Friday, May 26th New York City
Updated: Jan 26
Queen Mary 2 sailed under the Verrazano bridge very early this morning, we didn’t get up – we’ve seen it before. So we are back where the cruising part of this grand adventure began – it was a beautiful morning with the sun out and perfect clear blue skies, it’s so nice to be in New York when we are not freezing our butts off! As we are on board the Queen Mary 2 we have to dock at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, she’s too big for Manhattan.
About half-way through the transatlantic crossing I tried to make a reservation through the purser’s desk for a car to take us to our hotel in Manhattan, but apparently, I had left it too late and there were no more cars available. So I made a reservation through Uber for a specific pickup time; it’s always difficult to predict the exact time of disembarkation which makes ordering a private car a bit stressful as they charge extra if they have to wait around. Based on the time window we were allotted by Cunard I made my best guess at the time we’d be outside the terminal.
Following breakfast we had a good walk around the upper decks to take in the magnificent views of New York. Stopping by the kennel area we watched as owners were finally reunited with their dogs, there were about two dozen dogs all bouncing around, wagging their tails, and barking excitedly – the owners were equally excited. Cunard is the only cruise line that allows cats and dogs to cruise (for a fee of course); there is a special area onboard QM2 where the pets stay for the duration of the voyage, but owners are allowed visits. Note this service is only available on QM2 Atlantic crossings.
Around mid-morning we made our way from our cabin down to the gangway only to find an enormous line snaking all the way around the interior of the ship – the disembarkation process was really messed up. I immediately fired up my phone and cancelled the pre-ordered Uber, thankfully I was just outside the non-cancel time window. It took about 45 minutes for us to exit the ship and join the line at US Immigration where we waited about another 15 minutes – not the greatest disembarkation.
It took about 45 minutes for us to exit the ship and we finally found ourselves in the baggage hall. After about 10 minutes we located our enormous collection of bags and I arranged for a porter to load them onto a cart and assist us. The porter headed off towards the exit while we joined the queue for our immigration check. Beyond immigration we met up with the porter, easily found the Luggage Forward drop off area, and jettisoned the majority of our bags which were heading home to California. Outside the terminal I ordered an Uber and we only had to wait about 10 minutes before we were off on our way to Manhattan.
We are staying for 5 nights in New York, and we’ve once again chosen the Westin Grand Central hotel. By New York city standards our room was quite large, basically the same as the one we had back in January, only this time we have a great view of the Empire State Building. Unlike prior visits to New York, we don’t really have a set plan for each day; we have a rough idea to try and see some of the things we have not seen before, but we also want to go at a leisurely pace – since we’ve got 5 days.
We took an Uber to Central Park, with a quick stop at Bistro Verde in Nordstrom’s for lunch – we’ve eaten here many times and like its easy atmosphere and good selection of shareable plates. Suitably refreshed we set off for a nice stroll through the park; the weather was fantastic, bright sunshine, warm and no wind – the park was quite busy for a Friday afternoon. It happened to be fleet week and we stopped to chat with a group of officers from the USS Oak Hill, including the commanding officer – they were very happy to pose for pictures.
Sandra wanted to see the Carl Lagerfeld exhibition at the Met and so we gradually made our way up to the iconic building, we visit the Met every time we come to New York – it’s a gigantic museum and so we always find something new to see. Sandra really enjoyed the exhibition of fashion by Carl Lagerfeld and I sought out the famous painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze – it really is an awesome work of art. I was also very surprised to see Dance in a Subterranean Roundhouse at Clear Lake, California by Jules Tavernier in the same gallery – Clear Lake is only about 2 hours from our home.
After coffee in the Met we slowly wandered back down 5th avenue to our hotel; we were pretty tired and so opted for a light dinner in the bar and an early night.
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