Anyone want to plan my NYC trip for me? (Aka: why isn't this Disney?)

[MomRN]

I love NYC. There are so many amazing things all around the country and world to explore, try not to get so locked into Disney-think that you don't enjoy other destinations.

What you should plan to do really depends on the interests of your group, especially kids. Is your son the only kid going, or do you have other children? What kinds of things does everyone like? Is he a sports kid, music kid, science kid, etc., or a combination of several? If you can give some more info on specific interests of your group, I'm sure we can help with more ideas for you. I tend to lean toward theater, but I'm sure others can help out with other areas.

For a show for a young teen, Beetlejuice, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (keep in mind that there are parts 1 and 2), King Kong, Oklahoma!, and Wicked seem to be pretty good options. You can try to get tickets at the TKTS Booth in Times Square or one of their other locations, but that doesn't allow you to pre-plan, as tix are only for that day or possible the next, depending on which location you use. Personally, we usually just bite the bullet and order tickets online from the venue's site. It costs more, but we know exactly what we're seeing. I usually just Google the name of the show and 'Broadway" and look for the official site.

I haven't seen any comedy shows that I could recommend (Drunk Shakespeare was NOT for teens and was absolutely terrible anyway) and I've seen the drag show at Lips twice which was fun but again, probably not really an optimal choice for a 13 year old, lol.

Good luck, and have a great trip!

My son is 13 and really not into anything. He likes funny, and to laugh, which is why I want to find a comedy club.

 

[MomRN]

As someone who lives here, I will advise against the 9/11 Museum. I simply don't understand why people include this in a list of touristy spots that they want to check off. If you truly want to go, and truly are interested and in the mindset to take in the museum, by all means. But if you're just going because people will ask if you went, consider just visiting the area and memorial. It is a LOT, and will affect you longer than just the time you are there.

I get this. I hated to word it the way I did, and looking back on it I realize it looks as bad as it sounds. I want to see it to remember. My son, he wasn't born yet, and I don't know if he really understands. I'm not sure if it's appropriate for a birthday trip, but I don't know if we will be back.

 

[Oliviaxxx]

I live in NJ, super close to NYC. I have heard that "The Ride" isn't really all that exciting. I have never done it for that reason.
Some shows I've seen that maybe he would like are, King Kong, The Lion King, Aladdin, Wicked, Hamilton, Beetle Juice (very funny. has some adult humour and some cursing. Dear Evan Hansen is amazing but tickets go fast. I would look into buying asap.

National Geographic has an Ocean Odyssey experience currently running. I did it and thought it was super cool and entertaining. They also have the "Highline" which is a elevated linear park built on an old New York Central Railroad. Was fun to walk down.

 

[Toolulu22]

I'm glad you had a valueable experience. As I mentioned, I think it's different when you live in a place that others mostly visit.

I can understand what you may be trying to say and I do believe it may be because those of us (you especially if you live in the neighborhood) felt the direct after effects and had to look at the devastated area for a very long time. A deep hole in the ground. A subway stop that was gone. The pictures of the faces of the lost that were hung up for months on every available surface in the hopes that they just might walk out of the ashes. The loss of firefighters, police, Father Judge. The lights shining up to the heavens after that. After all of that came what visitors can see now- the memorial and rememberance and a place to be reverent. Sorry to go off topic, but yeah, you never forget that day, that time.

 

[Toolulu22]

In addition to what others have mentioned, if your son likes sports Yankees stadium and CitiField (Mets) aren’t far - to catch a baseball game.

Madison Square Garden may have something going on, and there may be some other special events. Summer time there are concerts or movies in the park things to do they you might want to do for fun. Check out a NYC calendar like this one to help you plan-

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/events-calendar

 

[Toolulu22]

My son is 13 and really not into anything. He likes funny, and to laugh, which is why I want to find a comedy club.

There is a Blue Man Group show downtown. The show is similar to the one at Universal, but it is pretty entertaining and funny. I used to bring visitors until I got to my 5th or 6th time going and decided I was good.

 

[OhMari]

If you are down by The Statue of Liberty Park, Where you get on the Ferry, for your FYI-bathrooms. Take advantage since public restrooms are very few and far between.

After the Statue walk over towards the East and there is a new Ferry that runs up and down the East River. You get an awesome view of the skyline of Manhattan and it is the cost of a subway ticket. $2.75. You can go all the way up to Governor Island and the Gondolas are right there next to the 57 street bridge. You can take a round trip ride and get off at the Brooklyn Bridge and walk across the bridge too. I think that Ferry makes about 7 stops on both sides of the East River. My son lived in the apartments next to the big Pepsi Sign (Long Island City). We have been taking the Ferry into the city a lot more since it takes less than half the time than the subway.

