NYC at Christmas Never Fails To Be Magical...



NYC Public Library Christmas Tree

 In mid-2012, mom and I realized we had a four day weekend over the Christmas holiday.  The logical thing (in our minds) for me to do was to get busy checking the Delta website for airfare to NYC...because, really, why wouldn't we want to spend the holiday in the Big Apple!

With an early Saturday morning departure out of Savannah we arrived in NYC just after 10am.  Instead of using my "go to" car service (Carmel), I opted to try another service, Dial 7 Car Service. Here is a link to their website:
http://www.dial7.com/

After a bit of mis-communication with the dispatcher and my error with exiting the airport from a different (new to us) door, we found our driver and we were whisked off in comfort to the Intercontinental Times Square Hotel at 300 W. 44th Street, which is between 8th & 9th Avenues (we thought it was the perfect location!).  Here is the link to the hotel's website: http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/intercontinental/hotels/gb/en/new-york-city/nychc/hoteldetail

After paying the driver $30, plus tolls & tip we were escorted into the lobby by a friendly bellman.  Since it was early by hotel check-in standards, we were prepared to just leave our suitcases with the bell staff and hit the streets of the Big Apple. To our surprise, the front desk agent told us our room was ready and we checked in right away and went to our room.  Mom and I really liked this hotel.  It was clean, comfortable, great location and the staff was very nice and accommodating.

After freshening up a bit the first thing on our agenda was coffee...off to Starbucks we go.  Then we head over to the New York City Public Library to see the Lunch Hour Exhibit, which we had missed during our September visit to NYC.

We were happy to find a big Christmas market set-up in Bryant Park, and perused the stalls for about an hour checking things out and making a little purchase here and there. Spices for mom and a really interesting acorn pendent made from a coin for me.

After a bit of retail therapy we finally entered the library and were directed to the area where the Lunch Hour Exhibit was held.  We walked around the exhibit for a few minutes and then the 2:30pm guided tour started.  This was a terrific way to spend an hour, especially if familiar with NYC and a bit of history, and if you like food (like we do!), it was really interesting.  There were even restored original auto-mats at this exhibit.  The docent leading the tour really knew her food history of NYC and mom remembered alot of the display items from her childhood.  This was a highlight of the weekend and we were happy to have been able to catch it before the exhibit closed.

After the tour, be bundled up and stepped outside to brave the NYC Christmas-time weather, really it wasn't too bad!  We had a gander at the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center and then found a wine bar where we could toast to the start of another NYC adventure.

At the recommendation of friends, I booked a pre-theater dinner at The Bar at The Modern.  Here is a link to the restaurant website:  http://www.themodernnyc.com/  Just before our 6:30pm reservation we left the wine bar near Rockefeller Center and walked up to 53rd Street and into The Modern.  Am I glad we had a reservation, The Bar Room was packed!

Once seated and greeted by our server, we let him know we had an 8pm curtain time and he said, no problem, we'd be finished by 7:30pm and he was true to form, but we never felt rushed.  We were thrilled with this restaurant.  It was the perfect choice, since the portions are more tapas sized then entree sized and we didn't want to have full stomachs and then sit through a 2 hour show!

The wine list is extensive and not inexpensive!  Since mom and I had already had a glass of bubbly, we decided we would order wine by the glass and not a bottle.  We had read the chef is from the Alsace region of France and because we had such wonderful food experiences in Strasbourg, France in 2011 we went with 4 very Alsatian dishes.  The duck cassoulette was the winner, but the pork belly was no slouch either.  The Alsatian tart brought back wonderful food memories and the liverwurst was creamy and delicious.

The show we saw was Golden Age at the Manhattan Theater Club on 55th Street between 6th & 7th Avenue, so it was a quick walk from the restaurant.  It was a bit confusing entering the theater because there are 2 stages, the one we needed was downstairs, but people kept directing us to the street level theater.  We finally were headed in the right direction and got settled into our seats.  The theater was fairly small, but it worked for this particular production.  Honestly, I probably wouldn't even have considered seeing this show, except for the fact that Bebe Neuwirth (think Lilith from Fraser) was in it and I was eager to see her on stage.  The show was OK, not the greatest but not the worst I've ever seen.  When mom asked how I liked it, I replied, "it's interesting".  But, isn't that what going to the theater is all about....broadening your mind and experiencing different things.  Really, it wasn't something that was off the wall, just a play that I might not have gone to if it weren't for the cast.

