Today we’re off to the Big Apple. I’m super excited about this trip. NYC has been my favorite city since I was Ellie’s age. And it’s her first trip there! She’s excited about it too!
An early start… and a gourmet early lunch from Air Canada Bistro.
To keep up with Porter Airlines, Air Canada now offers complimentary beer and wine in economy class on North America flights. The French red wasn’t bad at all!
Ellie ordered a cheese pizza which at $5 was totally acceptable, but she slept most of the way so we ended up bringing it with us for a snack in the hotel.
As we approached the Hudson Valley we could see signs of fall colours.
And before long, we had a great view to the east, towards Midtown Manhattan on approach to Newark Airport.
Ellie was a bit confused as to why we were in New Jersey when we were going to New York.
One unfortunate thing about all of the New York area airports – none of them are super simple to get to/from by public transportation vv Manhattan. We arrived at Newark Terminal A, which is a beautiful new terminal, but is physically away from the other terminals, making it a multi stop journey to take the train. So we took the Coach USA Newark Airport Express bus which would drop us off at the Port Authority Bus Terminal on 42nd and 8th, not too far of a walk to our hotel.
The traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike was pretty terrible but we still got there more or less on schedule after getting through a huge backup from an accident. Our bus driver saved us some time by driving right to the end of a closed lane and then calmly cutting off a dump truck to get back into the mainline lanes.
The stop and go traffic didn’t help Ellie’s tummy after an early wakeup and nothing to eat. Poor sweetie threw up on the bus. But as we headed east, we could see Manhattan and the Empire State Building in the distance and she was happy.
We walked through Times Square and up Broadway to our hotel. Poor Ellie in her puke clothes. The filming location of the Late Show with Stephen Colbert was right around the corner.
After a much needed freshen up for Ellie in the room, we’re changed and ready to go for our fancy evening out on the town!
We’re going to be spending the next couple of hours at Peak, which is a restaurant in Hudson Yards. Hudson Yards is a fairly recent development over top of the Long Island Rail Road yards west of Penn Station. Such an awesome use of a formerly derelict area.
The structure in the lower right of the photo, Vessel, was unfortunately closed during our visit. We could see workers putting the finishing touches on new safety measures that had been installed after some unfortunate incidents.
After checking in on the 5th level entrance, we were ushered to the coolest interior elevator I’ve ever been on. The walls of the elevator were high definition screens that simulated the outside view in an extremely creative way. Part way up, here we are looking at an artistic scene of the skyscrapers of Manhattan being literally drawn in front of our eyes.
After the amazing elevator ride, we arrived at our destination, and were shown to our dinner table. I’ll let the pics speak for themselves.
We could see helicopters flying below us as we enjoyed our drinks.
The view of course was unreal. But the food was no slouch either.
This filet mignon literally melted in my mouth. I could have sliced it with a straw.
There was a kids menu, of course. A very important consideration that I needed to research before going through the effort to book our perfect time and place.
While we leisurely enjoyed our dinner, we looked DOWN onto the crowds at Edge, the highest outdoor observation deck in the Americas.
As the sun slowly dipped below the horizon beyond New Jersey, we were ready to enjoy our delicious desserts.
But not before a palate cleanser of sorbet.
After several extremely generous pours of champagne from our server, I decided it best not to have a port with the dessert, although it really would have hit the spot. We still had lots to do tonight!
But we’re going to stay right here for now and soak in this awesome view, in tranquility.
After the sun went completely down, we went back down to the 5th level to grab Ellie’s sweater from the coat check, and then right back up to check out Edge with the hordes.
As restaurant guests, we got to bypass the lines both up and down.
In the middle of the preceding photo, you can see a triangular light in the middle of the crowd. That’s the glass floor that looks directly down to the street. Look how small the taxi cabs are from here.
Good night, Edge. Time for us to get some steps in and work off that meal!
I had high expectations for this outing, and it definitely took some planning to pull it off, nor was it inexpensive. But, my high expectations were exceeded and I would give it 10+/10 for a visitor to NYC. The views you can see from the pictures, but the food was SO amazing and the service just top notch. Both of us were treated like VIPs from the moment we checked in way down below, and they were super accommodating for (well behaved) kids.
Back down from the final 101 floor elevator ride, we needed to force out some yawns to get our ears to pop. It worked by the time we’d walked back up to 42nd St.
High on Ellie’s list of places to go was Target. And I needed to stop there too, as I’d forgotten all of my charging cables at home. Target in Times Square was busy, of course, and so many of the items even like deodorant and toothpaste were behind plexiglass to prevent theft.
Although Ellie didn’t find what she was looking for, she did at least get a reusable Target bag with my new charging block inside it. It was good enough for now.
Since we didn’t find Ellie’s special hand sanitizer at Target, we went over to one of her other prime destinations to locate it. Success.
Ulta was on 34th Street. Home of the ESB.
