New York, New York 🌇🗽

Last year I finally got to travel to a city I have always dreamed about visiting – New York City. I can’t even begin to tell you how amazing it was – I honestly felt like I was in a movie for the entire trip it was just so surreal.

So, I decided to do a blog post on my trip with some personal tips and recommendations for you. First thing is first, if you are planning to go make sure you shop around first. Normally when I book holidays I don’t book packages, mainly because I think some packages are just crazy money and I know that you can get flights and accommodation no bother AND most of the time when I book it myself it always works out cheaper. This was the case for New York as well – we booked our flights through Aer Lingus and trawled Tripadvisor for at least two weeks before deciding on which hotel to stay in. We got loads of recommendations for places to stay – I love personal recommendations because you are almost always guaranteed an honest review. We decided on the Hotel Edison and all together it cost us €750 each for 5 days.

I booked airport transfers with JR Luxury NYC – I joined a New York Facebook Page which I would 100% recommend because the group is full of tips and help and advice (you do have to request to join but it’s normally accepted in a few minutes). I saw that JR Luxury were recommended numerous times on the Facebook group so we decided to book with them. You can contact them to get a quote they are so helpful, and when we did confirm our booking they emailed us a whole list of places to eat and things to do. We flew into JFK which isn’t far from the city so if you do want to get a taxi I think they are around €50.

Another thing I would suggest is don’t get sucked into the New York Pass or City Pass. Before you buy one you really have to consider how long you are there for, what you want to see and at what pace you want to see it. Like, think about it.. 80 attractions and you’re there for 3/4 days? And some of the attractions that are advertised are free, such as Central Park , Times Square, and then the museum admission is ‘pay what you wish’ so you can pay their suggested admission of $22 or you can basically pay what you want (I personally paid the suggested admission because I read up on what the museum does in terms of research and they offer free trips for schools which I loved). In a nutshell, plan what you want to see and weigh out the costs and see which is better value for what you want to do.

We all know that New York means one thing – SHOPPING. When I was planning to go I had heard all about the outlets and of course I wanted to go. But while I was researching and reading about the shops in the outlets and also reading if they are worth the visit I found loads of posts especially on TripAdvisor saying that they aren’t worth a visit and the shopping is better in the city BLAH BLAH BLAHHHH. Do me a favour, if you read things like this or hear things like this DON’T LISTEN. If you want to go to the outlets – GO. You can decide yourself when you get there if it was worth it. Don’t let others put you off, make your own mind up and then see how it goes. For me personally I LOVED the outlets. We went to two Outlets, Woodbury Common and Jersey Gardens. Sean loved Woodbury Common and I loved Jersey Gardens. In short, Woodbury Common is about an hours drive away and it is not a centre all the shops are outside. So if you are going in the winter time wrap up because it can be quite chilly. Jersey Gardens is only a 20-25 minute drive from the city, the shops are tax free and the main reason why I loved it – there was a Victoria Secret Outlet there 😍 and just to give you an idea of the prices I got 3 bikinis for $60….. let that sink in. If you are going to go to either outlets I would recommend the following –

Go early, the earlier you go the more time you have to shop and to take your time going from shop to shop.
Bring a small suit case to Woodbury, we didn’t but I saw so many people who did and we were sorry we didn’t because we had so many bags to drag around!
Get a trolly in Jersey Gardens, they’re so handy to wheel around and throw your bags into. I think they’re $4 dollars for the day.
WEAR COMFY SHOES
Pick up your discount booklets from customer services in both outlets – you just need to show your passport. Give the booklet a read because there are some really good deals in them.

To give you an idea of the bargains you can pick up here. When we visited, Converse had buy 1 pair get a 2nd pair for half price. Vans were 50% off everything. Calvin Klein had 70% off women’s underwear. I picked up three pairs of Nike Runners for something like $60 dollars. Sean got so many tshirts in Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, All Saints all for nearly half price. I also picked up two Guess Bags for me and my mam and they were less than $100 for the two. So in short – the outlets were 100% worth a visit.

We stayed in Hotel Edison which is literally right on Times Square. I would recommend this hotel only for it’s location and the rooms were really comfy and clean – as for the staff, I have decided not to comment but just don’t expect a warm welcome or helpful attitude.

The afternoon we arrived we dropped our bags and went straight out. Mind you I was in no form after the plane journey I was so so travel sick but I was glad we went out in the end. We walked up to the Empire State Building and we just paid upon entry, we paid $34 dollars for the main deck as the top deck was actually closed at the time for reconstruction (see Website for info & Pricing here). The views from the top were just outstanding, I will never forget it!