Let me first say that if a trip was ever needed, this was it. In the days leading up to this vacation, I wasn’t sure if I’d make it. I LOVE my kids with my whole heart. I also recognize that I am in the trenches with toddlerhood. Between a sassy 3-year-old who thinks she knows everything (partly because she knows A LOT), and a 10-month-old on the verge of walking and is currently into EVERYTHING, my days feel like I’m sprinting a marathon sometimes. Add in there that Jason works out of town quite a bit and has a busy videography business in addition to his 40+ hours at his regular job (which we are so thankful for), I’m left feeling like have nothing left at the end of every single day. So, all of that is to say that I needed some time away from my day-to-day.
Mamas, can I get an amen?!
If you’ve followed my blog for any amount of time, you’ve probably seen a few of my previous New York trip reviews (part one and part two). I’ve been terrible about doing my travel reviews since we’ve had kids, in fact we actually took Brighten to New York with us last time we went in November 2017, but it did not make the blog. We knew we wanted go come back this fall, but I refused to do New York with a double stroller so, hello Mommy and Daddy getaway! This was our first time leaving Brighten AND Grady, and let me tell you, the prep work to leave two kids is not double, it’s about quadruple the work of leaving one. I don’t know how that math works out, but just take my word for it (I’ll be writing a separate post about preparing to be away from them).
Where we stayed
A few months ago we went to Atlanta for just a little overnight getaway with the kids. We stayed in an Embassy Suites because Jason is a loyal Hilton Honors member with all of his work travel and Mama wanted to spread out with some space for the pack-n-play and toddler bed. For some reason, the room smelled like sewage All. Night. Long. Since we had the kids and they slept through it, we opted to not change rooms at 3 a.m. and long story short, Hilton was amazing and gave us vouchers for two free nights in an Embassy Suites.
Soooooooo, you better believe we cashed in those vouchers and stayed in Manhattan for F R E E the first two nights we were in the city. I probably wouldn’t have chosen to stay in an ES on a weekend getaway with just Jason and me, but I LOVED the location, the hotel itself was pretty newly renovated, and a suite in midtown Manhattan basically means you can walk to the bathroom in the morning instead of just rolling out of the bed into the tub. We were thankful for the space, free breakfast, and proximity to things we wanted to do! I’d highly recommend, especially if you are coming with kids!
We actually switched to a different hotel for our last night because once the ES wasn’t free, it was kind of pricey. So, we packed up our stuff (which was so easy after packing for two kids + myself for the last year!) and walked a whole five blocks south to the Martinique New York, which is one of Hilton’s Curio Collection hotels. It was gorgeous inside, and we scored an upgrade to a room that was not a suite, but was somehow double the size of our suite from the previous two nights.
When we come back next time sans kids and sans free stay vouchers, I would absolutely stay at the Martinique again. It felt fancy without feeling fragile, the location was great (corner of Broadway and 32nd), and was steps away from the subway.
What we did
Friday
We arrived Friday night, and we’d actually planned to go see a play that night. Thankfully we didn’t buy tickets in advance because our plane ended up getting stuck on the tarmac for half an hour, we hit some traffic coming into the city, and once we got to the hotel, we were ready to explore. So, that’s what we did!
We grabbed a delicious and quick dinner at BH Kitchen & Bar. I’ve been eating on a pretty regimented program for the last two months, so I wanted something warm, semi-healthy, and tasty. The homemade chili did just the trick! It was the perfect size, and was topped off with red onion and shredded cheese. Jason got some sort of buffalo chicken sandwich and curly fries, which looked crispy and fresh! They sat us upstairs at a table for two in this little nook overlooking 49th Street and it was the most perfect, romantic way to kick off our first solo trip since Grady was born.
After dinner we walked around to Rockefeller Plaza, Bryant Park, and then back to our hotel. On our walk we saw people waiting for Saturday Night Live (this was Friday night) in these barricades. Y’all. They had been there SINCE WEDNESDAY!!! I thought that surely the musical guest/host for SNL would be like Meghan Markle or Elvis for people to live on the street...by choice...in the cold (like really, really cold). Nope. The host on Saturday night was Harry Styles. I even heard a girl say she’d done the same thing for Taylor Swift a few years ago but she only waiting for 12 hours. I’m sorry — to each their own, but there is not one human being that I would wait three days in the cold on the street to see from afar. Maybe if one of my children were hosting SNL, but I would have high expectations to get VIP status if that were the case, because I’d obviously be their manager.
