Cruiser Formerly Known As Cheapo Dad's Trip Report on Odyssey of the Seas Sailing to A Minus B Plus C Plus H Islands

[harryfat1]

We ate lunch at the New World Mall food court.  It’s easily the largest Asian-only theme food court I have seen outside of China.  English is spoken – sort of.  The primary language is Chinese if you look Asian, they will expect you to understand/speak Chinese.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Afterward, it was time for the subway ride back to Midtown.

 

$1.50/slice pizza.  Only see these in NYC.  Can’t find them on West Coast.

 

 

Love the daily water in the hotel lobby. Flavors of the day are strawberry and blackberry.

 

 

We came back to the room at 4:45 PM only to find the cleaning lady was in the middle of making up our room so we went back down to the lobby/basement area where they have empty tables for us to rest and drink our flavored cold water.

 

 

As we were flying out the next day, it was time to do the dreaded “packing for home” in taking out all the dirty laundry we had been accumulating the whole trip and starting the packing home process...

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Not sure if anyone is still reading this NYC report but let's try to finish it today and move on:

 

As it was a hot and humid day, we didn’t feel like going out to eat as we were pretty tired by day 9 of the trip, so we decided to order pizza online and eat in the hotel room.

 

No, not the $1.50/slice place.  My old man's stomach can’t tolerate the lower quality pizzas anymore between acid reflux/heartburn. It sucks to be old.  

 

We found a pizzeria a few blocks away with good ratings – in Midtown Manhattan, you are seldom more than a few blocks away from a pizza place.

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

We saw this big procession line of police-related escorts and I thought maybe a VIP was there but didn't see any limos 

 

 

There's always some siren happening in Manhattan

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Done with dinner. 

 

Time to head out to the west side of Manhattan to watch the fireworks.  In our naïve minds, we would go out to the same Little Island area from the previous day and watch the fireworks from there in peace.  Oh, are we ever wrong…

 

Macy’s published a map of where they will have the fireworks on the 4 barges.  We were trying to catch the one near the bottom as that was where Little Island was.

 

[harryfat1]

We got off the subway at the 15^th Street area.  Similar to where we were the day before when we were at the Starbucks Roastery area.  The only difference today is there are literally thousands of people ahead of us and the area is a total log jam.  We tried to push forward for about 5 minutes and only moved like 5 feet.

 

This is not working.  Let’s try a different location.

 

 

 

 

We backtracked and walked over to the next block where the crowd wasn’t as big but the view was more limited as it’s between 2 buildings but you also don’t feel like a human sardine

 

 

Not the best spot but at least you can see something and not as many people breathing down your neck (literally)

 

 

Always a police car somewhere with sirens and lights flashing

 

 

[harryfat1]

The firework started at 9:25

 

 

Lots of BFFs with their phones out

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Y'all know what fireworks look like so no need to add in more photos.

 

Here's a short clip to hear the crowd's reaction.

 

 

This is a much better version of at the NJ side.  Not that we know where to go over at the NJ side or even how to get there coming from NJ but this view is much better:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Anyway, it started to drizzle about 5 minutes before the fireworks were over and I was worried they were going to cut it short if it started to rain hard

 

Thousands of people walking out after the show was over at 10 PM

 

 

 

But the party atmosphere was still there with people dancing and singing to the NY song

 

 

More singing and more flashing red lights from cars

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Tons of people here.  All my BFFs are out today.

 

We followed the crowd to the nearest subway station, only to be told by the police officer outside the station telling everyone “This Station is closed.  Go to another station” The lines of people were trying to go inside but couldn’t as there were too many people.

 

 

I guess with all the people near the waterfront heading to the first Red Arrow station, the place was packed to the max with people already inside the subway waiting for their trains. 

 

So even if you can squeeze into the station, you will not be able to get on the next few trains as each train will be at max capacity as it tries to transport tens/hundreds of thousands of people on the east side.

 

I have always wondered how people get out of Times Square on NYE.  Assuming they are not staying at Dani’s Hampton Inn down the street, they would need to take the subway out of Manhattan and the subway system must be packed for a very long time after midnight.

 

Anyway, the Red Arrow station was the closest to the waterfront and that is closed.  So we kept heading eastward past the yellow arrow and finally got on the subway at the purple arrow station as we knew the more east we walked, the more the crowd would thin out

 

[harryfat1]

 

 

Looking at the phone apps to see where is the next best station for a direct subway train back to the hotel

 

 

 

Finally made it back to the hotel after we walked far enough away from the crowd to catch a subway going uptown

 

 

Distance walked for the day = 7.5 miles

 

This concludes day 9 of the trip report as it’s almost time to say Goodbye to NYC

[harryfat1]

Day 10 – Homeward Bound

 

After the last hotel breakfast for this trip, we ventured off to buy food for lunch and dinner as we had to grab food for the long plane ride home.