After the show we made our way back to the hotel and stopped in the restaurant/lounge (Ca Va) for a drink and then it was off to sleep for us.  It was a jammed-packed day and we needed our strength to fight the crowds at Eataly the next day (or so we thought!).

On Sunday morning we needed our caffeine fixed. As we headed towards the subway, every Starbucks we passed was packed to the gills and some had no seating, which wasn't going to fly with mom, so we entered the subway, and walked, and walked and walked, up and down, up and down (mom will not let me forget force-marching her underground, just to stay out of the cold!  next time we walk street level so as not to have so many stairs to negotiate!) and bought a metro card and hopped on the subway heading downtown.  We popped right out at the corner of 5th Avenue and 24th Street and walked right into the LaVazza Cafe at Eataly.

I could hardly believe our luck, there was plenty of room in the cafe and we easily found a table to sit at.  I stood in line to order our coffees and pastry and mom grabbed a table.  It was perfect, good coffee, fresh pastry right where we planned to go anyway.

After "fueling up" we hit the store to check out what Eataly had in stock. Even in the store portion of Eataly the crowds were slim.  Upon check out we found out why...normally the store opens at 10am but because of the Christmas holiday they opened at 8am, and many people didn't know this.  I did though, since I'm on the Eataly email list...sometimes I am a smart cookie!

Now that we were laden with Italian food products we made our way back to the hotel to drop them off. Of course we now weren't too hungry, but we also knew we wanted a little something.  We passed Toloache, a Mexican bistro we had been to before and knew they had excellent coffee, so we went in and sat at the bar. Well, so much for coffee, we had 2 of their signature margaritas and their delicious guacamole as our "lunch".  It was the perfect mid-day snack!

We had tickets to the 3pm performance of Chaplin, so made our way to the theater after lunch.  Both mom and I absolutely loved this show, the music was fantastic and the actor playing Charlie Chaplin really made him come to life.  We were kind of surprised at how much we enjoyed this show since we weren't quite sure how the life of Charlie Chaplin would "transfer" into a Broadway musical, but was terrific!

After the show we made our way back downtown, to the Chelsea neighborhood to The Drunken Horse (225 10th Ave. between 23rd & 24th Streets) for pre-dinner drinks.  This is a wine bar I "found" last year on another NYC trip and like alot.  It's nothing fancy, but the staff is friendly, the wine is good and the prices are reasonable.  Plus it helps that it is located right next door to the restaurant where we had dinner reservations!

Dinner was at The Red Cat at 227 10th Ave.  Here is a link to the restaurant website: http://www.theredcat.com/redcat.php  This was our second visit to The Red Cat and it did not disappoint.  It's definitely got a neighborhood vibe, the service staff is excellent at what they do, the food is delicious and the prices are NOT outrageous!

We started with a Sunday night special, 2 pork tacos.  They were huge!  You can have them as a starter, or you can order a larger amount and make it a full meal.  They were some of the tastiest tacos I've ever had.  We ordered a bottle of Willamette Valley pinot gris to go with our fish main dishes.  Mom had the salmon and I had the skate, both were perfectly cooked. And of course, we could not pass-up an order of the tempura fried green beans, oh, so addictive!  We were happy to see limoncello on the dessert menu, so we stayed true to form and had 2 espresso and ended the meal with 2 limoncello.  It was a perfect way to end the day!

Christmas Eve began with a return to Eataly, not only for another Italian breakfast "fix" but also so mom could buy the guanciale she passed on buying the day before!  Before the purchase we had to "confer" with Facebook friend Judy Francini, also known as the Divina Cucina, to see if buying the guanciale and not refrigerating it for 2 days would be ok. Judy said, "of course, no problem". So a return to Eataly became a "done deal".

