My name is Maurice and I am 57 years old. I am originally from Paris in France. I don’t usually travel a lot, and when I do so, I usually go to the French Riviera in France. However, once every one year and a half, I like to come to New York. That’s my second time in New York and I always come here with my wife.
APARNA, INDIA
My name is Aparna and I am 34 years old. I am from India. I am staying 10 days with two colleagues in New York for business. But it is my second trip to New York and the first one was for vacation. I don’t often travel abroad but I love New York!
I went to the Empire State Building, to the Belmont Park, to Wall Street, to the Museum of Natural History, and to the Carnegie Hall for a Jazz concert. This Jazz concert was really great! I also took the ferry from New York to New Jersey and I saw the Statue of Liberty. It was really picturesque and a very nice trip, especially because the weather was good. I went to some bars in Times Square. There are plenty of bars in this area. I also ate at a very good Indian restaurant called Utsav. It is located at 1185 Avenue of the Americas, between 46th and 47th streets. It was excellent and I was missing Indian food. The service was good and it wasn’t expensive. Overall, I love New York, but you never have enough time to visit all the museums and parks, which is disappointing! That’s my second trip here but I will definitely come back again! The only downside is that, being vegetarian, it was difficult to find places where I could easily eat in New York, so I hope that when I come back, restaurants will have vegetarian meals on their menus!
DANIELA, BRAZIL
My name is Daniela and I am from Brazil. I am still a student so I have plenty of time to travel in the US and in Brazil. I often come to New York because I really love the City. This is actually my fourth time here and, for this trip, I stayed with my family during four days.
We took the ferry to the see the Statue of Liberty, we went to Ground Zero and to Central Park, we visited the Rockefeller Center, and we went shopping on Fifth Avenue of course! We also visited Saint Patrick Church and it was great. But what I preferred was the Statue of Liberty: you cannot miss it if you come to New York! Times Square is also amazing: you don’t know where to look. What is also very nice about New York is that you can find very old buildings in such a modern city. I find it very paradoxical but so interesting! I have had the chance to attend many Broadway shows during my several stays in the City: The Phantom of the Opera, Beauty and the Beast, the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall, Chicago and Mickey Mouse is Dead. They were all wonderful but I would recommend overall the Phantom of the Opera. We often go to Brazilian and Italian restaurants in Midtown. If you want to eat the best pastas and fettuccines in New York, go to Via Italia at 45 West 46th Street. It was really excellent! My best experience here was when we met a group of journalists from a Brazilian local newspaper. They interviewed us in Central Park and it was so funny! I really love New York and I will definitely come back again. When you come here, you never have enough time to see everything. I wish I could come back to live here. If you want to ask any question to Daniela, you can contact her at [email protected]
BONNIE, CANADA
My name is Bonnie and I am 60 years old. I am from Burlington, next to Toronto in Canada. We travel quite a lot with my husband. Lately, we have visited most of the Caribbean Islands and Europe (Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Ireland, France…). But it is my first trip to New York, even though it is the third one for my husband. We are staying five days in New York.
We went to the MoMA, to the Museum of Natural History, to the Guggenheim Museum. We took bus tours downtown and uptown, and we went on a harbor cruise. We also plan to go to the Empire State Building and to Central Park. We really enjoyed the MoMA because you can see lots of works from famous artists such as Picasso, Matisse, and Warhol. We didn’t attend any temporary exhibition though. We are planning to see a Broadway show tomorrow, but we don’t know yet which one. We’ll go to TKTS to see what is available at a reasonable price. We went to a very nice Cuban restaurant located at 27 W 38th Street, between 5th & 6th Avenues. There was an entertainment the night we had dinner there and the atmosphere is very good, the service is excellent and it is not expensive. Overall, we found New York very impressive. We feel like we didn’t have enough time to see everything and I think that you have to come back over and over again to see it all here. The harbor cruise was really our best experience: the panorama was so wonderful! However, we had a bad experience with the New York CityPass because we though we won’t have to do the line but these are not tickets, so we still had to do the lines! If you want to come to New York, stay in Midtown: you have all the restaurants, all the attractions, and it is convenient to walk everywhere.
JENNIFER AND DEREK, MICHIGAN (US)
Jennifer and Derek are 33 and 29 years old and usually go away twice a year in the United States for vacations. They already went, among others, to Miami and Los Angeles, and decided to spent 5 days in New York in August.
