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Seeking advice for our pre-cruise NYC trip


hapster85
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We're arriving in Bayonne on Tuesday June 26th for a Friday June 29th sailing on Adventure. Staying at Best Western Robert Treat. Group of 7. We have booked tours in and around NYC for 27th and 28th.

 

I'm thinking mass transit, and I've been researching.

 

Tour 1 meets Wednesday at Battery Park at 8:30am. Taking PATH to WTC and walking to the park looks like the easiest option. This tour will end at WTC as well, so returning on PATH is a no brainer. It looks like an easy enough walk on paper, and Google says it's only 13 minutes, but I figure it will be more like 20 - 25 for our group. Does this sound like a good plan?

 

Tour 2 meets Thursday at the George Cohan statue in Times Square. Requires a $5.50 MetroCard for use on the tour. Ends at WTC. What's the best way, with the fewest transfers to reach Times Square from Newark Penn Station? Google suggests Northeast Corridor to Pennsylvania Station, but I can't figure out what kind of train that is. Then 34th St - Penn Station to Times Square, and has a red 1 labeled Van Cortlandt Park - 242 St. Guessing that's the line? On the subway? Or should we just walk from Pennsylvania Station to Times Square?

 

As far as train tickets, I'm totally confused on what to get. Is there a single card we can each purchase that will work on all the trains? SmartLink maybe? Figuring that out has seemed more complicated than figuring out which trains to take. Lol

 

Didn't I also read somewhere that we must get a timestamp of some sort before boarding the train? Is that every time?

 

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. I'd like to have as much of this as possible sorted out before we go.

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Let's take it topic by topic

 

Tour 1 - Battery Park at 8:30

You need to get from the Robert Treat to Newark Penn Station. You can walk rather than rely on the hotel shuttle. You also have 7 people and really don't know exactly where you're going so I would recommend you should target boarding a PATH train at 7:00 am and no later than 7:15 am. It will be rush hour, crowded, and confusing.

 

What is your exact meeting location in Battery Park?

 

My understanding is that you can buy NY metro cards from PATH vending machines. I have a Senior PATH Smartlink card to get reduced PATH fares, so I've never used a Metrocard for PATH. My understanding is that you can use Metrocards for fares for up to 4 people, so you could get 2 metrocards for 7 people, which would be $2.00.

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Are any of your travelers children under 44 inches?

 

When you come out of PATH you need to find Church St and walk south. This becomes Trinity Place and deadends at Battery Place. You go right towards the Hudson River for 2-3 blocks, cross the street and head through the park to the pier on the water. Try to pull this up on google maps so you can see what you're looking for.

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Tour 2

 

What time do you have to meet your tour in Times Square?

 

The George Cohan statue is on 46th street on a sliver of land between 7th Ave and Broadway. The NY Transit trains go between Newark Penn Station and New York Penn Station and arrive in the area between 31st and 33rd St on the 8th Ave side.

 

North Jersey Coast Line and Northeast Corridor train schedules can be found here - http://www.njtransit.com/sf/sf_servlet.srv?hdnPageAction=TrainTo

You have to be sure the train is going to New York Penn Station. The fare is $5.25/pp each way. You have to buy NJ Transit tickets. A NY Metrocard doesn't work on these trains. No time stamps are required for these transit options.

 

You can walk between NY Penn Station and Times Square. Having been there recently I would suggest you exit the station to the street to orient yourselves rather than try to walk through the enormous station to find 7th Ave. The exit to 33rd & 8th is clearly marked.

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Meet time for Tour 2 is 9:30am. Hadn't realized I forgot to put that in the first post, until you asked. What I posted is a very trimmed down version of what I originally wrote.

 

Your target time for being on a train to NY should be no later than 8:15 am and probably sooner to allow for delays getting into NY Penn.

 

If you decide to take the subway when you get to NY Penn, I would suggest the 8th Ave A, C or E train to 42nd Street. This subway is easily accessible from the NJ Transit area of NY Penn. IMO you would waste a lot of time at NY Penn trying to find the northbound 1,2,3 trains and the walking required is similar.

 

 

Actually you can buy both NJ Transit and PATH tickets directly. You don't really need a Metrocard if you're not taking the NY subway.

 

 

It's also not necessary to take the NJ Transit train to and from midtown Manhattan. For $2.75/pp you can take PATH from Newark to Journal Square and transfer across the track to the Journal Square to 33rd St train. This leaves you at 33rd & 6th at Herald Square near Macy's which is also an easy walk up Broadway to Times Square. This trip is scheduled at about 10-15 minutes longer than the train, but could be comparable in time if there are delays at NY Penn. IMO dealing with the commuter chaos in NY Penn could be much worse than dealing with PATH. At 33rd St it is an easy transfer to any uptown N, Q, R, or W train to go one stop to Times Square. I just did this in Jan and the trick for the PATH connection is to walk to the front end of the subway train platform when going either uptown or downtown.

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I had looked at doing PATH to 33rd St before I originally posted. On the one hand, it would mean staying with a single system (PATH), but on the other it means a mid-trip transfer at a busy time of day. But if you're thinking that would be less chaotic than than dealing with NY Penn Station, then perhaps that's what we'll do after all.

 

Thanks for your feedback. Definitely feeling less uncertain about the whole thing now.

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Perhaps some of the experienced New Yorkers can comment. In recent years I've had only intermittent experience going through Newark and NY Penn stations for PATH and NJ Transit/Amtrak. On this past trip I found NY Penn to be much busier than my experience 3 years ago with Newark Penn. For someone who has no experience with these stations my feeling is that PATH could be much more straightforward if you are not pressed for time.

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