Booking

I booked this cruise during a Carnival sale back in April. I’ve been watching New York cruises ever since they announced Magic was going there.

I was able to get this cruise for less than half of what I normally see it priced at. I haven’t been on a five-day cruise since 2017, but this is the second cheapest five-day cruise out of the six I have taken.

Getting that price out of New York on a cruise that included Labor Day weekend was big. The three-day weekend allows me to spend four days in New York and go on a five-day cruise while only taking one week off of work.

Saving on the cruise helps because I’m going to spend a lot of money in New York.

Parking

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. If you want to get the best price from The Parking Spot, you usually have to wait. When I booked this trip in April, The Parking Spot was wanting $16 per day for covered parking. When I checked in on their 4th of July sale it was $13 per day. Finally, when they emailed me about an end of summer sale in August it was down to $8 per day. That’s when I booked.

Flights

I booked my flight back in April when I booked the cruise. I was happy to be able to book my favorite airline, Spirit from Dallas-Fort Worth to New York LaGuardia.

I picked LaGuardia because I was initially going to spend my first night in Queens near Citi Field which is the Mets stadium. Even though those plans changed I’m glad I made that decision because everything I’ve heard says JFK is a nightmare. 

I went ahead and purchased the one-year Free Spirit club membership. That cost $70 but it gives you a year of discounts. I saved $30 on the fare with it. Then I saved more on the checked bags and seat upgrade.

I booked this flight before I flew first class to Seattle, but I had a feeling once I experienced first class, I wouldn’t want to go back to coach. “I can’t. I won’t.”

I think having the Free Spirit membership helped me with a seat upgrade. Spirit doesn’t have first class, but they do have first class seats on the first two rows. They call them “big front seats.” They were only $20 more each way than the exit row aisle seats I normally book. That’s well worth it to me for a long flight to New York.

The bags were also the cheapest I’ve paid on Spirit. They were $28 there and $31 back. I think I normally pay about $70 round trip. I have two more flights to book before my Free Spirit membership is up so more savings is coming. Actually, I’ve already booked one of them and I saved a total of $70 on that one so Free Spirit is has more than paid for itself in two trips.

I did get a flight change in July. Both of my flights were pushed up an hour. That gets me into New York an hour early so I’m pleased with the flight there. I also leave an hour earlier. I’m a little nervous about making a noon flight on debarkation day but I should be fine. I’m definitely happy about getting back an hour earlier since I work the next day.

Hotel

As a Mets fan, I definitely wanted to attend a Mets game while in town. Since LaGuardia Airport is close to Citi Field, my plan was to stay my first night by Citi Field and go to the game that night, the next afternoon, or both.

After researching hotels, I found I could stay at a very nice hotel in Manhattan for a better price than the not so nice hotels near Citi Field. It’s just a 30-minute subway ride to the ballpark. I enlisted the advice of local Mets fans. They recommended staying in Manhattan and taking the subway.

If you followed the Seattle portion of my Alaskan Splendor cruise, I stayed at the Seattle Warwick under a spring special they emailed me. This happened right around the time I was looking an New York hotel. I went ahead and booked the Warwick New York for all four nights. This hotel is near Central Park, Times Square, and the Theater District. And it’s about a mile down the road from the Manhattan cruise terminal.

I paid a total of $900 for the four nights–fully refundable. At the time I had an option of adding a private terrace for an additional $50 per night. That was tempting but I know I won’t be spending much time in the room. I recently did a price check and the basic room is coming to around $1000 now. My premier city view is coming to $1100.

After doing more research into New York, I found a lot of the sightseeing I’m going to be doing is not in the same area of my hotel. Most of the food places people are recommending are not near my hotel. I can’t see myself spending much time in Times Square. I will take advantage of being near the theater district, but I do not think you need to stay in this area to enjoy New York.

Mets Game

I was initially going to try to attend two Mets games. Once I decided to stay in Manhattan, I thought that might not be the best idea. When I saw the ticket prices, I felt even stronger about it. I thought I may not want to take a subway to Queens immediately after checking in. Additionally, Sunday tickets were cheaper than Saturday night tickets.

In addition to being less expensive, a Sunday afternoon game also keeps Saturday and Sunday nights free for shows. I did have some pretty strict parameters for a ticket. I wanted to be on the first level, on the aisle, somewhere between home plate to the end of the Mets dugout. I ended up with a seat on the aisle 15 rows behind the Mets dugout for $175 after taxes and fees.

