After a late night, we were up this
morning at 7:30 to head to the Statue of Liberty. We made sure to have time to grab breakfast
at the grocery next door. We didn’t eat
very much yesterday. Last night at
dinner, John Crothers told me about the free app “HOP Stop.” Love it!
It gives specific subway directions from where you are to where you want
to go. It worked great – got us straight
down to Battery Park to catch the 10:00 ferry to Liberty Island. We took a ranger led tour and the girls got
Junior Ranger badges. Then we ferried
over to Ellis Island. We split up so the
girls could do the audio tour. We
started on the 2nd floor where the registry area and all the testing
departments were. Brad started
downstairs. Then his phone went dead and
he had trouble finding us. Eventually we
got back together and returned by ferry to NY.
We walked up towards the WTC site
and found signs indicating timed tickets were needed to “preview” the
memorial. I had tried to look this up
ahead of time, but had trouble finding info about it on line. We went to the visitor’s center. They hand out same day tickets and at 3:00
they were handing out 6:00 tickets. We
had planned to be in early tonight and didn’t have anything to do in lower
Manhatten on a Sunday for three hours, but I also didn’t want to leave the area
until I was positive we could get tickets for tomorrow morning. I quickly checked the memorial website on my
phone and it pulled up the current day and showed tickets available for
4:30! I reserved those and we went back
around the corner to the VC to print them.
Then we rested and refreshed ourselves at Starbucks until 4:15. It worked out perfectly! The memorial preview site (as it is called –
I guess because it’s not completely finished) had tight security. They had four checkpoints where they checked
your ticket and you had to go through security.
Hmm… ripple effects of 9/11 at 9/11.
The memorial was very nicely done.
Completely changing gears, we
hopped on the subway back up to Times Square.
We came out into the crowds and lights and craziness and Audra said,
“This is how I pictured New York.” We
went in Toys R Us – 3 stories with a ferris wheel inside. We took it all in and left it all there. Then we walked back to our hotel room
(grabbed dinner on the way). One of
Carmen’s favorite parts of NY was the hotel room: the big bed, the bathtub and
the TV.
Loved the audio tour of Ellis Island.
ReplyDeleteSounds like I need to teach you how to plan better.
Yeah there's nothing to do in lower Manhattan. Boring.
Could have gone to Trinity Church and St. Paul's.
ReplyDelete