Rush Hour (Tourist Edition) Part II: Round the Cities of Cities and onwards Liberty

After a week of job hunting, commencements and photo shoots, I finally have time to finish up my USA blog posts. So here's part II of our tale in the Big Apple which includes the famous Circle Line Cruise, the iconic Statue of Liberty, the magnificent Intrepid Air, Sea and Space museum and King Kong's Empire State Building.

New York City

The Circle Line Cruise


Usually, I'm not a fan of tour buses or city cruises. I always believe that they are huge tourist traps and seldom give you a good enough in-depth view of the city/town. However, this circle line cruise might just have turned my view around. We took this tour as it was included in our 3-day pass and it looked like a really good deal - a 3-hour long cruise around the whole of New York City worth USD$38.

Circle Line Tour

 I can't claim that this cruise will literally take you around the entire New York City, but due to the city's size, this cruise does just enough. The 3-hour long cruise could be tiring at some point (having to stand up in order to take nice photographs and withstand the wind ) and a longer cruise would have been an overkill.

The tour brings you through several boroughs of New York City, including Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Bronx and Queens which was pretty comprehensive (by my standards). Notable sites include Statue of Liberty (you can't get off the cruise ship), Ellis Island, The Yankee Stadium, Harlem... etc.
A little tip: Make sure you stand on the right side of the boat (they don't do a 180 degrees turn), so basically right side of the boat before liberty and left side of the boat after liberty.

Read on for more pictures and other sites

City Line of Lower Manhattan

Ellis Island

Statue of Liberty

Brooklyn Bridge

Manhattan Bridge

Chrysler Building 

Harlem

The Yankee Stadium

The Litte Red Lighthouse

Columbia University 

Back to the start - The Intrepid Museum

More photos from the circle line tours can be found here

Time recommended: 2 -3 hours (check schedules beforehand)
Ratings: Good Place, go if you have the time
Website: http://circleline42.com/new-york-cruises/home.aspx

Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum

This is one interesting museum for anyone interested in planes and ships. It was a small museum (as compared to the MET or Natural History Museum) with only a few main areas. The entire museum was build around the USS Intrepid and featured a submarine, the main ship itself with various aircrafts and a space shuttle. Truthfully, I know nothing about aircrafts and submarines, so it was pretty much an eye-opener for me, looking and learning the different types and functions of the different aircrafts.

First, the submarine tour:

Warheads that never fired

The 2nd level brought us to the aircraft and ship section.

This looks straight out of the X-men movie.

Old School

Rawrrrr

Time recommended: 1 -1.5 hours

Ratings: Interesting place to visit, go if you are interested or have the time

Website: www.intrepidmuseum.org/

Liberty Island & The Statue of Liberty


Not much for me to say here except that this place is exactly what everyone makes it out to be - a typical tourist attraction that its only attraction is the attraction itself. Basically an iconic monument for United States that has to be visited by any tourists' first time in New York.

Here are some tips:

1) Go early, especially when you are going on the weekends. The queues can get ridiculously long, even in the morning, so its essential that you try to beat the afternoon rush.

2) Book your tickets online or use a New York Pass. Basically, getting your tickets there involve getting into another queue. So get your tickets ready (there are separate queues for all) even before you get to the pier.

3) Squeeze!!! The whole idea of the cruise is mainly for transportation. Thus be prepared to be packed like sardines. To get a good shot of the statue, make sure you do not sit and try to get a place on the edges (its a short ride, so bear with it).

4) Always account for the queue when coming back.

Approaching the Statue of Liberty

Base camp

View from the base

View of Manhattan from Liberty Island

Unfortunately, the statue itself was closed for maintenance and all we could do was to take a walk round the park. Personally, I wouldn't recommend going up the tower as there are better places for a more close-up view of the city.

Time recommended: 2 -3 hours (including queues & excluding Ellis Island)

Ratings: Must-go

Website: http://www.nps.gov/stli/index.htm

The Empire State Building

It was the weekend and we intended to finish the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and Empire State Building before heading for a dinner appointment at 5 pm. Obviously, we bit off more than we could chew. We had to skip Ellis Island and reached the Empire State Building at around 3 pm. Giving Empire State Building 1.5 hours is never enough time on a weekend. 

The queue up the Empire State Building can be very misleading. The entire line structure was basically built to accommodate long lines. There was more than 5 different sections where you had to queue, all of which was very fast-moving. So you would think that the queue is moving really fast (and will reach soon) but you would have no idea how long more before you are actually at the end of the line. My point: Don't be fooled by the queue, give yourself at least 1.5 hours - 2 hours of queue time when planning to go up the building (unless you purchase the fast pass). 

Quick Tip: The ticket-queue section is actually the shortest line, so don't worry even if you haven't bought your tickets

The Empire State Building

Basically, after all the queueing, we had around 5 minutes around the top (we bought the tickets all the way to the top). My conclusion - its well worth the queue. The awesome bird's eye view of New York makes all the time spend waiting go over instantly. It literally took my breathe away and I knew that I had to come back up here to enjoy this view. If you think New York City is awesome from the ground, the awesomeness simply multiplies from the top.

Here are some quick snaps of the city:

Time recommended: 2 -3 hours (including queues & excluding Ellis Island)

Ratings: Must-go

Website: http://www.esbnyc.com/

This concludes my visit to the sites of New York. There are many places that I wished that I could visit, like the MoMa, The Bronx Zoo, Yankee Baseball Match, Madison Square Garden and many more. New York City is definitely not a place that anyone can get sick off. Many things are happening at the same time no matter the hours of the day. It's a city where everything comes to you fast and furious. I love New York City and I am sure I'll be back here once again. 

Stay tuned for my next post on the 3-days food trail that we took in between these fantastic sites.