Taking a Bite Out of the Big Apple

As a first timer to New York City, I wasn’t sure what to expect…I mean sure I have heard plenty about it and my husband has been several times and LOVES it.  But this mountain loving open space seeking girl isn’t exactly super excited about all the tall buildings and city life.  So to say I was a bit worried I might not love it is an understatement.  BUT, it was truly fabulous!  There are so many fascinating things such as the sheer number of Starbucks in a 10 block radius, or the number foreign languages I heard…but what stood out the most is the number of people ALWAYS around…not matter what part of town you are in or what time of day…there are so many people.  In a good way – mostly.  ;-)

When starting to plan our trip I did what any good travel consultant does…research.

When it came to trying to figure out where to stay, there were so many great choices of course.  But we landed on a new hotel that has a totally different approach to hotel living.  We stayed at the EVEN Hotel near Penn Station.  The reason I wanted to check it out is because it has a unique opportunity for the hotel guests.  Each room has a workout space in it equipped with an exercise ball, yoga mat, exercise bands and loads of workout options from a booklet to multiple workout channels for you to  turn on.  From the catchy slogans on their signs to the water bottle for us (to be more green) this place impressed me the most by their outstanding service.  Some of the best service I have ever had at a hotel to be honest.  They have a healthy option restaurant, Cork and Kale, for breakfast, dinner and on the go meals.  Of course this type of hotel wouldn’t be complete with a 24 hour fitness center with more equipment for you to use to make certain you can stay healthy while traveling!

Since we chose to stay there, I made sure to get over to a couple other hotels so that I can see which room I will stay in next time I visit.  The first stop was the JW Marriott Essex House.  WOW.  What can I say?  Luxury feel, fabulous location, amazing views of Central Park and the city, great restaurant and bar, the list is long.  What stood out the most you might wonder?  The size of the rooms!   Even the standard room is quite big for New York hotels.  Plenty of space to move around, ample storage for your luggage - you don’t ever feel cramped.  The overall vibe of the hotel was really nice, not pretentious, but rather a pretty affordable luxury hotel.   The ballroom is remarkable for your next wedding or other event  - where you will always be the ONLY event going on in that space, not matter how big or small.  We dined in the restaurant and were impressed by the food and wine selection as well the ambiance.  If you want to buy a table for breakfast the morning of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, you can enjoy a fabulous meal while watching the parade cruise by your table.  You will even have street access if you prefer that.  It would definitely be great to go back there for that event.  To sum it up, you just can’t go wrong with this luxury hotel.  The JW Marriott Essex House – a must!

One other hotel I wanted to check out was the Lotte New York Palace Hotel – it is right across from St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  Another fabulous location with great city views as well as views of the famous historical St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  This luxury hotel is another gem of New York City.  The attention to detail and the thought behind each finish is truly amazing.  The standard rooms and suites are also quite large with several great options for families or multifamily travel.  There are a few options to have a cocktail at, a breakfast lunch/coffee place, and a restaurant that will be serving breakfast only soon with lunch and dinner to come in the months ahead.  The most interesting place to get a drink there is Rarities.  This place is essentially a drinkable museum.  You must have a reservation to get in, but once you are in, you can try liquors and wines that have some amazing story behind them and were likely purchased at an auction.  It truly is a “rare” find.  You do not have to stay at the hotel to have a drink there…just be sure you get your reservation made in advance!  My absolute favorite place in the hotel though is the Jewel Suite.  A 3 story room with your own personal elevator, outdoor patio with fireplace and hot tub as well as plenty of tables and chairs to sit around while enjoying the stunning view of the city.  Jewelry designer Martin Katz helped create this stunning room with his jewels showcased in the room for you to enjoy.  This room has multiple bedrooms and bathrooms, an office that is too pretty to work in really, and the most amazing gathering area with the 3 story windows for you to take it all in.  This suite is only matched by one other suite in town – and happens to be right next door in the Champagne Suite.  A much more masculine room, but the same amazing views and features, the completely different décor including much darker wood finishes.  This suite will not disappoint the Dom Perignon lover with the displays of Dom around the room and the glass chandelier that was made to look like champagne bubbles in your glass.  Yes, the attention to detail is unmatched.

So many things to do and see in NYC and too many to try to list here in this blog.  One of the most unexpectedly interesting things we did was the Rockefeller Center Tour.  I had no idea it was going to be mostly outside and all about the 19 buildings that make up Rockefeller Center.  Who knew?  Our tour guide was amazing and just the right amount funny!  We learned a ton and were in awe most of the 75-minute tour.  It is worth it if you haven’t done it.  Some must-do’s in my opinion would be to visit the 911 Memorial, walk the financial district, get to the Top of the Rock and for the romantics out there, take a carriage ride with your sweetheart through Central Park.  That is just the beginning of things to do over a long weekend in the city that never sleeps.