With guanciale purchased, it was back to the hotel to drop it off and then we decided to walk up to Lincoln Center where we had tickets to see the NYC Ballet perform the Nutcracker.  We walked up 8th Avenue and when we got to Columbus Circle I asked mom if she wanted to stop in at the Time Warner Center (a vertical shopping mall) to kill some time before the performance. She said "sure, why not".

Leave it to us to find yet another restaurant. As we walked into the shopping center, I noticed a sign on the doors listing all the restaurants inside, one of them was Landmarc.  I asked mom if she wanted to check it out.  The reply I got, "sure, why not".  So,up we go.  The dining room was very crowded but the bar was practically empty...you can guess where this is going.  I asked the hostess if we can just sit at the bar, the reply, "of course".  We were after all, a little thirsty and it was 12:30pm!

The bartender could not have been nicer.  I asked if he could make 2 Aperol Spritzes, and the reply, "of course"!  He made such pretty looking drinks. We spent about an hour at the bar and noted as the food was coming out of the kitchen, how good it looked and smelled.  This restaurant is now on our short list of places to try next time in NYC.

At about 1:30pm we paid the bill and walked the 5 or 6 blocks to Lincoln Center.  As expected there were lots of children at this performance, but what I wasn't expecting were the dancers to be children.  It's a lot different then the performance of the Nutcracker I saw there when I was kid!  But it was fun to see the elaborate sets and costumes.  It was a great way to spend Christmas Eve day!

After the ballet we hopped a downtown train and  made our way to the West Village to Babbo, where we had a 5:30pm dinner reservation.  Since we arrived there at 5pm we decided to sit at the bar for a pre-dinner drink, a green apple bellini, not as great as the pear bellini I had there once before, but it was ok.

At 5:30pm the hostess came to get us and seat us and then it all went down hill from there.  Because it was Christmas Eve there was a special 7-Fishes Tasting Menu.  Our server, clearly wanted to sell these tasting menus.  Once we were seated he told us about the tasting menu, we said thank you and then we began looking at the Ala Carte menu.  What happened next is not an exaggeration, within 1 minute he was back at our table asking if we had any questions.  Our reply, "no, we are still looking at the menu".  He left, walked around the big table/Christmas Tree centerpiece in the middle of the room, which took about 1 minute and came back to the table and asked again, if we had any questions or were ready to order.  This just "frosted" us.  To make matters worse, his "attitude" about wine selection was beyond condescending.  If there is one thing I am pretty familiar with, it's Italian food and wine and this guy was just mucking up my much anticipated (in hind-sight, maybe too high expectations) meal at Babbo.

In the end, mom and I ordered off the Ala Carte menu, which I'm sure ticked off the server to no end.  We had squid ink pasta as our starter and we each had the branzino. The food was good, I won't say excellent, but they were "solid" dishes.  And, I have to give big kudos to the back servers, who expertly de-boned our branzino and were very pleasant to deal with, we wished they were our front server.  We ordered a lower-end priced bottle of wine (I did the selecting without any assistance from Mr. Server!), and it went well with the fish.  If the server had a better attitude I probably would have ordered a pricier wine, but "psst" to him!  The maitre'd hovered about taking our dessert order, and we decided to have a plate of 5 cheeses with a lovely glass (one for each of us) of dessert wine from the Emilia Romagna region.  The icing on the cake was when we ended the meal with 2 limoncello, that had to be some of the worst tasting we have ever had!

Would we go back to Babbo?  Probably not.  Was I disappointed?  Yes.  Do I think my expectations were too high?  Most definitely.

When we exited the restaurant at about 8pm the place was so jammed we couldn't even put our coats on inside.  Since it was fairly early, by our dining standards, we hopped back on the subway going uptown and de-camped to the lounge at Ca Va, the Todd English restaurant inside our hotel, for a couple after dinner glasses of wine.