We had walked so much already that we decided to take the subway back to the hotel for a little rest. The station exit popped us out right in front of this exquisite example of high cuisine.
We stopped at McDonald’s to get some frozen drinks. Trump wasn’t working there at the time.
We stayed at the Marriott Residence Inn. Our room was small, but the location was just perfect and the view incredible.
Next we headed back down and walked to Times Square where we saw the sights and lights.
This guy’s food cart was a bit smoky.
And some more shopping…
25000 steps and we’d only been in the city since 330 PM. What an awesome evening.
Next morning we still got great city views, this time from the breakfast room at the hotel.
This morning we’re doing a few more Ellie stops. Places we don’t have in Canada.
And more shopping. This time for legit much needed new shoes. We found a great deal on these Converse that she loved, only $27 in the clearance section!
Next on the list was renting bikes to cruise around Central Park.
The bikes were well used, but as they were good quality they worked just fine.
Ellie was craving ice cream so we took a detour over to the Upper West Side to seek out a good spot. It was so good.
Back to the Park, we finished our ride with some of the classic views on this gorgeous fall afternoon.
These supertalls on 57th Street “Billionaires’ Row” are impressive. I’m not sure if I like them, but they certainly do stand out from the rest of the city. This is Central Park Tower, the tallest residential building in the world at 1550 feet, as well as the highest rooftop in New York City.
We still had plenty on the agenda for the evening. So we hopped on the subway towards Brooklyn.
Yep, that’s where we are next!
It was golden hour. Just beautiful.
Walked briefly around the canyons of the Financial District before popping back in the subway. One World Trade Center dominates Fulton Street.
Yeah, we took the subway essentially right back where we came from. But it’s nicer to walk over the bridge Manhattan bound. And there was a pizzeria that I really wanted to try. Ellie was a bit concerned when she saw the line.
The host manning the door was super efficient and we were seated in 15 minutes. Not bad at all.
After dinner, I wanted to show Ellie the underrated view from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. There was hardly anyone else there. They were probably all over in DUMBO trying to take the perfect IG pic.
Ellie really wanted to go to Crumbl Cookie to get the Olivia Rodrigo cookie. But when we arrived there, she was super disappointed to see that it had been a limited time only. So we skipped it. As a consolation prize we got a private MTA bus down Central Park West back to our hotel.
Ellie really wanted to go over to Times Square again for a pic of doing the splits on top of that special chair. She got her wish!
On the walk over we saw some ads for tourism in Canada.
Not long after this, we were going back to the hotel, swimming upstream against the massive flow of pedestrians leaving Broadway shows. We were squeezed right up against the shops on the east side, and a crazy old bum was sitting on a patio chair at a cafe with his flip flops off as he played with his bare feet. He moved, and Ellie stepped on one of them. He screamed in her face “Ahhhhhhh!!! That’s my @#$&^@# foot, ya little b**ch!!” I felt like stomping really hard on his foot with my heel, but quickly realized he probably wouldn’t even know what happened or why, so we just kept moving. There were a few tears coming from her eyes after that outburst, and she just wanted to go back to the room. We were pretty much done our busy day anyway.
Next morning I let Ellie sleep in a bit while I was up early to seek out some coffee as I was already tiring of the room coffee.
Here’s another supertall on Billionaires’ Row: 111 57th Street.
I found my good coffee at Little Collins, an Aussie themed coffee shop named after a street in the coffee capital of Australia, Melbourne. They had a super cool setup where the group heads and steam wands came right out of the counter. And the coffee was awesome.
When “in” Australia, can’t go wrong with a Flat White.
On the way back to the hotel I passed by the Chrysler Building.
And the ever gorgeous Grand Central Terminal.
Rockefeller Center was deserted at this early hour.
After breakfast, we made our way over to Roosevelt Island on the tramway. An awesome experience. Glad we made it early as I think the queues for boarding get quite lengthy during the day if it’s nice out like it was.
Pretty epic being right up beside the towers of the Queensboro Bridge.
We still had lots to do today, so we just wanted to walk around the southern part of the island, take some pictures, and get Ellie a pink drink at Starbucks.
More awesome views on a crystal clear morning.
We walked over to the Starbucks next to the subway station but no pink drink – Pumpkin Spice Frappucino and a cake pop 😉
This RI photo stop is right outside the tramway terminal. It took us like 30 minutes to get this photo! The dude who was setting up the refreshment cart had his car parked right in front of the sign for so long, leisurely unloading his supplies one by one. Good grief. Thankfully he pulled out as we were just about to pull the pin. It was worth the wait.
After we got our photo, we walked back to the subway and headed down to the Battery to hop on the Staten Island Ferry. Clearly, Ellie was impressed with the view from this free boat ride.
How could you not be impressed?!