 New York is known for great food…and it did not disappoint.  We had dinner at Minetta Tavern – a great spot in Greenwhich Village that seemed filled will locals.  It’s been around since 1937 and for good reason.  They are known for their Black Label Burger, but have a wide range of options from Roasted Bone Marrow to King Salmon and so much more.  Great wine list, excellent Martini, and impeccable service.  If you decide to go, be sure to make reservations a few weeks in advance!

We also hit David Burke Kitchen in SoHo.  My husband has been there for dinner a few times so we had planned to have brunch there, but ended up doing breakfast, which was amazing!  Best French Toast I have ever had!  Most unique Bloody Mary we have come across – but the hubs says it was amazing!  You can’t go wrong with anything you order any time of day!  Reservations are ideal.

Of course we hit the random pizza joint on the street to grab a slice and it was great! 

One more place to note that we hadn’t planned on going to but SO glad we did is Patsy’s Italian Restaurant New York.  It is a family run restaurant that has been there since 1944 in the Theater District in Midtown Manhattan.  From the moment you walk in the door you are greeted with fabulous service and likely to see at least one of the family members.  They have only had 3 chefs – the late Patsy himself, his son Joe, or Joe’s son Sal (who has been running the kitchen for the past 29 years).  The best service we have ever had, some amazing Italian food and we even got to see Tony Danza dining at his regular table.  And yes, we made eye contact but I did not bother him.  ;-)  This restaurant is a must!  And you will want to have a reservation there also!     

If you have the opportunity to go to the Big Apple for the first time or your 10^th time, there is always something new to see or a restaurant you haven’t hit.  Needless to say, his first time visitor will be back!

(Article contributed by Jamie Eldridge, H&K's adventure travel expert.  You can see her profile by clicking on this link H&K Luxury Travel)

The Brilliance of the Seas Review 2014

My wife and I returned recently from our February 10th, 5 night western caribbean cruise out of Tampa aboard the Brilliance and I wanted to give you a brief summary of our experience and explain why we love this class of ship.  The Brilliance is a part of Royal Caribbean's Radiance class of ships.  Back in the day, the Radiance class would have been considered a very large ship (weighing in at  90,000 tons), but compared to today's mega ships, the Radiance-class will look and feel more like a midsize vessel.  This was our second cruise aboard this class of ship.  Our very first cruise ever was aboard the Radiance of the Seas so this cruise held a lot of nostalgia for us.  While so much was still the same, RCCL has added some great features due to the huge refurbishment in May of last year (2013).

It is an easy ship to get from point A to point B which cannot be said of some ship designs and sizes.

The decor is still what I call modern, but elegant which is why I think Royal Caribbean as a whole appeals to a broader clientele.  They tend to not be as flashy (Vegas-like) as Carnival, but also not as dark and stately as Holland America.  But back to the Brilliance.  The additions of Vintages to the Centrum was a nice addition.  I loved the decor.  For wine-enthusiasts, this will be your favorite hangout on the ship.  The new restaurant called Izumi was also a new-addition home run.  I was a bit disappointed in the location of the "library" because it is not really a library anymore; it is more like a area used for photos that happens to have some shelves of books back behind it.  But that was really the only change that I saw that I was not fond of compared to the way it was pre-refurbishment.   I will post a link to the pictures so you can see the decor yourself and I won't have to blather on and bore you with details.

Let's get to the important things that most want to know about in a review:

1) Pre-cruise stay.  We drove to Tampa since we are only about 12 hours away.  It is hard to justify flights these days when you look at the overall cost compared to driving.  We enjoy our leisurely drives to various places in Florida.  So we arrived actually two days early because we were staying at the Tampa Marriott Waterside Hotel and Spa.  We really wanted two days at this awesome hotel.  It is located just steps away from the pier.  By steps I mean it is walkable.  Our room was a standard room but had a great view of the city and was plenty big and comfortable.  There is a Starbucks on the first floor that offers free wifi in its seating area which beats the expensive wifi offered in the rooms.  The best thing about this hotel is its location.  You can arrive, park your car and not have to drive to any shopping or eateries before you head out on your cruise.  I particularly loved waking up early the morning of our cruise and standing by the waters edge as I watched our ship return back to port.  For sports fans, the hotel is across the street from the home of the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning.  One of the hotel's staff members let us know that one of the stars of that team uses their hotel for his pre-game nap which we thought was quite funny.

