I LOVE PARADES !!
Probably as much as Oprah LOVES bread! I've always wanted to see the 3 major parades, live and in person, especially the Rose Bowl Parade, in nice sunny warm California. And can you imagine Disney's Christmas parade, how magical would that be AT Disney ON Christmas day! My least favorite to see would be the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, I was just not as excited about sitting in cold freezing air to see larger than life balloons. Sitting in my PJ's on Thanksgiving morning with a cup of coffee in my hand was just fine, until this year !
Years ago we lived in Cali and one Christmas morning the boys received tickets to attend Disney's Christmas Day parade on Christmas day! We packed up and got to rope drop and were the first people in line. To our dismay we found out that day that the Christmas day parade is pre-filmed. Not only did we not get to see it live and in person we were at the park and would not even get to see it on TV. But it all turned out ok. We enjoyed our Disney Day and had a wonderful Christmas.
Missing Disney's Christmas day parade made us want to see others. So while we were in Cali we planned to see the Rose Bowl Parade, which is filmed live. An awesome experience ! The whole city smelled of fresh flowers just like when you walk into a florist shop. My son and I were able to help decorate floats that year and that just added to the awesome adventure. If you ever get a chance to go be sure to purchase the after parade ticket to get up close and personal with the floats, SO worth the money!!
So finally one parade checked off our to see bucket list!!
Now to this year. We found out that we had some Amtrak miles that would expire this year if we did not use them. So after doing some research we figured out we had enough points for a one way trip with train and one way trip with Delta. Where would one go with train and plane miles,
NEW YORK CITY!! of course!!!!!
And what better time to go than to see the Parade!! So we booked the trip. So I won't boar you with all the details but I will tell you some info to think about if you ever make the trip and great things we enjoyed during this time. I'll also load up lots of pictures for you to enjoy!
#1 - We stayed at THE NEW YORKER by Wyndham on 34th street . Great hotel! Retro Flair and VERY clean! Tick Tock is the dinner in the bottom of the hotel, our kids loved eating there. Dad and I enjoyed kid free time in the morning enjoying a cup of coffee people watching out big picture windows.
#2 - Rockettes at Radio Music Hall was a fantastic! Even my two teens had a good time. We had the cheapest way up in the nose bleed section seats and it was still enjoyable from way up there. When we came in everyone got a Santa hat so it made the whole place festive!
#3- After the show we walked around outside and enjoyed watching the street vendors. Some were artist and others were sellers of knock offs.
#3- Right now FOA Swartz has a store set up at Rockefeller Center where you can play the full size piano. There's a line so be prepared!
#4- On Thanksgiving day make reservations for after the parade. We chose Max Brenner. OMG!!! That was leg slapping good!! Its a chocolate bar but they have food also. The chocolate fondue was a big hit for our family. The mac-n-cheese burger was not a big hit with one of my teens but the wings were!
#5- China town is a good place to shop after the parade to let the crowd clear out up by the hotel. The New Yorker is just a few blocks from Macy's and it was crazy when we got back to our hotel at 5pm, I can only image it right after the parade.
#6- Parade Day!! Bring a million had warmers. You know those little heat up things! I had those things in my shoes, in my hands, in my pants pockets and I was still cold. I also had on 3 layers of pants and 5 layers of tops! Hats and gloves and boots! It was cold!! Dress warmly!!
#7- The night before the parade attend the blow up party. They will have certain streets lined with all the balloons and you can watch them from start to finish. It's a one way in and a one way out, so don't rush through or you will have to walk all the way back around to start again. New York knows how to move people where they want you to go!!! Go with the flow!
#8-GMA- If you want to be in the audience of GMA sign up with less than 3 people. We signed up and because we were a "group" (4 people) we were put on some waiting list and did not get in. I signed up the first day our available time was posted. I should have had dad sign up him and one kid and I sign up with a kid. Not sure if that would work but what I did sure did not work. We did go stand at GMA studio at 7:30 am outside and Robin and Ginger came out to greet up, so that was pretty cool.
#9- If you want to do a show, sign up for several that way when you miss out on one you have a chance for the second one. I wish now I had signed up for Kelly and Ryan, since my GMA fell through.
#10 - SANTA LAND IS A MUST !! Right now you can only see SANTA with reservations so plan accordingly!! EVERYONE knows that the real Santa is in Macy's in NYC! It's free and fun!! Be sure to ride the wooden escalators up to the 8th floor, where Santa is. Those wooden moving steps are just amazing!
#11- Staten Island ferry is free. The NYC side boarding building has the best pizza we found anywhere around. Riding the ferry gives you a good look at Lady Liberty. We wanted to do the Crown tour but it was sold out at the time of our travel dates., BOOK this early if you want to do this on your trip. We have already done the pedestal tour once. It was Good, but we wanted to see something different this time.
#12- Biking Central park was fun! Beware bikes are not allowed on the little paths in central park just the big ones.
#13 - Train travel can be fun, but we took the train home from NYC and we were exhausted and our train was on a 2 hour delay which made it very long and tiring!! I wish I would have known that you could hop off at Union Station in Washington, DC. I saw several people do this and it would have been nice to stretch those legs. Dinning cars are always a fun way to break up such a long trip. So we did dine, but there was not much of a selection of teen food. The server let our teens eat off the kids menu which consisted of a hot dog! Our server was telling us that they will be doing away with the dinning cars next year and encouraged us to tell our senators to save the dinning car! I've taking the train several times now and one of the best memories I have is eating in the dinning car, breakfast is my favorite. So i'll be trying to save the dinning cars so you and your family can one day enjoy a fun adventure in your travels.
Hope these tips help you to plan the perfect trip to NYC to see the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade. If you have any questions shoot me an email. I'll try to help out the best I can.
Merry Christmas 2018!!