 

My wife wanted more of the Japanese rice balls so we walked out to get more. But we didn’t get the one that says “the bomb” on it in case TSA opens the backpack for inspection and starts questioning what’s inside…🤪

 

 

 

 

 

We then headed back to the Grand Central Station to pick up some Stromboli for lunch. They heat it up for you so you can have it hot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

We checked out the room at the 12 noon deadline and ate our lunch down in the lower lobby level where we were the day before.  It’s very quiet as we had the entire place to ourselves and you can get the drinks from the lobby. Much better than eating at the more crowded airport and better price as well.

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Done with early lunch. Time to drag our luggage 2 blocks to the Grand Central Madison entrance to take the LIRR.  The cheapo dad version of traveling...

 

 

Very clean and open area to take the LIRR inside Grand Central

 

 

 

You can buy your tickets using the machine or have one of the agents help out.  It's the same $5/pp on a non commute time

 

 

 

.

[harryfat1]

Riding down the long escalator

 

 

Finding our train. 

 

 

As it’s not commute time yet, the train was again very empty on a Friday early afternoon as many people probably took the day off as part of the long July 4 weekend.

 

 

 

The train conductor comes by and collects the ticket after the train has departed the station.  The couple who were sitting on the same train as us didn’t have a ticket and they had to pay a higher fee (fine) to buy a ticket from the conductor.  So always have a ticket in hand as they do check.

 

[harryfat1]

I have an app that measures the speed of the vehicle you are in and the top speed of LIRR for the route was 75 MPH.  Not bad, especially since you have no traffic to deal with versus traveling by taxi/Uber over the surface streets.

 

At $5/pp, I highly recommend the LIRR

 

 

Back to the Jamaica station. Follow the big bright yellow signs that say JFK.  If you get confused or have any questions, ask the workers with red vests.

 

 

 

 

As you recall, we bought the 10-ride Airtrain on day 1 of the trip.  We used 4 rides on day 1 and now we will use 4 more.  Just share the 1 card with each person passing it back to the person behind.  You can do it for up to a party of 4 only as the system locks you out after the 4^th person in the party.

 

 

Red vest workers are there to help 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Not very crowded on the Airtrain heading to Terminal 5.

 

There’s a TWA hotel where they transformed the old vintage TWA terminal into a hotel.  I saw foottages on YouTube and it looked very interesting.  If we had more time before our flight, I would have wanted to visit the place but we didn’t have enough time to see it on this visit.

 

Maybe if we have a long layover in JFK on future flights to Europe, we will check out the TWA hotel.

 

 

 

Airtrain is automated.  No drivers

 

 

 

TWA Hotel

 

[harryfat1]

JetBlue Airlines is the dominant airline in Terminal 5 (they might be the only airline in Terminal 5?).  Tons of tourists heading home after the July 4 celebration the previous day.

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

They have an interesting waiting area in the terminal

 

 

 

 

Saw this NYC sweatshirt as we visited the uncle in prison while we waited (aka shopping).  Good price at $20/each so we bought a couple although it's hard to think sweatshirt in the July NYC heat/humidity

 

[harryfat1]

Boarding the plane.  Jetblue sent me an email before the plane took off that all 4 suitcases are with us on the plane.  Nice feature as I don’t know how many other airlines do that but we also have 4 Apple Airtags inside the suitcases and my son confirmed on his iPhone that they are on the same plane as us.

 

 

The TV for the flight actually works but I was using the free wifi more to play my games on the tablet. I had downloaded a bunch of movies and TV shows but never watched any of them. 

 

Maybe save them for Texas on Southwest as they have neither free wifi nor TV monitors on their planes

 

They have plug-in AC chargers for you to power up your devices

 

 

 

Free Wi-fi

 

 

[harryfat1]

Made it back to the Bay Area. 

 

 

Landing at SFO is always a scary process if you look outside the window as the airport runway is built out in the middle of the water.  So as you descend, all you see outside is water around you.  Land doesn’t come into view until the last 3 seconds of the landing process.

 

 

San Francisco welcomes you.  No issues in collecting the bags.

 

 

 

This is my last picture from the NYC trip as I typically start/end my trip reports with airport pictures.

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Many thanks to those reading this supplemental report.  Not sure how many are still here until the bitter end. 

 

Hopefully, this report will be helpful to whoever will be visiting NYC pre/post cruise on the upcoming sailing season of the Odyssey.

 

No long farewell as I already said that few months ago at the official end of the December trip.  But whoever has questions relating to our NYC trip, feel free to drop a line.

 

I will now head into my Carnival cruise planning mode for the upcoming December cruise. If all goes well, I will do my usual Cheapo Dad report for that sailing but it will be over at the Carnival boards. As I promised @JamesEM I will come back here to provide a link to that report after I start it sometime in January of next year

 

I will also be busy with the Europe trip planning as well.  I just booked the hotel that I mentioned for 3 nights at the Paris Disneyland for next summer.  Need to find places to stay for London and Paris as well.

 

I will talk to everyone in the next installment of the Cheapo Dad series.  To quote our Hollywood-famed former governor of California - I'll be back...🤪

[rwest898]

I really enjoyed your review.  Thank you for taking us along. I grew up in Oakland so I know flying into San Francisco was a little frightening for me. 

[NHProud]

As they say in Paris , merci beaucoup and au revoir . 

[kimlet]

I thought it was great, I learned lots for my upcoming trip in September