Thanks to my sister-in-law who works for JetBlue, we were able to fly to New York City at a fraction of the cost. We were "stand by" passengers - so it was a waiting game everytime, but if you get a seat on the flight its all worth it. Flying to NYC was a little smoother than flying back to Salt Lake, but now we know how it works so we are better prepared if we decide to fly on stand by again.
Like I said, if you get a seat on the flight, its worth it - and it totally was!
We first spent the night in Long Beach, which is JetBlue's hub in the west coast. The morning after we flew out of LAX to JFK. It was a 6 hour flight, and Lorenz slept for the first 4 hours. YAY! And then he was just tired and cranky and wanted to walk around, good thing the lady seated next to us was very patient and played with Lorenz. Trivia: She was in LA visiting her son's family. Her son's wife is Filipina. No wonder she kept saying Lorenz looked very similar to her grandson.
So touchdown New York! We made it. We had reservations at the Marriott Spring Hill Suites near the airport. Two nights stay - for free! Thanks Marriott points!!! We didn't rent a car. We always took the hotel shuttle to and from the Airtrain which took us to Jamaica Station were we caught the E train that took us downtown. Hello subway!
I really don't like big cities... so visiting and going around New York sort of freaked me out. (Plus watching too much Law and Order: SVU doesn't help). But Carl is a city boy and he just blended right in. Our first night we dined at Hard Rock Cafe. It was cool because they had a lot of music memorabilia in their lobby so you don't really feel like you've been waiting for a table forever. We enjoyed it for the most part. When we got out the door after dinner we were surprised at how bright it still was considering it was almost 9pm already... surprise surprise all the bright lights and marquees and screens are on! Seriously, they call New York the city that never sleeps for a good reason.
The following day, we left the hotel early to go back downtown to check off a couple of things in our list. For Carl - it was the Statue of Liberty. He wasn't gonna visit New York City if he doesn't get the chance to see the Lady. So we took the ferry from Battery Park that took us to Liberty Island where Lady Liberty lives. When you visit the island, you can purchase three kinds of tickets - the most affordable one gives you access to the park and grounds. Then there's the other two where you can either go up to the base, or go all the way to the crown. Both tickets are reservations only and cost a little much. Carl was willing to pay a little extra but reservations were full. So we got ground access and took lots of pictures.We spent a good hour and a half (maybe) on the island. We boarded another ferry that will bring us back to New York, but it stops at Ellis Island first. I wanted to get off the ferry to check the place out - the place got history and I'm sucker for those. But that would mean another hour in the island and waiting for another ferry so we stayed on board and headed straight back to New York.
Our next stop was Central Park. We took the R train and got off downtown (I forgot which street) and then walked straight to Central Park. It was HUGE and we didn't have time to go around it at that point. So I just had to take a picture by a bridge over water. Well - this (picture on the left) was at a bridge by the pond, so yeah - check!
We were tired and exhausted and cold and our feet were sore from all the walking, but we had a lot of fun... . The little guy couldn't be bothered either. He also had fun, I think!
We decided to head back to the hotel early since we were going to try to fly out early the next day. But again, we were flying stand by, so we could only hope for the best. We ended up getting seats on the last flight of the day (9pm), which took us to Denver, where we stayed the night at the airport. We bought tickets and flew out of Denver to Salt Lake City. It was quite an adventure, especially with a little kid. With the logistics of feeding and keeping the little guy entertained and calm and well-behaved - it was a feat. But in the end, we made the trip count and we have fun memories to keep!
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