Driving In - Staten Island Hotel?

[Ayekayecee]

Hi all,

 

As of right now, hubby and I (may have more join our group later) are driving up from Virginia for a cruise sailing out of Cape Liberty/Bayonne in October 2020.  Our current plan is to drive up the day before, overnight at an area hotel (10/16/20) (with a cruise parking/port shuttle package), then overnight at that same hotel for two nights (10/22/20 and 10/23/20) upon returning from our cruise so that we can spend a couple of days exploring NYC...

 

Ideally, we want to either take a hotel shuttle or drive and park near the SI Ferry and use that as our transportation into the city, as we plan on focusing our "sightseeing" on lower/mid-Manhattan both days.  Another thing to note is that we do have EZPass and understand that there are tolls along the NJ Turnpike, as well as the bridges into SI.

 

So, all that being said... do folks have any experiences with SI hotels (or can recommend other area hotels that make more sense for our above plans)?  Additionally, if you have experience parking near the SI Ferry in St. George, I would love to hear about that, as well.  I tried searching through other threads in this forum, but felt it easier to start my own due to the specific information requested based on our travel plans.  Thanks in advance!!

[Noxequifans]

Good question about Staten Island hotels...  I don’t recall any mention on this forum. I would suggest using anyone of the hotel websites to narrow your focus and then consult TripAdvisor for reviews. My suggestion would be to pay attention to the negative reviews. 

[138east]

It’s really too early to price anything out yet.  Do you have a hotel budget range for the park/sleep/cruise package and the per night budget for your post cruise stay?

 

IMO the big question is the availability of parking at the Staten Island ferry on a Thursday mid morning.  Some SI hotels do offer shuttle service to the ferry, but it’s dependent on the availability of the shuttle.  If the hotel is making shuttle trips that morning to drop off/pick up cruise passengers or airport passengers, they might not be able to drop you off at the ferry when you want to go.  When you return you might have to wait a while for the shuttle if it’s off doing an airport run.

 

None of the SI hotels are particularly close to the ferry.  The Hampton Inn and Hilton Gardens are about 8 miles away with an estimated drive time of about 25 minutes.

[princeton123211]

If your heart is set on Staten Island then thats fine, but it is worth noting that you could stay in Jersey City/Hoboken quite near  the pier and use the PATH train to get to and from Manhattan (both Battery Park and lower midtown) in a much shorter time (5-6 minutes vs 20-25 minutes on the SI Ferry). You could still even take the SI ferry round trip for the views (although you will have a very similar sail away from Cape Liberty).