Merry Christmas...let's have lunch at a Mad-House!  That was the scene at Norma's in Le Parker Meridien at 119 W. 56th Street.  Here is a link to the website:  http://www.parkermeridien.com/eat1.php

I had a 10:30am brunch reservation and as we entered the hotel lobby and turned the corner we spotted a  mob of people cascading down the entry stairs to Norma.  My first thought was, is this the only place in NYC open for brunch on Christmas day?  Norma's is known for their breakfast-y foods, so this really wasn't that big a surprise, but the extra 20 minute wait to be seated was annoying.

Service was swift and not overly friendly.  The portions were gigantic to put it mildly.  I had the eggs Florentine which were excellent, and I probably ingested close to 5 pounds of spinach, yes, there was that much spinach, but the hollandaise sauce went really well with it!  I was so enamoured with my dish, I can't even remember what mom had, but I do remember the fresh squeezed orange juice was terrific and the glass was just as big as the food portions!  After this meal we won't be needing any more food for the rest of the day!  Prices aren't cheap here, so the bill was what we sometimes pay for a dinner, but they certainly don't skimp on the amount you get for your money!

After brunch we sauntered back to the hotel, gathered our bags and waited in the lobby for our 1pm car pick-up that would return us to LaGuardia airport where we would board a plane bound for home.  And as luck would have it, by departing on Christmas day we completely avoided a huge storm that shut down or delayed flights into and out of the NYC area the very next day.

It was another NYC trip to remember!

Jet Lag? Pish-Posh to Jet Lag.... Let's go to NYC!

Two weeks after returning from our trip to Russia and barely over jet lag, mom and I were off again to New York City for the Labor Day weekend.
A few months before going to Russia, mom suggested going to NYC for Labor Day weekend, I wasn’t going to turn down a visit to the city that never sleeps, until I actually looked at the calendar and said that’s only 2 weeks after returning from Russia. Mom said she was “up for it” so I jumped on board too.

We got a reasonable airfare for that weekend, with one catch. Instead of being the direct flight on Delta from Savannah to LaGuardia, the outbound flight had a connection in Atlanta. Typically we like the direct flight, it’s barely 2 hours and with only a few direct flight options out of Savannah it’s always a nice alternative. But, if we connected in Atlanta, then we would also get a few more miles to add to our Sky Miles account, so we took the plunge and booked the outbound trip with the connection in Atlanta and for the return trip we did manage to get the Delta LaGuardia – Savannah direct flight.

Once the airfare was purchased I searched my “go-to” websites for hotel discounts. I came up with a good deal on TravelZoo for the Millennium Broadway hotel, a hotel we had stayed at before, in a good location and for $189 a night in the heart of the Theater District, it was a no-brainer for us to book it. The hotel does seem to need a little love, but it was clean and comfortable and perfect for 2 nights.

With only two nights in the city I didn’t want to cram every second with a Broadway show, and honestly, there wasn’t much that was playing that we had a big interest in, but when I got a discount offer for tickets to see The Best Man, with a note-worthy cast, we bought the tickets.

Now we were set, except for restaurants. Here is where I turned to past research and experience. I had been hearing a lot of good things about Trestle on Tenth, so we booked a table there for Saturday night and followed that with a booking at Toloache (mid-town location) for Sunday night after the show. I knew we’d want a pre-dinner drink before dinner at Trestle on Tenth and I did a little Google research. This research brought me to a wine bar called the Drunken Horse in the Chelsea neighborhood on 10th Avenue between 23rd & 24th Streets, which was just a half block from Trestle. We planned to go there before dinner on Saturday.

We arrived at LaGuardia on Saturday afternoon at about 1pm. I had booked a Carmel Car pickup and after I called them to say we had landed the car arrived in about 10 minutes and whisked us into the city. I’ve got to say, we have used Carmel on all of our visits in the last 5 years and this particular driver had the cleanest car we ever had.

We entered the Millennium Broadway Hotel at about 1:30, which was earlier than the 4pm check-in time. This wasn’t a problem; we left our luggage with the bellman and headed out in search of a Starbucks, which aren’t hard to find in this city!