2) Embarkation.  I had heard mixed reviews of Tampa's port.  Most of the negativity was directed at disembarkation, which I will get to in a minute.  But as far as embarkation is concerned, we left our hotel around 10:30am, drove the whopping 5 mins from the hotel to the pier and opted for the valet parking service.  For about $20 extra, you drive up, give your bags to the porter and watch your car get whisked to the lot that is right there next to the terminal.  I am all about convenience and I highly recommend their valet service.  You pre-pay for the valet parking right at the bottom of the escalator that takes you up to the check in area.  It took no more than 5 mins to pre-pay and and no more than another 10 mins to get through security and checked in.  We waited another 10 mins or so for our boarding group to get called and we were on the ship by 11:00am.  30 mins from the time we left our hotel until the time we were looking at the decor of the ship...not bad at all.

3) Stateroom. We were in a Category D2 which is the deluxe ocean stateroom with balcony.  One of the highlights, other than the balcony, was the abundance of storage.  We could not fill up all of the storage areas in our room.  The stateroom was spacious and very comfortable.  We were on deck 9 in #9614.  Not too far from the stairs and only 2 decks away from the pool deck and the Windjammer which is the main buffet eating area on the ship.

4) Food and Dining.  Seems like the food is becoming more and more bland in the main dining

rooms and the buffets these days.  We just found the food to be OK.  Breakfast was...OK.  Dinner in the main dining room was...Ok.  The highlight as far as the mass-produced food goes continues to be Royal Caribbean's french fries.  They are awesome!  And if you have had them, you know what I mean.  Our best meal by far was in the new Izumi Restaurant which is near the back of the ship in the area that used to be the Seaview Cafe.  It is a made-to-order Japanese/Asian restaurant and it was excellent.  We did not make any advance dining reservations before we boarded and we were able to call the day we wanted to try it and we got right in.  Great new addition and I highly recommend it. And for the first time, we tried the "My Time" dining option for the main dining room.  Unlike NCL's "Freestyle" dining, RCCL's version is a little more structured, or at least it can be.  With "My Time," you can still pre-select a set dining time for each night of your cruise.  You can select the same time for each night or mix it up a little.  Or you can simply opt to show up at the "My Time" level of the main dining room and wait for the first available seating.  We opted for 6:30pm every night.  We had the same table every night and the same waitstaff, but we had different table mates every night.  Nice option and we may opt for that again on a future cruise.

5) Entertainment.  The comedian was great.  The juggler/comedian was great.  The guest singer was great.  But some of the other musical groups throughout the ship left something to be desired.  If it had not been for the main performances in the main theater, we might have felt a bit bored at night after dinner.  RCCL has added some new acrobatic shows in the Centrum and they were OK, but you need to get to the Centrum early if you wanted to be able to get near the railing so you could have a good view of what was going on.   Our cruise director was good, but not the best compared to our other cruises.

6) Ports of Call.  Since this was only a 5 night cruise, we had two ports of call; Grand Cayman and Cozumel.  This was our 3rd visit to each of these ports.  We hired a taxi driver in Cozumel and negotiated a private tour of the island.  For $35 per person, we had an entire van to ourselves and a nice tour of the entire island including at least 4 stops at various areas of the beach so we could get out, take some pics, get a beverage, shop etc.  It was a great way to see so much of beautiful Cozumel.  One of the stops was at the new area call Paradise Beach which is an area really built for the day tourist.  You pay a one time fee and you are given access to a nice pool and also a great stretch of beach including lounge chairs and hammocks.  Food and beverages can be purchased at an additional cost.  While in Grand Cayman...we opted again to do some shopping and enjoy a day at leisure.  We did happen across a great Thai restaurant for lunch which happens to offer free wifi if you are a patron.  It appeared to be a popular spot for cruise line employees to eat and chat with their family back at home.  We also had to stop in at Breezes and enjoy a cool beverage on their open air balcony before heading back to the ship.

7) Disembarkation.  Ok...here is where some of the negative reviews about Tampa's port were correct.  This has nothing to do with Royal Caribbean.  Royal Caribbean is at the mercy of the customs department when it comes to how quick guests can actually get off the ship.  The customs area at the pier is chaotic at best.  They just don't seem to know how to organize everyone.  The Getting off and getting your luggage is the easy part.  But then the line to get through customs just seemed to be a mess as if no one seems to know what to do.  Employees were trying to get people to follow a certain line path, but nothing was marked very well and the lines were backing up fast.  So here is a very important tip; when it is your time to disembark, grab a porter as soon as you get into the baggage claim area.  Porters are allowed to escort you to the front in a different line and you can be out of there in no time at all.  That is what we did and it took no time at all and we were off the ship and in our car in about 15 mins.   And this is where having your car valeted helps. We walked out, handed our claim slip to an attendant and our car was quickly brought to us curbside.

