48hrs in New York

By now you would be aware that we have left the state of Florida and have arrived in New York city. The trip itself was very interesting for us as we all boarded the plane on time, taxied out on the runway only to return back to the terminal due “air traffic” in New York – at least they allowed us to get of the plane (if you chose to). Scrambling for the mobile phone I headed off the plane to contact the transport company as this was the next surprise in the this adventure, I had booked a stretch limo – another #collectingmemoriesnotthings moment as all 4 girls were super excited but obviously the youngest two were the most.

What should have been a 30 minute journey ended up being 75 minutes due to the road works with the tunnel being reduced to a single lane so we had to go uptown and then come back down into Central New York City – we were not bothered by this at all :-).

Our accommodation for the next 3 nights was the Grand Hyatt which is actually on top of Grand Central Station, the hub for the subway, from my live video you might be able to see how grand the hub is with each crossroad having a row of shops. There is also the Grand Central Market which is much like the Central Market in Adelaide but a little classier I would suggest, the food look fantastic but we had no way of cooking or even heating up food in our rooms.

Back to the our rooms, on arrival when we checked in we got upgraded “boom” for the 3 nights with Mumma Bear getting an upgrade but only for the 1st night but all good. We also were offered the Grand Hyatt Club Members access for a discounted rate of $75 per room (per night) – I think Belinda was a little sceptical at first but she soon realised the VFM. What was this exclusive membership about – we gained access to a special dining area where all day you were served food – Buffet cooked/continental Breakfast, fruit/snacks, horderves from 5:00pm then cakes etc from 8:00pm – 10:00pm, tea/coffee, sodas and discounted alcohol.

After our first night we were pumped to go and explore this great city and what it had to offer, rain rain and more rain… was forecasted and coming down. After a lazy start to the day and a good breakfast we changed our plans and decided to go shopping downtown in SoHo, first thing I noticed was how dirty the subway is and the amount of “beggars” looking for change – keeping the kids close was my priority but it was Belinda that got locked into sharing a map with someone who was getting to close and taking to long for me – like the knight in shining armour.. well you know how it goes.

So we jumped out the subway and headed up to be street side, was it raining or what – we were getting some what wet – jump in here I suggested and we are all glad we did. This was a shop with a difference, while it was a ladies clothing store we soon found out this store had a setup to get your hands pampered and your nails done for FREE. Brianna and Emily were delighted to line up and enjoy this experience and we met 2 lovely ladies where we all shared great laughs and was just a great 30 minutes – a quick shoutout to lcn75tech and jackiesaulsbery. On departing this store we noticed that they also had Free Yoga as well as morning tea – yep for Free…. The girls purchased hand cream and the lovely staff at AerieREAL gave them both a pretty cool bag.

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Downtown SoHo here we come – it lasted about 4 blocks, the weather would not stop and unlike Adelaide shops these shops have no awnings so when you are walking out and about you are raw to the elements. The options were discussed and back to the Hotel we would go, a little confused, wet and disorientated and a couple of subways later we managed to get ourselves back – I guess staying above the Grand Central Station has its perks :-).

We enjoyed the benefits of the Club membership from 5:00pm and who ever said they we horderves must have been kidding as they basically supplied you with enough food and variety for dinner but without any big meat options – chicken salad, pasta salad, prawns, cold meats etc.