Monday, November 14, 2005

10:16 PM Monday November 14, 2005

Last week I told you about Phil and I going on a New York City – Ellis Island – Statue of Liberty tour and this will be the third and last installment of that wonderful day … our bus tour with New York Tours. Countless weeks prior to the time we wanted to do this, we had been surfing/searching the net; asked for help at AAA as well as a travel agency but nowhere could we come up with a tour that would pick us up at our RV Park, Maple Lake Campground near Jackson, New Jersey. There is a plethora of tour companies that provide superb narrated tours but they all originate in the heart of New York City. These were out of the question for us because we were not comfortable (that’s putting it mildly) with driving into the city and trying to find a place to park. Even if we could have managed that in the early morning hour, we would have been faced with trying to find our way OUT of the city after dark. That thought gave both of us chills!

However, we did find another RV Park on the Jersey shore that was a pick up point for one of the tours and after getting permission to leave our truck in their lot we made reservations with the tour bus to pick us up at that location. We had to be there by 7:20 AM and since we were in a park 60 miles south that meant we were on the road by 5:15 AM. The traffic into Jersey City wasn’t as bad as we expected so we arrived in plenty of time to eat a breakfast snack we brought from home and drink a second cup of coffee.

The tour bus arrived on time, (to the minute); we paid the driver for two all-day tours and found our seats. Two and a half hours later, after numerous stops including the Newark Airport and many different motels in the area (on the New Jersey side of the river) where several dozen other tourists were loaded our group was complete. At the last motel stop, we changed busses and drivers (no explanation was offered) and at last, headed into the city. This entire loading procedure took much more time than necessary since there was only a few people with prepaid tickets and everyone else had to pay the driver; not very efficient in our opinion.

Our route took us through the Lincoln Tunnel where our driver warned us not to take any pictures. Signs at the entrance warned us that picture taking inside the tunnel was prohibited and the driver said he knew of one bus that was pulled over by the police and the tourist who ignored the warning and took pictures out the window of the bus was fined. The security cameras inside the tunnel must be very good or this story is a standard “wow the tourist” story. Of course, since 9-11, anything is possible.

About 10 AM we picked up our tour guide waiting at a bus stop in front of his apartment. After almost three hours we were finally going to see the “big apple”! Don’t get me wrong because I loved every minute of our tour, when I say again … in hindsight … in order to visit a large city and truly have enough time to see everything there is to see, a nice hotel for a couple days, in the heart of the city, with a helpful concierge would be a better way to go. One of these days (maybe in Chicago?) we’ll try out my theory.

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