We enjoyed a refreshingly cool coffee beverage in Bryant Park and then planned to go to the New York Public Library to check out an exhibit I had heard of. The exhibit is the History of Lunch in New York and I was excited to see this, but mom was ecstatic because there was reportedly a replica of an automat in the exhibit. As we approached the side door of the library, where the sign for the exhibit was located, I had an uneasy feeling; the big doors were closed tight. I walked up and tried to open the door, no luck. Were we in the wrong place? So, we walked all the way around the building, with no luck, no open doors. Then it started to dawn on me, I had checked the hours of the exhibit online, but I never checked to see what the hours of the library where for the weekend. Yes, I miscalculated, because of the holiday weekend, the library was closed, which meant no exhibit. Oh, well, go to Plan B…a little retail therapy at Sephora.

It was close to 4pm so we now were able to check into the hotel and freshen up a little. After about an hour, we made our way to the nearest subway station, bought a Metro Card and made our way down to Chelsea and walked to the Drunken Horse Wine Bar ( www.drunkenhorse.net ) at 225 Tenth Avenue.

We LOVED the Drunken Horse; the proprietor was really nice. He greeted us as soon as we walked in. There were several others at the bar and scattered at tables throughout the place. It’s not a big, but it has a very welcoming vibe. Mom and I decided to sit at the bar.

When it came to ordering wine the owner asked what we liked and then said he had just the wine for us. It was a white wine from Spain and boy was he spot-on, it was perfect. We then asked what the specialty of the house was on the tapas menu and he happily recommended the hummus and zucchini pancake, we ordered one of each.

I am not a huge hummus fan, but this hummus was unbelievably delicious. I’ve never had hummus so creamy, and the pita bread that came with it was warm and soft and perfect. The zucchini pancake was good too, mom really enjoyed it, but I pronounced the hummus a winner for me.

Just before 8pm we left The Drunken Horse and walked the 3 minutes to Trestle on Tenth. Being a holiday weekend Saturday it was clear by the number of empty tables that I probably didn’t really need a reservation, but what really raised my radar was the hostess. For an establishment that was not full, we had to wait a good 5 minutes to even be greeted at the entryway. This did not sit well with us and the meal didn’t get much better from there.

The service was mediocre, and the food was not much better. The pasta and pancetta starter we shared was extremely salty, my scallop main dish was ok, but mom’s fish main dish was really lackluster and had no flavor at all. The wine, a French Sancerre was very good. In an effort to try and salvage the meal I did opt for dessert and all I can remember about it was that it was a cakey item which came with a lemon ice cream that was ok.

Lesson learned, sometimes all that you hear about a place isn’t always the most accurate, and it was a holiday weekend, so maybe the “second string” was in the kitchen cooking. At least our time pre-dinner at The Drunken Horse was great!

On Sunday morning we made our way to the Starbucks next to the hotel for a jolt of caffeine and then walked to The Morgan Library at 225 Madison Avenue (at 36th Street). Mom and I had never heard of The Morgan Library until we read a Fodors trip report a few years ago about someone who had gone there. At that time we put this library on our radar for a future visit and this trip seemed like the perfect time. Plus there was a temporary exhibit at The Morgan Library of Winston Churchill’s correspondence.

We arrived at The Morgan Library just before the 11am opening time. Prior to this trip I found out the actual dining room, which was part of the Morgan family home, was now open as a restaurant and served lunch during the week and brunch on weekends. Being a Sunday we opted to have an 11am brunch reservation. The omelets we had were delicious and the dining room is just lovely.

After we had brunch we meandered through the library. All I can say is WOW! What an incredible collection of drawings, printed books and bindings, medieval and renaissance manuscripts, literary and historical manuscripts, music manuscripts and ancient seals and tablets. Pierpont Morgan was quite the collector. As incredible as the collection itself is, the library is also a work of art, it is truly an exquisite building. When we picked up the audio guide that is included in the admission price we hit the jackpot with the docent handing out the devices. This woman was a wealth of information about the history of Mr. Morgan and the library. I’m glad she asked us if we knew anything about the library and I’m glad we said, “No”, because after just 10 minutes standing with her at her desk we knew a whole lot more!

