Just a very short trip report for people thinking about NYC for the day. It was my son's class trip so I had no control over where we went. I was not chosen to go so a bunch of us "rejected volunteers" got together and made the trip on our own.
We drove from home to the Hamilton train station. The station is very nice and clean. It looked almost new. The round trip ticket was $30 per person. The train was also very nice and clean. It took about an hour to get to our stop at Madison Square Garden. The police in the mall area of the station were very nice and helpful.
We were only a couple of blocks from our first stop were we would meet the class. It was the Madame Trussaud's Wax Musuem. Please note since we were not part of the group we had to buy our own tickets for everything. I was very excited about this place. I paid my $40 to get in and walked around with the kids and the other parents. While the floors were huge, I felt that they weren't filled like I expected. In a nutshell, I was dissappointed and felt it was way overpriced (I know I know it's NYC).
After leaving the wax museum we had two hours before we had to be at the theather. Since we had boys and they didn't want to shop we opted for eating and went to the Hard Rock Cafe. The food was good. I had the Haystack Salad without the chicken and I left happy. We had about an hour before the show so we started to walk in the direction of the theater. We stopped in the M&M store and looked around alittle. For those of you that have never been in one before, it is huge. It has three or four floors with interactive things to do. We had been in the Las Vegas store and really enjoyed it, but we really didn't have time to do alot in the NYC store.
The classes seats for Sister Act (yes we are a Catholic school) were in the balconey and were a little under $40 a piece. The "unwanted parents" got half price tickets that day for $70 a piece and we were 5 rows from the stage! I loved the singing, everyone was so talented! Raven from the Disney channel was the lead actress. She was great but I wasn't really that interested in seeing the show right from the begining. It was fun to do once but I don't know that I will do it again. Oh, BTW, I was really thristy so I had to buy a soda at intermission. For a cup of soda it was $10 plus tip! When the bartender told me I could get a refill for $5 I started to laugh. Sorry Mr. bartender I am too cheap to get a refill. :blush:
We had an hour and a half for dinner before the bus was coming to pick up the kids and the "special parents". One of the mothers had made reservations for 50 people at Carmine's
for dinner. I thought this was going to be a crazy mess. It is a family style restaurant so everyone was going to have to pick out things to share. We got in and it was like a mad house they started seating us in groups. We tried to have a couple of parents at each table . Many parents and their children got separated. We had 4 different tables and they weren't near each other. I was part of the last table to sit down and we had no kids with us. :cloud9: The restaurant was loud and packed. I have to say the food was great and I'm glad we did it. The mother who put it all together deserves a medal. They do have a place in Atlantic City so we will be doing that for dinner again soon.
The kids got back on the bus and we walked back to the train station. Before getting to the station we stopped at "Crumbs" bakery. This is a little "hole in the wall" place that someone told us about. Cupcakes galore. They were filled, big and beautiful!. After much agonizing I purchased a raspberry cream, an oreo, a chocolate brownie, and a turtle. We had them the next night after dinner and they were out of this world. Crumbs Bakery is a must do if you are in NYC. Cupcakes are either $4 or $5 a piece depending on what you get.
All in all the kids had a blast and that's what it was all about. If I had planned the trip we would have been at Ground Zero, the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. It was a very long day. The kids had to be at the school at 7:00 in the morning and didn't get back until 9:30 at night. Altogether they had 6 hours on the bus! Me, I had to be up at 4:30 in the morning and didn't get home until 10:30 that night, but our dinner and those cupcakes were worth it! :D
