Adventures include The Ride, Clipper City Tall Ship, CityPASS booklet

        by Pat Lindsey

I love New York. I can’t help it, but in 2.5 days I fell madly in love with New York City.

It was time for our annual “girls’ getaway” and my friends, Carol and Linda, and I had decided months ago to take a bite out of the Big Apple. Little did we know that within weeks of booking our trip, Linda would be diagnosed with cancer and Carol and I would be faced with the dilemma of whether or not to go without her. At Linda’s insistence, we reluctantly went.

There were many lessons learned on this trip, the first being to never fly on a Monday morning. Flights are more expensive on Mondays and the airports are more crowded. The second lesson learned was to take the less expensive, non-stop flight at 6:00 a.m. rather than leaving a couple of hours later and changing aircraft in Milwaukee. The early morning nonstop flight would have given us an extra half day of sightseeing time, and we really didn’t get any more sleep by leaving later.

A third lesson was to do our homework in advance. Fortunately, I did that by studying maps, ordering tickets to attractions ahead of time, and writing a tentative itinerary. With only two full days to see one of the biggest cities in the world, nothing was left to chance. (except the weather).

By the time we arrived at our hotel, it was 4 p.m. (That 6 a.m. flight would have gotten us there by 10 a.m.!) We stayed at the Doubletree Metro in the heart of the city and almost everything we planned to see or do was within walking distance of the hotel. Armed with the New York CityPASS and a good map, we set out on foot to explore the neighborhood before having dinner at the 212 Steakhouse that we found on the Travelzoo website. St. Patrick’s Cathedral was nearby, so we made a stop there to see the famous church and light a candle for Linda.

Dinner at 212 Steakhouse was exactly what we wanted and the staff couldn’t have been friendlier. To make the experience even better, we used the half-price voucher that we purchased online at travelzoo.com, which made our dinner an excellent bargain.

After dinner, we discovered that the best time to visit the Empire State Building is after 9 p.m. There were no lines for the elevator and we were thrilled to be able to by-pass all the roped off areas that had been filled with endless lines of people earlier in the day. If it had been necessary, our New York CityPASS coupon would have expedited the wait. We were immediately directed to an elevator for a speedy ascent to the 86^th floor. The view from the observation deck of the Empire State Building is breathtaking any time of the day or night, but we liked seeing the splendor of Manhattan all lit up at night.

The next day was unseasonably cool and windy, but we had tickets to go on the Clipper City Tall Ship for a sail around the Statue of Liberty, so we put on as many layers of clothing as possible and headed for the subway to Battery Park. Seniors can ride for half-price. By the time we arrived, we only had time for a New York hot dog before boarding the ship. As the wind picked up, we considered bailing out, but we knew it would be an experience we would regret missing. It took ten crew members to hoist the huge sails on the ship and the crew promised us smooth sailing as they glided as close to the Statue of Liberty as possible. It was, indeed, a memorable excursion with gorgeous views of the Manhattan skyline and the new Liberty Tower. And we will be forever grateful for the blankets that the crew handed out before we set sail.

Uptown at the Ed Sullivan Theater, Dave Letterman was getting ready to tape his final show. Not being women who ignore historical events, Carol and I got off the subway near the theater and joined the blossoming crowd of people outside the stage door. Reporters, paparazzi, and nosy tourists were straining their necks to get a glimpse of Steve Martin, Jerry Seinfeld, Alec Baldwin, Barbara Walters, and other celebrities who were being escorted from their trailers into the studio. Even though we didn’t get the tickets we requested to Letterman’s last show, we were thrilled to be part of the commotion. If we had been able to stay a little longer, we might have seen Dave Letterman himself sneak out through Angelo’s Pizzeria and walk up the street toward the Metropolitan Museum of Art for his retirement party, but we had a 7 p.m. reservation for The Ride.

The Ride is a big red motor coach that has stadium seating facing the sidewalk instead of standard bus seats facing forward. On each 75-minute ride, two comedians accompany the passengers and banter back and forth as they keep their guests interactively engaged. At various points along the tour of Times Square and Columbus Circle, the comedians carry on some of their bantering with people walking along the sidewalks. Unbeknownst to the bus passengers, there are actors planted among the throngs of New Yorkers. Carol and I didn’t know what to think when they began heckling a woman talking on a cell phone. Suddenly, the woman put down her phone and broke into a tap dance right on the sidewalk! The cartwheels and splits that followed were a dead giveaway that she was a plant! Surprises occur every few blocks, but I would have to issue a spoiler alert if I revealed all of them. Suffice it to say, The Ride is a treat and there is nothing else like it in New York.

One of my goals for this trip was to get tickets to a live television show. Iota.com has a complete listing of the New York shows and their airing times. The View, hosted by Whoopie Goldberg at ABC Studios, seemed to fit perfectly into our itinerary for our last day in New York. In hindsight, we probably wouldn’t want to give up an entire morning again to go on a TV show, but it was fun and good for posting Facebook photos. It was lunchtime by the time we exited ABC Studios. Carol was hungry for Italian food, so we headed for Patsy’s at 36 W. 56^th St.. We didn’t know anything about this restaurant before we went there, but it was recommended to us by two New Yorkers and Google.

Patsy’s is a typical upscale Italian restaurant with white tablecloths and a lingering aroma of marinara sauce. What sets it apart from some of the others is its authentic Italian food, superb service, and its reputation created by the hundreds of celebrities who have eaten there and left their photos hanging on the walls.

Our time in the Big Apple was growing short and I still had a number of attractions on my itinerary. There was no way we could leave without seeing Rockefeller Center and use our coupon to the Top of the Rock to get a daytime view of New York. Back at ground level, we saw the studios of Seth Myers and Jimmy Fallon. The NBC studio tour is currently not operating, but it will be on my list for my next NYC trip.

If we could have stayed just one more day, I have nodoubt that we would have used all six coupons in our New York CityPASS. It was time for us to get in our cab and face rush hour traffic on the way to LaGuardia. Carol and I bid the Big Apple adieu and began planning our next girls’ getaway on the flight home to St. Louis.   Hopefully, we’ll be able to return to New York with Linda very soon and find more reasons to love The Big Apple.

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