The library is not very large, but we spent close to 2 hours there. We probably could have spent more time, but by 2pm we had to leave because we had a 3pm matinee of The Best Man we had to get to.

It took us about 30 minutes to walk from The Morgan Library to the Theater District and find the theater. The line in front to get in was longer than I thought it would be. The doors were opened about 20 minutes before the performance and we found our seats without a problem.

The Best Man did have a great cast, James Earl Jones, John Larroquette, John Stamos, Kristen Davis to name a few, but for us it started out slow. It did pick up in the second and third acts, but we would say it was average. It wasn’t the worst show we had ever seen, but it wasn’t the best either. This was the last week of performances of this show and I was a little surprised to see a completely full house. Maybe it was because of the discounted tickets they were offering, or maybe it was because it was a Sunday matinee, or maybe it was just that full because of all the big names in the cast.

The show ran just shy of 3 hours and at about 6pm we were streaming out of the theater and heading to the Renaissance Hotel in Times Square. We found the lounge in this hotel has a spectacular view of Times Square and it’s a nice place to get a glass of wine, for a reasonable price and the location was perfect because we had a 7:30pm dinner reservation at Toloache on 50th Street.

Just before 7:30pm we settled our bar tab at the Renaissance Hotel and walked over to Toloache. I found this Mexican Bistro on one of our NYC trips last year and have to say, the food is delicious. It was packed to the gills on this Sunday night and I was happy I had made a reservation. We were seated as soon as we walked in and this time we had a table on the upper balcony level.

The service here was great, attentive, but not hovering. The big draw here is the number of tequilas this restaurant has on offer. So going out of our “wine box” mom and I ordered margaritas to start. Mom had a cucumber and lime version, I had the blueberry and lime version. We were both very happy with our selections.

Another claim to fame of this place is the guacamole. I am not a big guacamole fan, but I really wanted to give it a try here and to strike a balance between my milder palate and mom’s fiery palate we ordered the mild version. Another WOW! dish. This guacamole was like no other I have ever had, it was creamy and chunky at the same time, how is that even possible? I don’t know, but it was delicious.

We took the advice of our server and we got the 2 menu items he recommended. Mine was a shrimp dish, and mom’s was a pork dish. Talk about flavor exploding in our mouths, but not in a hot spicy way, just in a bold full of flavor way. Since by the time our main dishes arrived we had finished our margaritas, we ordered 2 glasses of a Spanish albarino wine that went perfectly with both dishes. We were two happy girls.

But, there was really a specific reason we wanted to come back to this restaurant and it was the orange coffee. Oh My God! This is the best coffee either of us has ever had and it did not disappoint. It was the perfect end to our time in NYC.

The next day we had plenty of time to get ready before the car was to pick us up at 10:30am to take us back to LaGuardia. As great as the driver was who picked us up on Saturday, this driver on Monday was the “Mario Andretti” of the Carmel Car fleet. Seriously, we were not sure if we would get out of the car in one piece. He sure did like to drive fast, cut off other cars and take surface roads instead of the highway. Thankfully we arrived at the airport without getting into an accident.

As luck would have it, our flight was delayed for a couple hours, but this gave us time to have a late breakfast/early lunch. As we waited to board the plane for the flight home I was happy to see both our names clear the flight upgrade list, so mom and I got to fly home in business class, it was like the proverbial cherry on the sundae of a great weekend!

What's A Gal To Do When Looking For a Hotel Deal?

Although I am taking off for Russia next month, I've also now booked two trips to NYC, one in September and one in December, and a one week trip to Sonoma County California in November.

With my Russia trip plans in order (well, there is the Visa issue to contend with), I have turned my sights to booking accommodations for the rest of my trips this year.  Some may think it's a bit too early to book for the fall, but for the travel planner I am, it's not.  Well, at least in my mind it's not too early!

For the December NYC trip I turned to my Intercontinental connection and got a Friends & Family rate at the new-ish Intercontinental near Times Square in NYC, for a not too bad price of $220 per night. 