Regardless of what some might consider negative comments, the cruise was awesome.  Can't say enough about the beauty of the ship.  Our stateroom was kept spotless and our attendant was there if we needed him.  Our service staff in the dining room was wonderful.  Everyone we came in contact with on the ship was friendly and helpful.  The public areas, including the restrooms (keep in mind that this cruise was shortly after the big moro-virus news aboard another RCCL cruise), were spotless.  The weather was ideal...lots of sun and warmth.  The Brilliance is, well, Brilliant.

If you have any specific questions about any part of the cruise or the ship that I did not address, please leave a comment and I will make sure I respond.

For more photos of the ship...you can click on these links:

Brilliance of the Seas Part 1
Brilliance of the Seas Part 2



Caribbean Cruise 2014 from Oeshpdog2 on Vimeo.

Branson and Silver Dollar City

This post will document our recent trip to Branson Missouri and 2 days at the amusement park...Silver Dollar City. We went on May 15th and 16th (Thursday and Friday). Make a note of the dates because it was a great time of the year to visit this sometimes very congested area. Branson is one of the main tourist spots in the State of Missouri and gets large bus loads of kids and other tour groups throughout the busier times of the year. We picked these dates because we knew kids would still be in school and the weather would already be fairly warm and pleasant.

Crowds were extremely light. Show lines were short, ride lines seemed even shorter. If you like to ride rides and hate having to stand in 1 to 2 hour lines, consider planning trips to amusement parks during this time of year.

Silver Dollar City is one of the most pristine and scenic amusement parks we have ever visited. Flowers and trees lined every walkway throughout the park. The shops are all themed in the time period of the old time settlers with somewhat of a "Hillbilly" look and feel (I mean that in a good way). It was one of the cleanest parks I have ever been to outside of Walt Disney World.

I cannot stress enough how this park is devoted to promoting a family atmosphere. Foul language of any sort or any obscene gestures will get those who use such escorted from the park. I have never seen such attention to maintaining a certain environment in all my life. It was refreshing.
A few years ago you would have never used the phrase "thrill ride" in conjunction with talking about Silver Dollar City. The two now go together. They have recently added several thrill rides including 2 top notch roller coasters; WildFire and Powder Keg. One drops and twists and turns through the Ozark hillside while the other launches you from 0 to 60mph in around 2 seconds and sends you on a blast over bumps and through turns. Other rides of note is the huge swinging ride called "Barn Swing" and another spinning ride call "Electro Spin." Needless to say my thrill quota was met for a while. For more details about this park and its offerings visit: www.silverdollarcity.com

One more mention goes out to Silver Dollar City. I have to tell you about the food. Now there is the standard amusement park food offerings; hamburgers, hot dogs, funnel cakes etc. Then there is the food that really raises the bar for amusement parks elsewhere. I had some of the best barbecue around right there inside the park. It was high quality at even a reasonable price. In fact, the food prices seemed lower and more in line with normal restaurant prices versus what you normally pay for eating inside of an amusement park. And if you have a sweet tooth, they have some of the best candy and chocolate makers and bakers right there inside the park as well. We were highly impressed with the food and snack offerings so go hungry and enjoy!

Now on to where we decided to stay for the one night on this trip. I made arrangements for us to stay at Marriott's Horizon Vacation Club Resort. If you have a large family and want a place to stay where you can bring your own food and even cook if you want, this is the place to stay. Unlike most cabin or condo offerings that are outside the town area, this resort is close to everything while also being off the main street that runs by all of the different show venues. The grounds were beautiful and the rooms well appointed. You can choose to stay in one of the studio style rooms that comes equipped with a kitchenette or you can book one of their 2 bedroom, 2 bath villas that comes with a full size kitchen, living room area and even a washer and dryer. I was very impressed with the accommodations and can recommend this resort without hesitation.

You cannot go to Branson without trying to get in a music show or 2 while you are there. The concierge at the Marriott made mention of a new show that just started this past March. It is a musical walk through time from the 50's all the way through the 90's. These 2 brothers, The Rankin Brothers, do some of the best impressions of certain musicians that I have ever seen. If you were to have closed your eyes while they were singing, you would have bet your life that Buddy Holly, Simon and Garfunkel and even Elvis was on stage singing and performing. The crowd was light due to their "newbie" status in Branson, but well worth the money and I would make it a point to try to hear them again the next time we make it to Branson.

If you are interested in taking a trip to Branson and need help planning any of these activities, don't hesitate in sending me an e-mail and I would be glad to help with any or all of your plans.