 

One week out they announced the attendees for “old timers’ day,” which turns out to be the Saturday I decided not to go to the game. And of course, all of the big players I grew up watching are going to be there and I’m not. That stings a little. But my Saturday night is already planned. On to that.

Broadway Shows

As I mentioned before I really want to take advantage of having a hotel near the theater district. I decided to look for shows every night except for my last night. I’m leaving that night open in case something comes up. I could always decide to add a last minute show, but I don’t want to be committed to anything right now.

They say the best way to get a good deal on tickets is to stand in line at the TKTS booth the day of the show. Supposedly you can get tickets 50% off. Maybe that will be an option if I decide I want a cheap ticket my last night. But I prefer to strike a balance by getting good tickets to good shows that maybe aren’t the current hot show. I’m not going to be going to see Hamilton this trip. But I am going to be seeing historically good Broadway shows that have been playing for a long time. And I’m going to have good seats for them. If you do want to visit the TKTS booth, you can find them in Times Square, Lincoln Center, and in downtown Brooklyn.

Wicked is one show I knew that I wanted to see. The good thing is since I haven’t been to any of these shows I don’t have to see the whatever the current hot show is. I searched around to see which are the “must see” shows for people who have never been to Broadway. I kept seeing Phantom of the Opera and Chicago mentioned. I did some research and found the best combination of seats for those two shows and Wicked my first three days.

Being by myself I really prefer sitting on the aisle. Good aisle seats are extremely limited. That’s why I felt the need to buy early.

The one exception I made was Phantom of the Opera. The best aisle seat was going to be on row 20. That sounded pretty good but when I dug deeper, I found that row is farther back than I would’ve thought. That theater has one of those big walkways where you can walk across the theater a couple rows in front of that one. Row 20 is probably the equivalent of row 25. But for just $10 more I could get a front row seat.

In my research I had read that front isn’t necessarily best for some of these shows. But all of the front row seat reviews I read for Phantom of the Opera were favorable. For that one I’ll probably between a couple of strangers. But I’ll be in the front row center for Phantom of the Opera on a Saturday night on Broadway my first night in New York, so I’ll deal with it.

The shocking thing was the handling fees on these tickets. I paid a $43 handling fee for Wicked, and they sent me a mobile ticket. That wasn’t even my biggest handling fee. I guess you can avoid that fee by going to the box office to purchase your ticket. But I didn’t want to wait until I was in town and risk losing the seats I wanted. I’m biting the bullet with about $125 in handling fees between the three shows. All of the tickets were delivered to me electronically. My Broadway tickets ranged from $80-150. With the handing fees they ranged from $106-200. I may have found a value seat for Chicago. We’ll see. 

For some reason my Wicked ticket was delivered to me the day I ordered it back in April. The other two tickets were delivered via email about 10 days prior to the shows. It’s odd since they were all ordered from Broadway.com. Perhaps the various theaters handle their tickets differently. 

I didn’t just pick my tickets off of a seating chart. I read many seat reviews on various websites. The most helpful websites are A View From My Seat and Seat Plan. I will add my seat pictures and review to those websites since they were so helpful to me.

The first ticket I purchased was Wicked. It’s pretty simple. I have an aisle seat on row Q. This ticket was $125 but it went up to $168 after the ridiculous handling fee.

The next ticket I purchased was for Phantom of the Opera. As I mentioned this is the one where I am giving up the aisle to be front row center. This ticket was $149 but I paid $201 after an even more ridiculous handling fee.

Next, we get to what I think may be one of the best value seats. This ticket is up front for Chicago but down on the end. The seat reviews were good enough for me to save $50-100 with this $79 seat. It had the lowest handling fee as well bringing the total to $106.

Very late in the process I decided to book Mr. Saturday Night starring Billy Crystal for my last night in New York. It had very limited seating available–especially aisle seating. I ended up in the mid-balcony area. I may have learned a lesson on this one. I bought my other tickets on Broadway.com. This ticket is $133 after taxes and fees on Broadway.com. I found the same ticket for $113 after taxes and fees on Ticketmaster. If you are buying Broadway tickets make sure you price check Ticketmaster before you purchase them on Broadway.com.

