New York in 48 hours

We had a really short time – 48 hours to be precise to see the Big Apple and our to do list was ambitious covering the uptown, midtown & downtown.

Landing after a 20 hours flight from Mumbai, we reached our AirBnB in Queens by noon. After some rest, we headed to Times Square in the evening where we spent most of the time roaming through the shops, under the shimmering billboards. From world’s largest & costliest billboard, to biggest new year party, to magical Broadway shows – Times Square is the place to absorb the city.

Next day, we purchased the online New York City Pass. There are couple of options – City Pass, Explorer Pass, Newyork Pass. We went with the last one as it included Hop On Hop Off bus. Other attractions included are https://www.newyorkpass.com/new-york-attractions/ This was the only full day we had with us and started early at 9am to make the best of the day. We started with a short route on HOHO covering Top Of Rock, Central Park, Empire State while understanding the history of this busy city. We then moved towards the downtown area into the financial district to cover Wall Street, the Bull, Chinatown and 9/11 memorial. Statue of Liberty cruise had a 2 hour queue, however we could take the ticket and use it the next day, thereby turning our 1 day pass to 2 😊 We ended the night with a thrilling bus tour “The Ride”.

We had to checkout by noon and reach airport by 4 pm to catch our flight to Vegas. We had the Statue of Liberty ticket ready from yesterday and headed early to avoid queues. While some recommend doing the Staten Island ferry (which is for free) to get good views of the statue, we had the pedestal entry to the statue as part of our pass. Just back on time for the checkout, we had a busy 48 hours exploring Newyork!