New York City - Thursday - Friday

Thursday December 18 - Day 1
I am very grateful to have left Toronto on the 18th since the 19th was dreadful weather (in both NY and Toronto). We made it into the city around 10:00 pm and easily found our hotel after I forced our GPS to take us into the city via the George Washington Bridge, Harlem River Drive and down the FDR. It worked out well up until we tried to get parking when my instinct to ditch the car immediately failed me. I should have known entering the extremely steep ramp that we were in trouble. The pricing was marked halfway down the ramp and indicated $48/24 hour period. Parking in NYC is pretty much all valet and you are going to pay dearly for it but $48 was as steep as the ramp we were on. When we got to the bottom (backing up was impossible) I asked the attendant what the price would be for 24 hours and after he looked at my plates (Ontario) he said $55. WTH? Much to his misfortune I am not that stupid. After an 18 point turn I hauled my car back up the rocket launch onto 51st street determined to find "resonable" parking. Fortunately the next lot up the road offered a discount from our hotel and was only $30/ 24 hour period. Note to self: Always park at icon.
We stayed at the The Pod Hotel which has intrigued me since it first opened. We've stayed at their other location, Townhouse, when we were in Miami a couple of years ago and loved it. I knew going in that this was a budget hotel and hostel masquerading as a boutique hotel but I chose to ignore this fact. We paid $99/night which got us a 100 sq/foot room with a bunkbed and a shared bath. I'm not going to complain over $99/night but I need to point out that every other time I've looked at staying at this hotel the rate has been between $170 and $190 for this very room. Yeah right!!!!!

We settled into our room quickly and then decided to hit the town to grab dinner. We walked up 51st and were soon at Rockefeller Center. It did not disappoint. The decorations were beautiful and the tree was amazing. Saks was the highlight of perhaps all of the Christmas decorations we saw. This is not my video but I found several on Youtube:

We continued into Times Square and to our favourite Times Square restaurant, Juniors. This place has the best Grilled Cheese sandwich (ever) as well as some great onion rings. Yummy.
At this point we were exhausted and had to get back to our hotel-jail... immediately. I knew it wasn't possible to arrive in NYC and NOT go out but fun has its limits after driving for 8 hours. D

Here are some pictures of the SAKS 5th Ave window that we shot while walking back to the hotel:












Friday December 19 - Day 2
Friday was wet, cold and blustery yet we were able to get around to most of our target sight seeing locations. We started off the day by heading over to Bloomingdale's to check out the windows.












Afterward we hit up all of the places "30 somethings" go to when in NYC: FAO Schwartz, World of Disney, Toys R Us, American Girl Place and Santaland at Macy's. Yes, we are children.
Santaland was pretty cool although it was very busy. Santaland has more than one Santa hidden behind doors that you are escorted to by an elf (which worked really well for adults who don't want to be seen actually sitting on Santa's knee). I'm not sure how many there were but we saw at least 3 doors. I can only imagine the cash they are making. For $18 we got one 5x7 photo!!

World of Disney:












American Girl Place:









Macy's:









After a day in toy stores we went to go see Harry Potter bare all in Equus. The play was good albeit dark and somewhat depressing. As for "Harry Potter's Magic Wand"... we saw way more magic wand than we had expected. He was running around on stage for 10 minutes completely naked.
Once again by the time we were heading back to our "Pod" we were completely beat however this didn't stop us from snooping around the New York Palace hotel. I wish we'd stayed there! It was gorgeously decorated for Christmas: