I grew up just 50 miles outside of NYC but visited surprisingly infrequently. Somehow having the city only a short train ride away actually seemed to make me less likely to go. I figured it would always be there. But the strange thing about things that will always be there is that you rarely motivate yourself to actually take advantage of them. I took day trips here and there to visit my siblings who lived and/or worked there but I had never actually spent a weekend or more there.
But kids have a strange way of motivating you to see and do things you’ve put off before. I knew the kids would love some extended time in the city so we decided to tack on a weekend in NYC to our annual end-of-summer trip to NJ. I figured it would be exciting for the kids to stay in a hotel there and we’d have more time to see the sights if we weren’t rushing to catch a train home at the end of the day. We searched for articles on the top “family friendly” things to do in NYC and made a list with the boys. The list was way too long for a single weekend but we figured it was a good starting point and we could pick and choose things as we went along. We made plans to meet up with my siblings (converging from Boston, NJ, and NYC) and had a loose outline for the weekend.
While there are many amazing museums in NYC, with it being summer and the kids tagging along, much of our list was for outdoor things. So you can imagine how we felt when we woke up our first morning to a ridiculously heavy thunderstorm. The booming thunder shook the walls, the rain pounded against the roof, and just seconds after the loudest rumble, our phones started screeching out an alert in unison. Flood warnings. It appeared we were in for an all-day deluge.
Fog and clouds and pouring rain do not exactly make for an ideal viewing situation from the Top of the Rock, our first planned stop. So we regrouped and checked out our list to see what was indoors and in close proximity to our hotel (Westin Grand Central) and each other. Our first two stops were quintessential kid choices: Nintendo New York and the Lego Store in Rockefeller Center.
I have to admit that I expected something different from Nintendo NY. Or perhaps just something more. Their website bills themselves as “10,000 square feet of dedicated gaming goodness”. I was expecting more hands-on interaction but it was basically a huge retail store with a few demo games set up. But despite my misaligned expectations, it was still nirvana for an 8 and 10 year old boy.
What kid can resist all the Super Mario Brothers characters and memorabilia?
The boys demoed the tennis game for a little bit, explored the store, and obsessed over which stuffed animal to buy. My favorite part of the store was their two displays showing the history of their gaming consoles and their handheld systems. It definitely made me feel old though since I had the very first of each of their systems when I was a kid and spent hours playing Super Mario and Zelda on the Nintendo and then Tetris on the GameBoy. That just makes me “classic”, not old, right?
It wasn’t actively raining when we finished up at Nintendo New York so we wandered around Rockefeller Center for a little bit before stopping in the Lego Store. We have been in this Lego Store before (and many others) but RB especially still enjoyed wandering around it. The lego model of Rockefeller Center is really cute. But the real thing is impressive too…
We seemed to have a decent break in the weather so we took advantage by heading to the Central Park Zoo. Read more about our zoo visit here.
As we wrapped up at the zoo, the rain clouds started rolling in again so we headed to two more kid-centric indoor locations: Dylan’s Candy Bar and Serendipity.
We put our name on the list at Serendipity 3 (a 45 minute wait at around 4:15) and walked down the block to Dylan’s Candy Bar to browse while we waited. Serendipity is billed as a “legendary dessert destination” and Dylan’s Candy Bar is a (you guessed it!) candy store so combining these stops was a little tricky. We didn’t want to max out the sugar in the kids so we mostly browsed in Dylan’s and saved our sugar quota for Serendipity.
Dylan’s was a cool store to wander around in. Founded by Ralph Lauren’s daughter Dylan, the store has two levels of retail store and a third level that has an ice cream bar. The candy-inspired decor is cute and creative and the store has a Willy Wonka feel to it. They seemed to have every kind of candy ever made (their website claims to house over 7,000 confections) and sold everything from 25 cent bin candy to a $150 5-pound Hershey bar.
Although they only bought a few pieces of bin candy, the boys still had a blast checking out the store.
It was raining steadily when we headed back over to Serendipity. There was some confusion with our table and we ended up waiting an additional 25 minutes after they called our name to tell us our table was ready. The boys were hungry and tired at this point and losing patience quickly. We hadn’t initially intended to eat dinner here but since it was after 5:30 when we were seated and the thought of waiting at another restaurant was unappealing, we went ahead and ordered dinner first. The food was good but the dessert was what everyone had come for. And it did not disappoint…
Not a bad way to end our first day in NYC. We headed back to the hotel and prepared for the next day’s adventures.
On our second (and last) day in NYC, we got luckier with the weather. Although the forecast was still showing rain off and on all day, it actually cleared up and ended as a beautiful day. We had already planned some indoor activities for this day and the boys didn’t want to deviate from the plan even when the weather cleared. We spent the morning at Spyscape and the afternoon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Click the links to read more about those adventures.)
Despite the less-than-ideal weather, we had a great weekend in NYC and got to see many of the sites we wanted to see. When it wasn’t raining hard, we walked between many of our destinations, which allowed us to see some of the iconic buildings of NYC as well. Of course we barely scratched the surface of what NYC has to offer but the boys had a great time exploring the city and spending time with their cousins.
A few last notes about visiting NYC with kids…
- We used a combination of cabs, subways, and good old-fashioned walking to get around the city. Cabs were the easiest and in most cases seemed to be the fastest since you could go directly to your final destination. We took mostly shorter cab rides and the prices were reasonable. Subways are great to go slightly longer distances and are a cultural experience too. My boys were amazed by the (PG-rated) hip-hop pole dancing performance they saw on the train on our way to the Met. And walking is the best way to see the city and really soak up the surroundings. Use all forms of transportation!
- Try to pick a hotel either close to the sites you want to see or close to good transportation. We stayed near Grand Central Station and it seemed to be a fairly central spot. We could walk to a lot of things from there and had easy access to the subway.
- Dress appropriately and be prepared for the weather. We did not travel with umbrellas or rain jackets so a drugstore was our first stop in the city to purchase umbrellas. We did make sure everyone wore good walking shoes.
- Be flexible. Our plans changed due to the weather but we had plenty of things on the sight-seeing list and were able to change courses easily. Lots of things can throw a wrench in your plans – weather, long lines, tired kids. Don’t be dead-set on doing one particular thing because it may not work out. And don’t forget… anything you miss is just an excuse to come back again.