Other Tickets

The first thing I thought about was the Statue of Liberty. I really want to go to the crown. Crown access has been shut down since COVID. I was hoping it would open back up before my trip but it doesn’t look like that is going to happen. I found many of the locals are recommending not actually taking a trip to Ellis Island. They say you are better off viewing it from a ferry. I will likely do that from a harbor tour and/or the Staten Island ferry. I will save the Statue for a future trip when I can hopefully go all the way to the top.

In Seattle I did the CityPass. They do have that for New York as well. The full pass like I got in Seattle costs $129 and includes: 

Empire State Building (86th floor AM/PM pass like I had with the Space Needle)
American Museum of Natural History
Top of the Rock Observation Deck OR Guggenheim Museum
Ferry Access to Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island OR Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises
9/11 Memorial & Museum OR Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum

I don’t think that would be helpful to me because there are two Empire State Building levels. I may want the pass that does both the 86th and 102nd floors. I would use the Top of the Rock, Circle Line, and the 911 museum but the Natural History Museum isn’t at the top of my list.

The smaller pass costs $92 and includes three of the following:

From that I would use Top of the Rock, Edge, and Circle Line or City Cruises, 911 Memorial & Museum. I would also be interested in Intrepid, but I believe I get into that for free as a veteran. It looks like you really need to be using the Empire State Building to really get good value out of this pass. That would be $122 with the Empire State Building ($44), Edge ($38), and Top of the Rock ($40). The harbor cruises seem to be about $25 during the week. 911 museum is about the same. I guess I’d save about $10 with that. I will probably just buy my tickets individually so I don’t purchase something I’m unable to use.

Transportation

I’m going to use the subway system to get around New York. They have an unlimited pass for $33 which is good for a week. I think it’s difficult to say whether or not four days is worth it. I think five definitely would be. On a rough estimate I figured the minimum I will spend is $23 so at worst I would make a $10 donation to the New York transportation department. The one downside to the pass is I have to swipe a physical card. I believe if I pay per ride, I can use Apple Pay. Using my phone is much more appealing than having to use a card every time. I haven’t decided which way I’m going yet.

I’m going to use the City Mapper app to give me directions. I’ll give you an example of that here. Let’s say I’m going from my Hotel to the Mets game. The first time I did this I used the airport to the Warwick. Apparently, there’s also a Warwick, New York which is much farther away from the airport.

1. Walk to 57 St Entrance — 6th Ave & 56th St, SW Corner

   3 min
2.  in 7, 15, 29 min

   

   E or F

   Uptown

   E: Trains Rerouted

   ---

   • 57 St
   • 4 stops
   • Jackson Hts – Roosevelt Av

   13 min
3. Change Platforms 74 St – Broadway

   5 min
4.  in 1, 7, 12 min

   

   7

   Flushing – Main St

   ---

   • 74 St – Broadway
   • 6 stops
   • Mets – Willets Point

   8 min
5. Walk to Citi Field Exit — 126th St & Roosevelt Ave, NW Corner

    

COVID Testing

Even though Carnival is no longer requiring COVID testing, Bermuda still requires it. Bermuda’s requirement for vaccinated guests is a PCR test four days prior or an Antigen test two days prior. Since I’m going to be on a plane at 7am four days prior, the two-day Antigen is my only option. I purchased home tests back in the spring to cover this trip. Since I’m not going to need the second one for Celebration, I’ll bring both tests, so I have a spare in case there’s a problem with the first one.

Bermuda Travel Authorization

I filled out my Bermuda Travel Authorization several weeks before the cruise. I received my approval 10 days before the cruise. Personally, I think this is just a big money grab by Bermuda. $40 per person x 3,000 passengers x however many ships they get. That must be bringing in millions of dollars every month for Bermuda.

Onboard Purchases

Back when Carnival had the little mistake where their Spa discount worked for everything, I purchased Cheers, internet, and $50 cruise cash for this cruise. Before they raised prices on the specialty restaurants, I booked a night in the steakhouse and a night in Cucina Del Capitano. About 10 days prior to the cruise, I received this notice that they are cancelling my internet package and refunding it in onboard credit. Due to satellite issues single day internet purchases will be available as I had to do in Alaska. I will probably see if I can get that onboard credit refunded in cash. Then whatever internet I do purchase I can pay off with a 10% off gift card.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Carnival Magic
• Magic
• New York