During their stay in New York, they visited the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the Metropolitan Museum, the NBC studios and the Yankee Stadium. They also went to Central Park. But, as a fan of baseball, what Derek preferred was the Yankee Stadium. Their best experience in New York was when they took the Circle Line ferry to go to the Statue of Liberty because the sights were very nice. However, their worse experience was to wait in line during more than 3 hours to attend David Letterman’s show, and security finally cut the line just I front of them! They were planning to go to the HA!, which is a comedy club located on 163 West 46th Street. On the all, they really like New York. In five days, they went pretty much to all the places they wanted to visit. They recommend doing tours because it is very interesting to have explanations on the places you are visiting. They also found the subway very convenient: their tips is to take a look at the lines when arriving in New York and then to use the subway as much as possible. They will definitely come back to New York, but before coming back, they would like to visit other cities.
NORMAN, ARIZONA (US)
My name is Norman and I am 67 years old. I am from Scottsdale, Michigan. I am staying 6 days with my wife in New York. But, it’s not my first time in New York! I am retired, so I have plenty of time to travel. We come to New York once a year and I also travel a lot to Europe (Sicily, Amsterdam, Barcelona…).
During those last 6 days, we’ve walked a lot: we’ve been to Greenwich Village, Central Park, Battery Park…We also love Chinatown. My wife is shop-addicted, and you have every shop you want here in New York! There are Street Fairs everywhere in town on Saturdays or Sundays, and you can have nice bargains and buy some nice jewels for Christmas. We also love to go to the restaurant, but above all, we love going to the theatre! We’ve been to two excellent restaurants: Brazil Brazil, located at 330 West 46th St, has Happy Hours and you’ll pay only $4 for a Mojito; the Bangkok House, located at 360 W 46th St, serves Thai food. I would recommend both of them. Every time we come to New York, we try to go to the theatre as much as possible. We’ve seen The Color Purple, Wicked and The Drowsy Chaperone. Wicked was phenomenal and we saw The Drowsy Chaperone twice! You can win the chance to pay only $25 for front row tickets for about half of the Broadway shows: just go to the theaters 2 hours before the show and enter you name for the lottery! It’s really worth it. Of course, we’ll come back again next year! If you want to ask any question to Norman, you can contact him at [email protected]
ELLIOT, NORTH CAROLINA (US)
My name is Elliot and I am 57 years old. I moved to North Carolina one year ago but I used to live in New York before and still have my daughter in New Jersey. This time, I stayed in New York three days with my wife. I try to travel as much as possible since I am retired (Canada, Panama, Aruba, Hawaii…).
Since I am originally from New York, I didn’t want to visit anything in particular. I just walked around the City. I am also a big fan of Music Halls! I have seen about 50 Music Halls in my life and lately, I went to see Tarzan and Jersey Boys. Jersey Boys is the best music hall I have ever seen: there were five standing ovations! We also went to two restaurants: Carmine, which is a very good Italian restaurant, and McCormick & Schmick’s, which is a seafood restaurant. At McCormick & Schmick’s, the food was excellent, the atmosphere very good, but the service was bad! I love Broadway shows, so my best experience was just to attend Music Halls. My worst one was the service at McCormick & Schmick’s! I definitely recommend coming to New York to see some Broadway shows, to see the Statue of Liberty, to have a boat ride in Battery Park, to visit the Village and Chinatown! There are so many things to do here that you have to keep busy! Don’t be afraid of taking mass transportation, it is safe and very convenient! Just make sure to find a nice hotel with a Continental Breakfast included and other amenities, because New York, along with San Francisco and Hawaii, is one of the most pricy cities in the US, but you want to see it! If you want to ask any question to Elliot, you can contact him at [email protected]
FREE MUSIC PROMO EXTENDED
Apple Core Hotels’ Free Music promotion has been extended for another month. Don’t miss your chance to load up your ipod with the latest chartbusters or popular videos (redeem your gift certificate on itunes.com, the world’s # 1 music download store)
FREE NEW YORK STATE AND TOLL-FREE CALLS AT APPLE CORE HOTELS
You cannot spend one minute without calling your friends to let them know about what places you just visited in New York? Here is something that will make you save money! Apple Core Hotels offers complimentary New York state calls as well as toll-free calls* at each of its properties (Red Roof Inn Manhattan, La Quinta Manhattan, Super 8 Hotel Times Square, Comfort Inn Midtown and Ramada Eastside). Now, you can call your friends without counting!
POLAR PLUNGE
You want your first memory of 2015 to be memorable, don’t you? You’ll certainly remember swimming in the cold Atlantic Ocean at Coney Island on New Year’s Day with the Polar Bear Club. Arrive on the Boardwalk at Stillwell Avenue before the event starts at 1pm and bring a change of very warm clothes for after your dip. There is a suggested donation of $20 to participate. If you don’t think you can handle the cold water, you can still go watch while all bundled up!