Girl’s Weekend in NYC

This weekend we celebrated my sister’s upcoming wedding in New York City with shows, food, and all around general fun.

Yes, we got matching Minnie Mouse shirts to commemorate our trip. But my sister is getting married at Disney World, so it seemed perfect!

The weekend started out as a trip to see Newsies, the new Broadway Musical. If Newsies sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because it was a a pretty big cult hit with girls of a certain (MY) age when it was released in 1992. Yes, Christian Bale denies being in the movie, but that doesn’t make it any less awesome. When I heard the musical was coming to Broadway, I knew we had to go. Kori, Eileen, and Erin, Kori’s sister in law to be, all wanted to go, so a bachelorette weekend was born!

Newsies was an AMAZING show. We are planning on seeing it again. The guys in the cast danced their hearts out, and the choreography was fantastic. There was something about seeing that many men dancing on stage all at once that made it seem very appropriate for a bachelorette party. Even if they were all fully clothed and wearing tap shoes.

After Newsies, we had fun exploring Times Square, running over to Rockefeller Center (where we decided Top of the Rock was WAY too much!), and visiting the Disney Store in Times Square before heading back to our hotel for the evening. Unfortunately, I got us on the express train instead of the local, which I thought wouldn’t be an issue until we got out of the subway to discover it wasn’t just raining, there was practically a monsoon. So a slog through the Financial District commenced. We ended up soaked but laughing, so no permanent damage!

We started the next morning off with a room service breakfast. We felt super special when the guy showed up with a cart of food at our door at 8.15! It was pricey but special, and we really enjoyed it. And we spent some time soaking up our view in the beautiful Marriott Financial District. I’m pretty sure the manager that checked us into the hotel upgraded us, and we definitely appreciated this view!

After breakfast, we were off for the day! We started out with a visit to the 9/11 Memorial, but I’ll be covering that in another post. After visiting the Memorial, we decided to head uptown to take a 90 minute boat cruise around the island. But first, Kori’s first cab ride!

And then onto the boat! We sailed with City Sights New York, and it was really good. Our tour guide was excellent, and I think he enjoyed that we were paying attention and answering his questions as much as we enjoyed his tour. He even had us choked up at the end when he was talking about what being a New Yorker means to him.

After the cruise, we made our way up the waterfront towards Central Park, with lots of stops along the way. Including one to see Mickey’s Boat, the Disney Magic, docked. Kori is taking a Disney cruise for her honeymoon, so it seemed like we needed a picture!

Finally we made it to Central Park, where we enjoyed a snake snack of classic street foods before wandering the south end of the park.

Shortly before this picture, we saw a pretty spectacular bike crash. A woman turned a corner and instead of turning, went right into the fence and into a bush. She hopped right up and shouted that she was okay, so I’m guessing she was embarrassed more than anything else since it looked like she steered right into the fence/bush.

After leaving the park, we window shopped our way down 5th Avenue and even stopped into American Girl Place (Kori had never been before!!) We agreed that it was a good thing the store wasn’t around when we were kids!

Soon we were at Bryant Park, where we were meeting our friends Ryan and Eli for dinner. We headed into the Library for a few minutes so Kori could see the site where one of her favorite disaster movies, The Day After Tomorrow, was filmed!

We had dinner at BP Cafe, an outdoor space on the park side of the Library. It was GOOD. And super convenient for pre-show dining.

After dinner, we split up. Kori and Erin were going with Ryan and Eli to see Peter and the Starcatcher, which they had scored discount last minute tickets to, and Eileen and I had tickets to see Evita with Ricky Martin.

Evita is one of my top 5 shows (yes, I have a list of top all time musicals, don’t judge) and I was so excited to see it live. I thought it was fantastic. Ricky Martin was a great Che, and Elena Roger was phenomenal. Yes, they aren’t Patti and Mandy, but they made the characters their own. What’s New Buenos Aires…gives me chills!

And then after the show, we had a brush with fame. We were walking down a side street, and suddenly Eileen grabs my arm. Who is passing RIGHT by us? Neil Patrick Harris and his partner! We LOVE him, so it was super exciting!

We finished off our fantastic weekend with one more breakfast picnic–this time of lox and bagels Eileen and I picked up this morning. So good. If smoked salmon is ever wrong, I don’t want to be right!!

Everyone agreed, it was one wonderful weekend. We had so much fun celebrating Kori’s upcoming nuptials, and making memories together that we’ll have for a very long time!

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