Last year, Jared surprised me with a trip to New York City for Thanksgiving so I could check off one of the top items on my bucket list – seeing the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in person!

For anyone thinking about making this trip, I would highly recommend it. We were there for 6 days (from Tuesday to Sunday). We packed so much in to that trip and I wanted to share it with all of you!

I do want to mention we did a parade VIP package from NYCVP that included:

• shuttles to and from the airport
• our hotel
• tickets to some activities in the city like the Empire State Building, MoMA, a ferry to Ellis Island, and the American Museum of Natural History
• breakfast and private viewing area for the parade
• a tour of the balloons as they’re blown up the day before the parade
• a tour of the holiday light displays at the city’s department stores
• Thanksgiving dinner

 

Sights

Rockettes – By far my favorite part of the trip. Seeing the Rockettes’ Christmas Spectacular at Radio City has been on my bucket list for as long as I can remember and I’m so happy we got to do this on our trip. I was in awe the entire show and even though I’ve seen the Christmas Spectacular in Tampa, there’s no comparison to seeing it at Radio City the way they use the entire theater as part of the performance. Even Jared had a great time and really enjoyed the show.

Kinky Boots – We booked Broadway tickets while we were on the trip since we couldn’t decide on a show to see. Our options were Pretty Woman, Mean Girls, or Kinky Boots and I am SO GLAD we decided on Kinky Boots. I didn’t tell jared what it was about because I wasn’t sure if he’d agree to see it if I told him it was about drag queens making boots. Let me tell you, that boy LOVED the show! During intermission he said, “This is so good!” His favorite parts were when the drag queens were out in full force! 10/10 would recommend for anyone, even conservative 20-something white boys.

Trump Tower – Of course Jared couldn’t go to NYC without stopping by Trump Tower. I don’t know what he was expecting, but I don’t think it’s what he thought it would be. It’s literally just a skyscraper with extra security. There’s a little cafe on the first floor and a small gift shop, but not anything worth buying there. Definitely not a necessity when going to the city.

Empire State Building – We used one of our activity tickets from our package to tour the Empire State Building. There was no line whatsoever and it wasn’t too crowded at the top. We got to one of the top levels by elevator and decided to go up another level by taking (more than) a few flights of stairs. The history was interesting and we liked walking around and seeing the sights from such a height. We didn’t get around to going to the Statue of Liberty, but we were able to see it from the top of the Empire State Building, which was cool.

Balloons blown up the day before – We took a bus with our VIP package to the area where the parade balloons are blown up the day before. We didn’t realize anyone can go see the balloons without any sort of tour. If we did this trip again we would just go do it on our own. While this activity was really cool, we wish we’d gone later in the day. A lot of the balloons were still deflated and we didn’t get to see very many of the balloons at their full, massive size. I liked that each balloon had a plaque detailing what balloon you were looking at and how long that character has been in the parade.

Central Park – We didn’t get to spend as much time in Central Park as we would’ve liked. It was so cold it was rough even being outside and we didn’t take any transportation other than the airport shuttle so Central Park was a pretty far walk for us. We walked there the last day, but left shortly.

Hershey Store – The Hershey store is a fun novelty stop. You can find every Hershey product in existence. My favorite part was the fresh-baked s’mores in the back of the store. It was the perfect treat for a freezing day!

Holiday window displays – This was also a tour on a nice bus through the city. Our driver was fantastic and very knowledgeable. He said because it was so unusually cold that day, the roads were basically empty so we got to see a lot more than his tours normally see. He took us to some extra sights we wouldn’t have gotten to see otherwise. Because of the cold, it was great to be on a warm bus between stores. We just got off to walk by and admire the windows and then we’d hop back on the bus to go to the next stop.

 

Food

Jon’s Pizza – Jon’s pizza is a must when you’re in the mood for some really good pizza in a cool atmosphere in NYC. It’s an old church converted to a restaurant. It was pretty crowded when we got there, but since there were only two of us, we got seated fairly quickly. The garlic knots were just as good as the pizza!

Ray’s Pizza – Ray’s pizza is the best when you’re on the go and don’t have time to slow down. Just pop into the restaurant and head out with your slice. It’s so yummy and a good late night snack while you’re exploring.

Smith & Wollensky’s – If you’re in the mood for a fancy steak dinner, Smith and Wollensky’s in the place to go. The steak is great, but the real star of our meal was the side of mac and cheese. It’s made with jumbo shells and is just so good. They even brought a free dessert out since it was Jared’s birthday. The only downside was it was extremely crowded. It seemed like they were really forcing seating in. Waiters were basically on top of us and bumping into my chair as they were bustling by.

Dallas BBQ – We went to Dallas BBQ for our first meal in the city and for our last. We went for lunch when we got to the city and got awesome BBQ and massive frozen drinks (even though it was freezing outside!). Before heading to the airport, we went there for breakfast on our last day and the breakfast was just as good as our lunch the first day. I’d recommend the chocolate chip pancakes!

Times Square Diner – This was probably our favorite restaurant the whole trip and we just happened upon it through a quick Google search. We were looking for a diner-type place for breakfast and Times Square Diner came up. It looked crowded outside so we thought it would be a long wait, but we got seated at the bar right away. We had the most incredible breakfast, yummy hot chocolate, and the fastest service I think I’ve experienced in my whole life.

Junior’s Cheesecake – We hit up Junior’s cheesecake one night after dinner and each got a slice to take back to the hotel. The cheesecake was so good, but definitely too much to finish in one sitting even though it was just one slice. I’d suggest splitting one between two people so it’s not too much.

Thanksgiving dinner – Part of the package included Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant. It was done buffet style and honestly wasn’t very good. There weren’t many “thanksgiving foods” and the food was just OK. We definitely missed all the home cooked food we usually eat on Thanksgiving.

 

The Parade

The main reason we did the VIP package was for the parade offerings. It included breakfast inside before the parade and a fenced off viewing area on the sidewalk right outside the building along the parade route. There were even TVs in the building playing the parade broadcast. This way, we wouldn’t have to stand outside in the freezing cold hours before the parade even started just to get a good spot.

The breakfast was just ok, but the building was really nice. The problem was when we went outside just before the parade was starting, there was no fenced off area. People were just milling about. We asked some people from our group what was going on and they said NYPD took down all barricades and wouldn’t allow there to be any private viewing areas.

Luckily, it wasn’t too crowded on the sidewalks because it was SO COLD – actually the coldest Thanksgiving NYC has had in over 100 years. While the whole week was cold, Thanksgiving Day was the coldest day of the week by far with a low of 19 degrees. We moved a couple blocks down from where we were supposed to be in our fenced in area and found a good doorway to stand in that gave us a couple more inches of height above everyone else.

Seeing the parade in person was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. It was crazy how massive the balloons are and how much they move around in the wind while they’re going down the parade route. That said, it was so cold. Luckily, Jared saw an open coffee shop a few storefronts down and got us two of the biggest hot chocolates he could get and those helped a lot.

I don’t think I would go back for the parade again, but I am so, so happy I got to see it with Jared and cross it off my bucket list!