You can rent bikes a ride around Central Park. The southern half of Central Park has the zoo. If you want a little Disney, find The Alice In Wonderland Statue. Just know it is sort of sad, because parents let their kids climb all over it.

Have fun, use your GPS on your phone, with the sky scrapers, it can be confusing which direction you are going, since they block out the sun.

I forgot about the High-line walk way over on the West side. Your son may like the battle ship The Intrepid. You can tour the battleship high is on the West side too.

Have fun. My son usually tells me to pick one thing touristy when we visit. I surprised him 2 weeks ago and we went to Connecticut and did some hiking and went to a few Antique shops. We saw Bruce Willis’s house. He was outside playing with his kids. He told us half of the shops were not even open for the season yet. I didn’t even recognize him or pay attention when my son was talking to him. My son can strike up a conversation with anyone and as usual I totally miss out and don’t pay attention.

 

[sk8jdgca]

I just went with my 16 year old son in Feb for 4 nights. My son however is a dancer and very interested in the arts. In addition to what we did below we walked around Times Square, found the Imagine display in strawberry fields. Visited Wall Street, went to the 911 memorial but not the museum. (We found the name of a Canadian who died and gave it a little rub as that is what his widow asked us to do).I wouldn’t recommend the hop on hop off buses. Traffic is horrid and most of the time we saw that bus stuck in traffic.

We wanted to eat well and Ben wanted to shop, so we tried to minimize other
costs.
The first thing we cut back on was local travel cost. I purchased us
both a 7 day unlimited MTA card as soon as we got to LaGuardia. They cost $33
each. We followed the signs in the airport to “Buses to the City” and hopped
on the Q70 Express. After a couple stops in the airport, we hopped off the
bus and transferred to the subway that shuttled us off to our hotel. **There
are stairs to climb so I wouldn’t do this with small children or with loads
of luggage. We each had a suitcase and a backpack and were fine** The cost to
uber to our hotel would have been $60 each way and would only have saved us
10 minutes.

We extensively used the subway to travel around New York. We always
felt safe and the system is easy to use. We used google maps to chart the
best course of travel.

We spent $30 each on activities for the week. We did do a lot of free
roaming around; Central Park, Time Square, The Financial District, Chelsea
Market, Nolita, Visiting the high end boutiques and Flagship stores.

• We saw the NYC Ballet’s Sleeping Beauty. NYCB offers same day rush tickets at $30 for those under $30. There is a two ticket limit (with no age restriction for the other ticket holder)
• There was a free Jerome Robbins' exhibit at the Art’s library. It was very extensive and interactive.
  • There is a tram ride from Manhattan to Roosevelt Island that is included in the MTA pass. We got a great bird’s eye view of the streets of Manhattan this way.
  • We are members of the AGO here in Toronto and this gives us reciprocal admission to a number of art museums. We explored the Frik and the Guggenheim at no cost. Both were very different and
    enjoyable.
  • We took the free Staten Island Ferry which
    gave us great views of the Statue of Liberty and the NY skyline. While in
    Staten Island we ate at Enoteca Maria. This tiny restaurant is run by Grandmother
    Chefs. The night we were there it was an Italian Nonna but they have Nonnas
    from Greece, Syrian, Trinidad, Brazil, Japan, Bangladesh, and Venezuela as
    well. This is a cash only place and reservations are recommended. The
    servings are ample and the price is very fair.
  The Strand Bookstore has 18 miles of books including many rare books. It is worth a trip to Nolita to see it. ( we spent the most money shopping here)
  

 

[skyblue17]

The first thing we cut back on was local travel cost. I purchased us
both a 7 day unlimited MTA card as soon as we got to LaGuardia. They cost $33
each. We followed the signs in the airport to “Buses to the City” and hopped
on the Q70 Express. After a couple stops in the airport, we hopped off the
bus and transferred to the subway that shuttled us off to our hotel. **There
are stairs to climb so I wouldn’t do this with small children or with loads
of luggage. We each had a suitcase and a backpack and were fine** The cost to
uber to our hotel would have been $60 each way and would only have saved us
10 minutes.

While this plan is usually a wise one, it's a bit less ideal at the moment due to the Astoria Boulevard subway station being closed for renovation for the spring/summer. It still IS possible if you go to a different subway station (Roosevelt Ave.) but that is a longer bus and then longer subway ride into Manhattan, so isn't suggested as often. Still works, though!

We spent $30 each on activities for the week. We did do a lot of free
roaming around; Central Park, Time Square, The Financial District, Chelsea
Market, Nolita, Visiting the high end boutiques and Flagship stores.