I digress.
Saturday
Saturday morning we slept in. Let me repeat that. On Saturday morning I. Slept. In. And that made the whole trip 100% worth it! But really, we had a slow morning, went to get breakfast in the hotel, and then headed north to the Upper West Side.
One of my favorite movies of all time (maybe my favorite) is You’ve Got Mail. I’ll watch almost anything that’s New York as a genre, and You’ve Got Mail is everything good and dreamy about love, autumn, books, and New York. A few years ago I dubbed Tom Hanks a national treasure in our family (I’m sure his most prestigious award), so Jason knows that if something involves Tom, I’m absolutely there for it, no questions asked. While researching what I wanted to do for this trip, I kept thinking about YGM and Tom and wondering how I could do a few hours in the life of that movie. So, all all good research goes, I googled the movie. I knew The Shop Around the Corner was on the Upper West Side, and I found this cute blog that included some of the filming locations. The shop from the movie is no longer a bookstore, it’s a dry cleaning place now, so we skipped that one, but we did go to Cafe Lalo and Riverside Park.
After sitting in the sunshine for a while, we jumped back on the subway and headed for the West Village to meet up with a friend from college/Birmingham who moved to New York recently. I noticed as I looked at my map that there was a landmark along our route to where we were meeting him. When I clicked on it (thank you technology), it was the Friends Apartment. We for sure swung by to say hi to Monica and Rachel, who, in my little made up world, were sipping coffee and laughing on the couch while the Geller and Bing cousins debated what college Emma should go to next year and if it was far enough from home.
We had a great visit and it was nice to sit somewhere warm and sip coffee for a bit. Then, we hopped back on the subway and went to Shubert Theatre to see if we could buy tickets for To Kill A Mockingbird that night. That was a hard N-O. Tickets were either $499 a piece for seats or $39 for standing room only. Ummmm...what?! Since this play was kind of the main event of the weekend (and maybe we should have been a little less spontaneous about the whole thing), we turned to StubHub and thankfully it pulled through for us! We got our tickets and they were surprisingly about $400 cheaper for seats.
If you have the opportunity to go see To Kill A Mockingbird, do it!! It was possibly the best thing I’ve seen on Broadway, and I’ve seen quite a bit over the last 15 years or so.
When we got back to the hotel (at 11 p.m. — personal victory for me since I’m always home by 8:00 for bedtime with the kids) and I had walked over 21,000 steps, had a wonderful day of adventuring, and talked to my favorite adult all day long (rather than my favorite kids). It was perfect.
Sunday
Sunday morning I slept until 9:00!! Like, I didn’t even wake up once during the night. It was glorious! We got up and out by 10:00 or so and headed up the Central Park. I wanted to get Brighten an Eloise at The Plaza book, so we did a little souvenir shopping, grabbed lunch from Luke’s Lobster (one of our favorites), and then walked around 5th Ave. a bit.
The next few hours were our little gifts to each other for working hard, putting our all into parenting and work, and a time to just kind of intentionally recharge. I will say, I’m really proud of Jason and me because a few years ago I don’t know if either of us would have spoken up to say what we each wanted/needed to relax. For Jason, relaxing is going to see a movie he’s been waiting for, researched, and has a chance to win some sort of award. For me, it’s all about being pampered — mani/pedi, massage, something like that. In past trips, we never did anything like this because we felt bad leaving the other on a trip, but I think the longer we are married + the longer we have kids, we have learned to say what we need. And I absolutely loved that we did this.
Jason had been reading about this movie theater that Netflix rented out to show one of their original movies that had a chance to win an Oscar. He told me about it, but I really had no desire to go see the movie (while Jason has dreamt of doing something like this for years). The Paris Theater was right behind The Plaza, so I found a DryBar and a nail salon nearby. One of my favorite things is for someone to wash and style my hair, but I don’t need to get my haircut that often so it only happens like twice a year. I’ve heard about DryBar for a long time, but we don’t have one in Birmingham so I’ve never been. From about 1:00-3:30 Jason went to see his movie and I got my hair done, got a pedicure, and sipped an Americano in a cool little lounge. It was the most magical and relaxing two hours I’ve had in a very long time. I’m so thankful for that time to myself, and thankful for a husband who’s willing to say, “You do this for you and I’ll do this for me.”
