I%26#39;m going to review the hotel, restaurants and activities, and I will save all of the fluff and commentary for the end. Those who prefer to just skim the nitty gritty can skip the latter. ;)
The Hotel
We stayed at On the Ave on 77th and Broadway (Uppwer West Side). This was per a recommendation from this site. I was very satisfied with the hotel overall, and felt that the price was not only fair, it was quite reasonable given the neighborhood and previous experiences I%26#39;ve had in NY hotels.
I really liked: The bed! It was so COMFORTABLE. I slept like a baby, and for once, my insomniac husband got quality rest. The size of the room was very generous for a NY hotel, in my experience, and was fine for the two of us to co-exist in without feeling squished. The bathroom was adequate, and I make a big deal about hot water and strong water pressure, and I was satisfied on both accounts. We appreciated the pull-out wall mirror for shaving/make-up. The white bathrobe that was provided by the hotel was a nice touch. The concierge was very helpful and friendly. Perhaps a more experienced New Yorker would know better than I, but my husband and I were shocked at the very LOW prices on the room service menu! We did not order from room service, so maybe there was a hidden fee somewhere that we didn%26#39;t notice, but in desperation we%26#39;ve paid outrageous amounts for a hamburger... I think they charged like $6.50.
I didn%26#39;t particularly like: Check-in was SLOW. For the amount of people waiting, there weren%26#39;t enough desk clerks to accomodate people. For whatever reason, the guests at the counter had some sort of issue that required arguing and debate, so our simple check-in had to wait. Finally, when we did get to the counter, it took less than 3 minutes to process. When we went to our room on the first day, I noticed that the elevator was not very clean. The floors in the hallway appeared as if they hadn%26#39;t been vacuumed in a while. Every morning, the maid would make a lot of racket with plastic bags for the trash, and the bags were left along the corridor for sometimes hours.
The Restaurants:
San Luigi: I%26#39;m sorry I don%26#39;t remember the street, but it was just a short walk from On the Ave. We were in the mood for Italian and took a chance on this place. We had a lovely seat by the window, and my husband was pleased with the wine list. Service was friendly and attentive. The calamari appetizer was EXCELLENT (I%26#39;m a Monterey Bay, California native so I%26#39;m very schooled in calamari) and easily one of the best I%26#39;ve ever had. My husband had the pasta special and I had the eggplant lasagne... both delicious.
O%26#39;Neals, Lincoln Center: A favorite of mine, for sure. Nostalgia led me here again, and I don%26#39;t regret returning. We wanted something that was a very short walk from the opera since it had been raining, and O%26#39;Neals was very conveinent. We sat downstairs, which is a tad cramped, but we had an excellent table so it didn%26#39;t matter. The food was delicious! I had the crab cakes appetizer as an entree, my husband had the swordfish special with mango. Service was definately polite and professional.
Sarabeth (next to The Plaza Hotel): Dissapointed that The Plaza was closed for renevation (I had no idea before we left) we wandered into this cozy little restaurant. I thought the menu was very creative. The fresh Four Flowers juice was DIVINE, easily the most heavenly juice in the world. I had the granola (freshly baked on-site) and my husband had scrambled eggs with lox, all of which was very good. The seating here is very tight, which is difficult for my husband to bear, since he%26#39;s tall and broad shouldered, but he didn%26#39;t complain once he saw how happy I was with my juice. :)
Compass (Upper West Side): I%26#39;d eaten here before as well, but somehow I had forgotten until I saw the interior, which is really beautiful. This restaurant was recommended by friends. The decor is really the star here. The service was very professional. I had the sirloin and my husband had the veal, both of which were very tasty. I thought the complimentary appetizer ';taste'; (a tiny portion just to wet the appetite) and the coffee cake they nicely packaged and sent home with us at no extra charge (or even a request) was very nice.
The Manhattan Diner (accross from On the Ave): We slipped into this little diner after the opera for dessert at about 10:30pm. What a fun little place! My husband had an ice cream sundae and I had cherry pie. The prices were very reasonable and we enjoyed it very much.
