New York Trip Day 1 and Planning

We didn’t spend much time on planning the trip. But we did spend some time discussing if we should really make this very short trip to US. We always had this idea of a long vacation to US covering all the places at once. So, I was apprehensive if we should spend on 2 trips to US as we will have to do another trip to cover all the places in US. But finally, we decided to carry on with our trip.

We didn’t do much research as we had our cousins there, and hence we could use some guidance. We booked our flight tickets in British Airways. We had our Visa already procured many years back. We then booked hotel which we had to cancelled and rebooked again to accommodate our Niagara Trip on Booking.com.

 

There are lot of day tours and even 4–5 day tours in Tours4fun and Taketours website. The tours also include hotel accommodation, so you can book any of these tours too. Some of these tours are available only for certain days in a week. Hence plan your trip accordingly. We booked our Niagara tour which includes 1 night accommodation with TakeTours. There was only 1 date that suited our vacation date plans.

 

We booked Best Western Hotel in Flushing for the first few days and then Ramada by Wyndham Flushing for the last 2 days after Niagara tour. Flushing was very convenient place as the Main Street Subway is here at walking distance from hotel. Also, there are many restaurants, Supermarkets, shops to do general purchase, MACYs, bus stops for Q27, Q17. The Niagara tour had a pickup and drop off point at Sheraton Flushing. We booked these hotels by chance, but the location seemed very convenient.

 

We purchased our Travel Insurance to be on the safer side as medical costs are high in US.

We reached London Heathrow airport and then reached JFK Airport New York. The immigration queue took almost 1.5 hr, which I believe was super quick considering the crowd. We were asked few general questions and were let in. We collected our bags, took a taxi to hotel. Taxi costed around 55$, which seemed reasonable. We slept for some time. My cousin met us at hotel, and we went to their house 2 stops away in bus. We also visited Shirdi Sai Baba temple at Flushing and had dinner there. My cousin gave us a spare MTR Card for using in Subway and buses. She also advised on what trains to take and how to decide on which train to take for Uptown and Downtown. We were given directions on how to be vigilant in the subways, how to return in bus from their home to hotel.