Somehow our plans changed this morning and we decided to go to the Empire State Building instead of The Met. Big mistake. HUGE mistake. If you are ever in NY avoid this tourist trap at ALL costs. Luckily we did shop a little and had some of the best pizza ever before we went, so the day wasn't a total loss. Which reminds me to put in a little plug here for "John's Pizzeria" on 44th, just off of Times Square. I saw a piece about it in a write up of some of NY's best authentic little hole in the wall kinds of restaurants. And it has spoiled me for life. I don't know how I will ever eat Pizza Hut again......and the building is a renovated church, complete with stained glass in the main seating area. Its worth a trip if you are in the area.
But back to things that are SO NOT worth it....We got to the Empire State Building with all of that yummy pizza in our bellies. We saw a long-ass line to get into the door, but hey...its NY, its to be expected, so we were unfazed (a little chilly, but unfazed still). We got inside to yet another long-ass line for something that we had no idea what it was. It turned out to be a security line. But we made it through to walk into yet another holding area with another long-ass line to buy tickets.
Here's where I started to get mad. We bought this NY Pass thing that was supposed to get us into quite a few attractions for the price of the pass. And we were supposed to be able to bypass ticket lines with these things. Well, we did get the tickets without charge, but we were still forced to wait in that line for an eternity. But we did it. And....we turned the corner and saw what most likely was the longest line of all. The line waiting to get into elevators to go up.
I kid you not, it was beyond ridiculous. Anyway, they advertised this spectacular skyride thing, that was a movie with seats that move to give you the sensation of flying over the city. And our passes also included that, so we ditched the long lines to the observatory and went to that first.
Where we....can you guess?....waited. And waited. And the maddening thing for that was that the line wasn't even very long. But the whole scene was completely disorganized. None of the employees seemed to have a clue what was going on, what line was for what....It was stupid. And that ride was stupid. And if I had paid for it, I might have asked for my money back. But the employee that ushered us in had promised that from the exit of the skyride, we would all be taken directly to the elevators, and given preference for going to this extra (stupid) thing. And he was stupid, too, cuz when we walked out, the line from the skyride to the observatory was just as bad as the other line. We took one look at it and walked the heck out of there. I was so tired of standing that I didn't even want to look at NY after all of that. I'm just glad we did it with our passes and didn't actually spend extra cash on that crap.
Also? The whole time you are standing in those infernal lines, people are walking all over you and hawking stuff. They try to get you to buy all kinds of extras like an $8.00 map of the city, so you will know what you are looking at when (IF) you ever make it to the top. Or you can rent these audio recorders to have a voice tell you the same stuff for some outrageous price. I don't know. I felt accosted by pimps the whole time we were there. And seriously....The view from the top of the Rockefeller Center was spectaculor....the wait to go up was short....the whole situation much better organized, and we were asked politely ONCE while buying our tickets if we wanted to buy an additional $3.00 map. Go there. Its much more interesting.
But hopefully our evening will be better. We have tickets to go see an Off Broadway show called "Rock of Ages". Constantine Maroulis, from American Idol is in it. And every time my husband hears Constantine's name, he makes a face. And not a good, happy kind of face either...haha.
He probably did not want to go see this show, but our morning was so disappointing that he is trying to redeem our day. I'm excited, anyway. Erica wanted us to go see Equus with Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), but hubby absolutely did NOT want to see Harry Potter naked. Like at ALL.
Tomorrow we are definitely going to see The Met.
No comments:
Post a Comment