New York

27^th July 2015

On our way to Charleston in South Carolina we are enjoying a quiet sea day following a fairly hectic two days in New York.

As with NY the weather is hot and steamy, the sea is a lovely royal blue and although there’s a choppy sea and a few little white caps there is very little noticeable action from the ship.

At around 1630 on Friday we picked up a pilot and entered the Hudson River going into NY and along with best part of the ships compliment we stood on a foredeck and watch the New York skyline unfold while listening to a port expert describe various points of interest.

Up past liberty Island and the iconic statue to our port and then eventually Manhattan off to starboard with all of its sky-scrapers, glass and weird Gotham City looking buildings. What a place, choppers flying everywhere, boats and ferries darting about and even from the ship we could see the crazy traffic and hear the sirens of emergency services and the NYPD, there is something exciting about it all.

We docked at pier 90 about 1930 and then the shemozzle started with US immigration. As I said in a previous post we all had to disembark the ship and be processed before anyone was to be allowed back on board. We lined up like browns cows and left the ship at 2030, it took well over an hour to get through and then three of us wandered downtown to Time Square had a coffee and wandered back – Friday night mad house. It takes about 30 minutes of brisk walking at least each way from ship to Time Square, by the time we got back it was after midnight and passengers were just getting back on board we finally got back to our cabin after one in the morning. What a shambles but not the ships fault, that’s US immigration for you.

At least Saturday we had a free run without the hold up of officialdom. Having done a lot of the touristy things in NY in earlier times we were content with walking looking and shopping. A lady from our dining table asked to join us even though we were not going sight seeing and I think by the time we got back to the ship late afternoon she wished she hadn’t joined us as she was totally whacked.

I might add considering it was New York and the Yanks like to think they do everything in style, the cruise terminal was pretty poor. It was basically just a big shed with a telescopic gangway similar to how you board an aircraft. Inside other than toilets there weren’t any tourist facilities such as tourist or information desk, shops, duty free outlets or even wifi. Not impressed – worse than Brisbane.!!

Sunday morning we grabbed a cab and went straight to the Nine Eleven memorial site at the bottom end of Manhattan. There are two memorial pools, shaped in a square configuration. Looking into the pool, water surrounds another square in the middle that water cascades into from the main pool, it is rather intriguing as you cannot see the bottom of the inner square so it looks as if the water is dropping into a bottomless hole. Between the two memorial pools is a modernistic museum building where people were already queuing up to enter. All the way around the outer perimeter of the pools is a stainless steel wall about a meter high with the names of all the people that perished on that dreadful day.    All of this is set in a nice grassy park lined with shady trees, that gives a nice tranquil atmosphere to the memorial. From a corner of one of the pools I could look up at the Freedom Tower built on the same site and looking very stunning with the sun reflecting off it (it must be hell in neighbouring buildings)

Across the road but all part of the memorial site is another weird looking structure and to me looks like a set of bleached rib cages facing up to the sky. It’s called the “Oculus” and at this stage I haven’t had a chance to Google to establish what it represents.

 On either side of this structure further construction of buildings is taking place but it is disappointing to think how long all of this has taken when you consider how long ago the deed took place and the how much outcry there was it’s almost as if they have lost interest after the initial hype. Lets face it 9/11 has affected everyone globally ever since.

After spending some time in the area we headed off to go shopping, at some stage we decided to use the subway to travel from downtown to uptown as it was too far to walk. Following directions from a very helpful security chap who even gave us a map, we bought a couple of tickets and boarded a train.

The instructions were as follows – “The uptown train aint running from this station today, so best you take the downtown C or D train for 2 stops then change and get on an F train that will take you uptown to the Rockefeller Centre”. Too easy.

We just got onto the platform and there was a train already there, Nancy asked me if this was ours, but I held back to check first and by then the train had gone. So I was in trouble as we should have got on it. I insisted another train would be along in five minutes (which it was).

So we went the instructed two stops and got off just as an F train came in and quick as a flash I said “Come on” and hopped on – we were going the wrong way so I was in the poo again. “Not to worry we will get off at the next station and grab one going the other way”.

Fortunately New Yorkers are a helpful lot and this guy covered with tattoos leaned over and said if you get off at the next station you will have to pay again on the next train, so I suggest you get off in two stations walk around the barrier and back onto the next platform so you don’t have to pay again. All went well nothing like giving it a go.

We did a bit of shopping, Nancy couldn’t find what she wanted but we spent a lot of money anyway. I bought a new phone and didn’t realise just how long it takes to set the dam things up so we wasted heaps of time. By late afternoon we were running a bit late and needed to get back to the ship by 1600 and it had started to spit with rain so we flagged down a Yellow Cab and gave the driver the pier address and brief directions. We must have had “TOURISTS” plastered over our foreheads or something, because he started to make out he didn’t understand us and his accent suddenly became very broken English, he played with his GPS and then his mobile phone and so I gave him a map a bellowed some directions. Then we started going up a side road that I realised would cause slow driving so once again we pointed out he was going the wrong way, eventually I think he realised he wasn’t going to pull the wool over our eyes and we were about to jump out so he went around the block and got himself onto the right road and of course end of day traffic was building up so it was slow going anyway, on the way I pointed out a line up of people to Nancy and said I wonder what’s going on there and the driver who couldn’t hear us earlier or understand us suddenly said in good English they are lined up waiting for a coach to go on tour. (smart arse).

We finally got to where our ship was and he kept going for half a kilometre and we thought he was going to turn at the next set of lights and double back as we were on a one way highway but he pulled up and told us he could not make a turn. We didn’t have much time to argue so we just had to hurry to the ship arriving at twenty past four. Not only late but also late for a safety exercise that started at 1615 but we scraped in thank goodness hot, sweaty and bloody cranky.  

Regardless of the cab experience we decided we were a bit disappointed with NY this time – not sure why yet it’s just how we felt.

Charleston Tomorrow.