in New York City, our last meal, before returning home was going to be one of our best.
In our hometown of San Clemente, the famous In-N-Out Burgers chain, has just opened up an outlet. They opened a few days ago and this was our first visit. We had our burgers and I went with animal-style fries from In-N-Out’s “secret” menu. I will tell you that we had a fantastic time in New York City. Having been to Manhattan as much as I have, I have never seen it look better. During the entire five days we were in the city everyone we met was very friendly.
I will also say that the city was absolutely jampacked with tourists. But then Christmas time might be the busiest time of the year for NYC. That’s what made being able to get such great theater seats so surprising. The sidewalks in New York City are wide. They need to be. New York City was probably as crowded as I’ve seen it as well. The weather when we arrived was a little bit iffy with rain. The high temperatures were in the low 40s during the day and in the high 30s during the evening. There was no snow. Not having snow at Christmas in New York is a bit of a bummer. However, we all agreed that if we had had snow, the temperatures would’ve been colder, and that would’ve been a drag when we were outside walking and enjoying the sights and sounds of New York as we were.
I told you to begin with that we traveled with “others”. We had a great time with these folks. We all have similar interests in terms of dining and exploring and getting as much out of a trip as we possibly can. Carol and I will look forward to when we get a chance to travel with the “others” on a future trip anywhere in the world. You may be a citizen of the United States or a citizen of some country outside of the United States. If you are looking for that “wow” vacation I’m going to hardily recommend New York City. With the restaurant scene, the shopping opportunities, and the entertainment choices ranging from Broadway to all kinds of major sports, the city is tough to beat for that special vacation. Oh yeah, bring your credit cards! This wraps up my posting for 2022. The next thing you read about from me will come after the new year. I will give you a hint about what’s to come. I told my racing friends that my trackchasing ended with a trip to Texas a couple of weeks ago. Trackchasing for me in 2022 was all wrapped up I said. If you ever hear me say that you need to take that comment with a grain of salt. It turns out that my 2022 trackchasing season is NOT all wrapped up. I have one more trip to take. It’s a big one. I’ve got Carol safely back home from her New York City adventure. She can rest up now, but I have itchy feet for traveling. I have to make one more trip this year. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Randy Lewis World traveler