Ellie was up for a little combo of Minute To Win It / Amazing Race, so we made sure we were in one of the first groups off the ferry, ran through the St George Terminal through the waiting area and back on to the other Manhattan-bound ferry with less than 30 seconds to spare before they pulled up the gangplanks. Yess!!!! As a treat we of course got the iconic view of Lady Liberty on the return trip.
Before we knew it, we were back at Whitehall Terminal in Manhattan.
Ellie loved the biking so much the previous day that she wanted to do it again. And book the bikes for longer this time. So back to the bike shop and back into Central Park.
We of course hit Ample Hills Creamery on Amsterdam Avenue again.
But this time, instead of heading back into the Park, we’re going further west to the Hudson River.
The Hudson River Greenway is a bike route right along the Hudson River the full length of Manhattan. This section of it ran beneath the West Side Highway.
Elevated highway makes me think of the crumbling Gardiner Expressway in Toronto, the underside of which is literally hazardous for pedestrians or cyclists. But here, not only were there bike and pedestrian paths, there was an awesome parkour park/playground.
After some fun, back on the bikes… we don’t wanna be returning them after dark!
It was a perfect fall afternoon for our ride.
Passing by Hudson Yards, yep, we were way up there the other night!
We made it to our destination – Pier 57.
They had it set up with a fall theme, but this was what we were really here for: the (free) rooftop park.
It was such a great turnaround point. I’m smiling just thinking about it.
We did, again, have to get moving. We were down by 14th Street and had to make it back to 57th and 6th before it got too dark, as we’d be riding on the street for a fair distance.
We made it back in plenty of time. Here’s my girl riding on the streets of New York in Hell’s Kitchen amongst all the craziness. My heart is full.
We went out for some well earned, fast and good pizza in Long Island City after dropping off the bikes.
We completed our short stay on Long Island with some more gorgeous views across the East River from Gantry Plaza State Park. Extremely kid friendly place.
I mean we completed our stay on Long Island with another visit to Target…
Back to Times Square it was. This time, no wandering, just certain destinations in mind. Such as the m&m store for a few souvenirs.
Ellie had already basically forgotten about the bum who screamed at her the previous night. Well, she didn’t forget about it, but she was already joking about it and loved how busy it was even on a Sunday night. So did I, as I have ever since I was around her age.
Last morning in New York. Different coffee shop. This time it was Black Press Coffee near 72nd and Broadway. It was so good. Forget the room coffee!
I took an express train from 72nd and Broadway that was a single stop to Times Sq – FUN (for a nerd like me) and so had to walk back through it one more time.
We had a quick breakfast, packed up our stuff, and headed to yet one more final activity before leaving. I thought I would get an exterior photo of our venue AFTER our tour, but sadly this wasn’t possible.
The last event was a special tour of St Patrick’s Cathedral on 5th Avenue. Our docent led five of us through some special areas of the cathedral that not many people get to see or visit. Such as the sacristy below the altar.
And through the doors at the far end of the sacristy into the extremely private and intimate Sacristy Chapel.
We went back through the sacristy, and up the stairs into an unbelievable view behind the main altar into the main nave. It is not a feeling easy to capture on camera.
Those doors at the center of the photo lead down another set of stairs – to the crypt – where all Archbishops of New York, and an early Haitian immigrant named Pierre Toussaint have been laid to rest.
While we were in the crypt, an older gentleman came down to speak to us about some of the history of these people and the church itself. It turned out that this person was Monsignor Hilary Franco, who through a lifelong service to the church had worked directly for six Popes! He looked pretty good for 92!
Back upstairs, we took in the beauty of the cathedral while our docent/guide, Anthony, continued to tell stories about the history and answered Ellie’s questions.
How cool is this to be standing on the main altar essentially alone while hundreds of people are milling around you?!
In front of the main altar, there was an extremely rare, handwritten, illuminated Bible – one of only 12 copies in existence, which had just been gifted to the church 12 days prior.
Our excellent tour was over. Now it was time to hustle. It was Columbus Day, and there was a parade going up 5th Avenue outside the Cathedral. Not gonna be able to get that exterior pic. I had to mentally scramble to figure out how we would even cross the street, as we’d left our luggage at a Bounce over by Rockefeller Center.
So we walked over to Madison Avenue and hopped on the subway to get us back to the Rock. En route, Ellie spotted this vandalism on the subway car which she thought was hilarious.
We took the New Jersey Transit train to a noteworthy station close to EWR.
And then an Uber to Terminal 1. It was better than taking the stupid AirTrain.
Thankfully, our upgrade had cleared well in advance for the return flight so we settled in and relaxed for the five hour flight. We both got meals, myself Chicken Parmigiana and Ellie, Chicken Strips. They looked like the same chicken.
Arriving in Calgary we were greeted with a Chinook Arch formation in the clouds. It was a nice warm afternoon.
Back to home sweet home.
This was the best weekend I’ve had in a very long time. And I’m over the moon that Ellie felt the same. She’s already planning our next trip back. We ❤️ NY!!
Ellie's Adventures 