For the Sonoma County trip in November I turned to a California friend for a hotel recommendation.  She whole-heartedly advised Healdsburg is a terrific town to use as a base location in the area and gave me a great lead on the Healdsburg Inn. When I contacted the inn directly, they couldn't have been nicer and since I'm traveling with my mom, I was able to secure the senior citizen discount for our 6 night stay.  So for about $275 per night we will be staying right in the heart of Healdsburg where we can walk to wine tasting rooms and a variety of restaurants without having to deal with who drives after enjoying wine with dinner!

My last hurdle was finding a NYC hotel for the September trip.  It's a quick weekend trip and I was looking for 2 nights accommodation.  I'm pretty sure at this point at least one Broadway show will be on the agenda that weekend and I wanted to stay somewhere with easy access to mid-town Manhattan and specifically close to Times Square, but not necessarily in Times Square.

I went back to my trusty Friends & Family option with Intercontinental and either the rates for the locations I wanted were no bargain, or the rate was good but the location was farther than where I wanted to be.  So, I started trolling the websites Hotwire, Room Key and TravelZoo for any great deals that might pop up.

For about a week I was not having much luck, rates were not super astronomical by NYC standards, but in the back of my mind I knew something better would pop-up.  Then it did, a TravelZoo deal for the Paramount Hotel on West 46th street.  I could book the first night for $220 and the second night for $189 and free wi-fi was thrown into the deal.  So I booked it, knowing if I found something even better that the cancellation policy allowed me to cancel without a penalty.

The Paramount deal was good, but after reading some of the comments on Trip Advisor I started having misgivings.  It's an older property which can mean "wonky" issues with rooms (size, lighting, bathroom issues). 

Zoom forward one week from when I booked the Paramount deal and I receive a new TravelZoo email deal for the Millennium Broadway Hotel, a hotel I've stayed at before, which is significantly more modern than The Paramount, and I liked (alot!).  And the Millennium Hotel deal was even better!  I quickly booked the two nights I needed for $189 per night.  A slight savings over The Paramount Hotel deal.  With the new hotel booked I cancelled The Paramount reservation and now I am set for an autumn full of fun and travel adventures!

Now I can start looking for restaurants, sites and activities to occupy my time in these terrific destinations!

June...A Travel Planning Month

Aside from coping with the whole Russia visa process, June is shaping up to become a travel planning month for me...   (NYC in September and December, Atlanta in September and California in November)

I'm gonna be a busy girl!

It all started a few weeks ago with a discussion about when mom and I should go to NYC this year and we decided since we have Christmas Eve and Christmas days off from work, that's when it would be, and plane tickets were purchased.  Then I found out about the  Il Volo concert in Atlanta at the Fox Theater and how could we pass up seeing these young gifted singers from Italy?  And it helps that they are incredibly handsome in that youthful sort of way.

But, then a week later there was a 24 hour fare sale on Delta airlines and how could we let that opportunity pass us by? So after consulting calendars and calculating how much vacation time we'd have available tickets to NYC in September (Labor Day weekend) and California in November (the week of Veteran's Day) were purchased.

Now, NYC is  a no-brainer for us, we just love it so much and planning a visit (or two) there is a snap for mom and I.  But when I saw the deal on a flight from Savannah to San Francisco I just had to say something to mom.  The issue was that we've been to San Francisco twice in the last 3 years and although we enjoy spending time there, it really wasn't calling our names. 

Then I got to thinking...we frequently said we wanted to see the Sonoma & Napa wine country.  Doing it as day trips from San Francisco always seemed to leave us unsatisfied.  What if we go to California for more than a long weekend?  What if we stretch it out to a week?  What if we rent a car and drive to Sonoma and Napa Valleys and actually spend a whole week there?  Mom was really diggin' that idea...soooo...tickets to San Francisco for a week in November were purchased!

Now with airfares for three trips purchased the hotel hunting can begin and then of course there is the digging through the list of Broadway shows we want to see and the wineries we want to visit.

Ah yes, June is going to be a heavy trip research month!