After checking into our new hotel, we went to the Soho area to do a bit of shopping, jumped back on the subway to go to FAO Schwarz to get a souvenir for Grady (and because it’s fun), then walked to dinner at our favorite New York spot — Le Relais de Venise L'Entrecôte!
This little French spot on Lexington and 51st is a prefix menu of salad, bread, steak, frites (fries), and the best sauce I’ve ever had.
After dinner we made our way back to the hotel to pack and get to bed early since we had an early wake up call to get to the airport the next morning.
Monday
We left our hotel for the airport a little before 7 a.m. We took the subway to a bus to the airport, and it was actually rather painless.
Getting There & Going Home
So, this was our sixth time going to New York together. We’ve gone February 2013, February 2014, May 2015, December 2015, November 2017, and now November 2019. We always fly Southwest because Jason is a loyal Southwest customer since he flies a lot for work. He’s actually A-List, which comes with some extra points and perks. Before this trip, flown always flown out of either Birmingham or Atlanta. This time, we actually flew out of Nashville, which was MUCH easier than Atlanta (plus, we don’t lose an hour driving there with the time change) and much cheaper than Birmingham. Think Atlanta prices and direct flight with a much smaller airport that’s easier to get in and out of. We will definitely continue to check prices there when we plan a trip because it was pretty easy, we didn’t get stuck in any traffic, parking was affordable, and it was just overall a great experience.
We’d heard that LaGuardia has made it really difficult to use ride share options like Uber and Lyft to get into Manhattan. They’ve moved their ride share pickup location to a remote area of the airport and some people have reporting over an hour for their ride. That sounded horrible + expensive, so we read up on how to use the public transportation system to get to our hotel. We usually buy a metro card once we get settled in anyway, so this time we just purchased our cards at the airport.
To get into the midtown area where we were staying, the best bet is to take the Q70 bus to Roosevelt Av. — Jackson Heights stop for the subway. From there, you can hop on several different lines into Manhattan, so we just followed the line that would take us closest to 6th Ave. and 37th, which is where our first hotel was.
We did the reverse on the way home, except the subway stop was literally outside the door of the hotel. It took us about an hour to get from the airport to the hotel on the way in, and about 40 minutes to get from the hotel to the airport on the way home. I would DEFINITELY recommend this, especially considering it was $2.75 per person each way rather than the $50-ish we would have spent on an Uber or Lyft.
Before we get into the city, I always download a subway map app that doesn’t need internet just in case we get in a bind and don’t have service. I usually don’t need it, but it makes me feel better to have it anyway. Typically, we use Google maps to figure out the fastest route to our destination, however this time I used Apple maps quite a bit because I didn’t need to have my phone out the whole time since Apple maps will send directions straight to the Apple Watch. Honestly, I prefer the interface of Google maps, but it was cold and nice to not have to hold me phone the whole time :)
Overview:
Hotel Friday-Sunday: Embassy Suites New York Manhattan
Hotel Sunday-Monday: Martinique New York
Dinner Friday: BH Kitchen & Bar
Lunch Saturday: Cafe Lalo
Lunch Sunday: Luke’s Lobster
Dinner Sunday: Le Relais de Venise L'Entrecôte
Friend’s Apartment: 90 Bedford St, New York, NY 10014
DryBar (I went to the Parker in Midtown location)
Airline: Southwest Airlines BNA > LGA; LGA > BNA
Public Transportation: Q70 Bus from LaGuardia; MTA website for maps and schedules
Overall, we had an incredible trip. It was full of rejuvenating conversation, lots of laughter, and intentional time to recharge. I’m SO thankful for everyone who helped make sure our kids were well cared for. Knowing my kids were in good hands allowed Jason and me to not worry, thus giving us the freedom to really focus on connecting and investing this time into our marriage. I love my kids so, so very much, but my first love, apart from Christ, is Jason. I know that in this season he gets what’s left over of me, and I was so thankful to be able to give him the not-exhausted, fun, Jessica for this long weekend away.
Most of all, we realized the importance of time together. We won’t always have free stays and points to pay for our trip like we did this time, so a big trip like New York won’t be in the cards for us as much as we’d probably like. However, there are ways to incorporate the concept of time away together on a smaller scale that has the same impact on our marriage, and that’s what we value most of all.