The Activities:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art: What can I say about this place? Always amazing, always magnificent. I spent HOURS there and barely scratched the surface. I had been before, but it never get%26#39;s old. I did notice that it was incredibly crowded compared to previous trips. Perhaps tripled in the number of people that I noticed. I suppose that is to be expected on a rainy day. The masses of people made it difficult to purchase tickets and to make use of the coat check. My husband and I split up to save time waiting in line. The cafeteria and other eatieres were MOBBED, and sadly, it tends to bring out the worst in people when trying to find a seat. Irregardless, I am always impressed with the Met, and I will definately return again and again.
The Museum of Natural History: This was a first for me, and it wound up being my favorite part of the trip! It was not what I was expecting, since my husband I went there on a whim. I love world history, and my husband is a science lover. We were both very pleased. It was definately a thrill to see the wildlife exhibits, and the history of Africa was STUNNING... I%26#39;d never seen anything like it. My husband patiently walked through all of that with me, but the best for him were the dinosaurs and space exhibits. We purchased tickets for the planetarium... WOW, what a treat! That was amazing! We were both impressed with the quality of the museum staff here as compared to the Met. Crowd control was definately better. We also noticed that it%26#39;s no joke when they insist that there be no talking or noise in the planetarium, which is a good thing. About 10 seconds into the show a small child was clearly afraid and began screaming, and within a flash of an eye a guard was there was a flashlight and escorted them out. I would definately like to return here again.
Cleopatra%26#39;s Needle: We were both exhausted and didn%26#39;t want to make the long journey to the C-Note, so we settled on Cleopatra%26#39;s Needle based on a couple of recommendations from this site. We did not dine there, but we were in time for happy hour and open mic nite. I thought the band and the singers were fantstic... my husband, a musician, was amused and enjoyed himself.
The Opera: We saw La Donna Del Lago. It was excellently performed, and we both enjoyed it. I will not mar the beautiful opera or performance by complaining... but... it didn%26#39;t have the grand, magestical feel that I remember when I saw Turnadot and The Barber of Seville. Perhaps it was the very simple set that wasn%26#39;t altered very much, but... what do I know? Perhaps that was intentionally done given the nature of the story. We sat in the first ring and had an excellent view when the man in front of us stopped leaning forward over the railing. :)
Transportation
We hired a transportation company, NYlimocoach to pick us up at the airport and to take us back. We were very satisfied with the service. It was definately worth it, since it wasn%26#39;t that much more expensive than a cab, but a lot more comfortable and conveinent!
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The Fluff
I love New York... I love the weather (I couldn%26#39;t survive in it full-time, but it%26#39;s always a blast when I%26#39;m on vacation to try and tough it out like a native) I love the people, I love the vibrance of the city. Where I live, in Central California, everything shuts down at 9pm... stores, restaurants, etc. Bars will stay open until 2am, and if a restaurant has a bar the bar will stay open later but no food will be served after 10pm, typically--- that can be a major drag. In NY, it feels like things just keep moving at all hours.
New Yorkers rude? Naaaahhhh. I think this is a bunch of baloney. Rude people are UNIVERSAL. New York is such a densely populated area, I can%26#39;t imagine it being like Disneyland 24-7 given the hustle and bustle. In fact, the rudest people I encountered in the past trip to NY were TOURISTS. A little story:
While I was in line for the coat check at the Met museum, there was a lot of confusion as to where the line ended. It was so swamped that there wasn%26#39;t a visible ';line'; so people were roaming around, crashing into each other, etc. I had been in line for about 10 minutes when behind me I heard this: ';*THIS* is MY place in the line. *THIS* is where *I* am. The *END* of the line is back there, that%26#39;s where YOU will go.'; It was so icy and so meanly said that I turned around to see what the commotion was. A very alarmed looking woman apologized and ran off. The woman who had just dressed the offender down smiled, shrugged, and said to a few of us who were nearby, ';I%26#39;m a New Yorker.'; I imagine that being elbowed, pushed aside, cut in front of, etc. is common place in a big city, and one can only stand so much. But I thought... if I had made the honest mistake of standing in the wrong place, not out of rudeness of ';cutting in';-- I%26#39;d be really embarrassed and upset if I had been talked to that way. Her excuse that she was a New Yorker I think was off the mark... I don%26#39;t think that rudeness is the calling card for New York natives. In fact, we encountered many friendly people that made us glad that we choice NY as our vacation destination. Example:
At Cleopatra%26#39;s Needly there were a few off-duty NYFD. A local man who was there to perform at the open mic shook their hands and asked for a picture, and he was very warmly received. Very classy, and my husband and I were very much impressed.