You are right that you can do SO MUCH in NYC for free! The Staten Island Ferry, Central Park and the Highline are three of my favorite things to do (and I actually do go to Central Park and the Highline fairly often!). The Vessel at Hudson Yards at the end of the High Line might also be cool, but requires reservations.

 

[sk8jdgca]

@skyblue17 we did the Roosevelt one. We were staying in the Flower district in Chelsea. The bus ride didn’t seem too long

 

[leebee]

This is kind-of rambling, as thoughts/ideas come to me:
I would not recommend using the hop-on, hop-off (HOHO) buses. You spend more of your time sitting in traffic than anything else, IME. HOWEVER... we are big fans of the night-tour bus. I think it's a grey line tour, but I am sure there are several. It's a full tour, not a HOHO, and at night there is far less traffic. They leave somewhat before dusk, and you can ride on the upper deck, out in the open, up in the lights of NYC as night falls. We try to do this on our first evening (actually have done this in several cities) and always find places we didn't know about, that we want to see. We really enjoy the night-time tour buses.

I usually get our tickets at TKTS in Times Square as we often aren't too picky about what we see. You can go online (tdf.org) to see what was at the window today, and the price. No guarantee if they'll be there tomorrow, but the price is really decent for good seat (not amazing seats, but not terrible, either). If you want a really good deal and don't necessarily care about seat location, you can try buying rush tickets (each theatre has its own regulations... check online). Basically you line up ahead of box office opening in the morning and can buy deeply discounted tickets for that evening's performance, although the tickets are usually pretty close to the front but off to the sides. We spent $22 to see Daniel Radcliffe and John Laroquette in "How to Succeed in Business" and, as DD said, we were close enough for Daniel to sweat on us during the dance scenes! Let's see... Blue Man Group is always fun, and if your son's into music/rhythm at all, you could go see Stomp.

I am a fan of the Met. It's not just an art museum; there are all KINDS of things in it, like Egyptian tombs, coats of armor from medieval times, entire rooms from castles, etc. I also really loved MOMA. I am a scientist, so I am still a little surprised by modern art speaking to me, but there you have it! There is also the Intrepid Air and Space Museum, where you can explore an actual aircraft carrier. DH was crazy about this!

The NBC Studio tour was fun. DD LOVED Strawberry Fields in Central Park (Yoko Ono's memorial to John Lennon). We've been to the Statue of Liberty several times (DD and DH went up into the crown); there is a pretty interesting museum within the pedestal. You need to buy tickets to get over to the island, but touring the statue itself is free. We also really liked Ellis Island; the history and artifacts from all the immigration that occurred here is pretty awe-inspiring. WE like going up the Empire State building; sometime we are going to do Top of the Rock. Haven't done the 9-11 site yet; my BIL was supposed to be a flight attendant on the United flight that hit the Twin Towers (he called in sick that day to go to court to contest a traffic ticket) so while I'd like to see it someday, I'm not ready yet.

Good luck. It's a little overwhelming at first. I think I used the Unofficial Guide to NYC to get a grip on the layout of the city itself (learn which way streets/avenues run, where things are located, etc) which was helpful, and I kept a city map with me at all times. NYC has a LOT of tall buildings, and sometimes our phone reception was effected by this. I am sure you'll have a great time; NYC is an AMAZING place, and if I could find a job that would pay me enough to live on, I'd move to Manhattan in a heartbeat!

 

[mjkacmom]

Just a correction to the above, there are 3 types of SOL tickets, ferry only, pedestal, and crown, you pay different amounts. Tickets to the crown sell out way in advance, and pedestal weeks in advance. You must put your bags in lockers before going through security to enter the SOL (but I’d recommend getting tickets to enter, its very nice and interesting inside, a small museum, great views, a/c, plus restrooms without lines).

 

[gina2000]

Divide Manhattan into neighborhoods - downtown (financial district), Greenwich Village, Soho, theater district, upper west side, upper east side, midtown, Central Park. Google things to do in each area by area name so that you are able to choose places that are geographically close to each other. Unless you are willing to use the subway, you must factor in travel time by taxi as you go from neighborhood to neighborhood. Look for restaurants by neighborhood also.

 

[rlk]

As a New Yorker, living in Manhattan for over 30 years, I want to reiterate what several posters have stated about traffic. The subway will be your friend. If you are confused about a train or stop, just ask someone. New Yorkers are actually friendly and helpful; you just have to ask the question first.

Your son might enjoy a trip to Coney Island. You have the amusement park, aquarium, and beach all right there.