When we were up the street from Compass and couldn%26#39;t see the sign from where we were standing, we got on the phone to make a call to check the address, and a man who was walking near us stopped and pointed it out to us and was very nice about it.
I wasn%26#39;t sure if I was going to mention this, because this does not reflect on NY or the enjoyment of my trip, but since I%26#39;m on a roll... La Guardia Airport needs a serious overhaul. It is definately the WORST major airport I%26#39;ve exerperienced, both in the US and abroad. Why? The repair is... well... neglected. Ceiling panels were missing and air/heating equipment was all exposed. Trash was overflowing from the garbage cans while a maintainence worker stood beside one of the cans on her cell phone, yelling at someone on her cell phone. The very few eateries inside the ';sterile'; area (beyond the checkpoint) left a lot to be desired. The most outrageous was the lack of bathrooms. For about 16-20 gates (the C gate area) there is only ONE bathroom, or at least only one open, working bathroom. There were four stalls including one handicap stall, and two of the toilets were clogged and unusuable. I left and decided to come back after a maintainence person promised someone was coming to fix the problem. They did fix it, but then there was another problem of two of the stalls being without toilet paper, and the line to use the restroom just got longer and longer as people deboarded planes and made their way through to the terminal. I think this was very a very sad example of an airport.... New York deserves way better. It was my first and hopefully last trip to NY via La Guardia.
I Love New York... trip report.
Very good report glad you enjoyed your trip to NYC,i think i would have walked to Mcdonalds than pay 6.50 lol.
I Love New York... trip report.
very much enjoyed your report.....
fresh Four Flowers juice? Is that a breakfast drink? What is that?
Sounds interesting.....
Great report, looks like you had some good eats!!!!
JFK needs an overhaul as well, have not been to LaGuardia in a few years, and after what you say, hopefully I won%26#39;t have to.
I saw La Donna too. I love Rossini, and the singers were great (what did you think of the counter-tenor, eh? And how about the gal in the trousers role?) but I HATED that nasty, boring, silly, cheapjack production. Two slanting brick walls that never change, everyone dressed in strange similar-looking black 1860%26#39;s clothes like a production of something called ';Little Women Say That Mourning Becomes Electra';, and snow apparently falling indoors. YAWN. What were they thinking? I know it is City Opera and not the Met, but STILL -- you don%26#39;t have to spend a gazilliion dollars, you just need to hire designers who have TALENT as opposed to the losers who designed this clunker.
Other than that I loved it. ;o)
We make it a point to go to Cleopatra%26#39;s Needle once each time we%26#39;re in NYC. IMO, it was a good idea to only go for a drink since the food, while reasonably priced, is mediocre. Glad to hear that you enjoyed your vacation!
Enjoyed your report!
I had been wondering about The Museum of Natural History and the hotel On the Ave and you covered them BOTH with great info and detail....thanks so much!
p.s. if we do have the opportunity to stay at on the ave i will be sure to check out San Luigi....THANKS!
What a wonderful trip! Very good details that will definitely help others, too. Hope you%26#39;ve posted your hotel report on tripadvisor, and you might want to send a note to the hotel yourself, including both compliments and disappointments.
Yeah, museums really get crowded when it rains!
Thanks so much for posting.
Great report to read. :)
Great report.
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