A pre-cruise New York stay (and a bit of Broadway)

We flew into JFK on 29^th October, three days before the start of the cruise. Back in 2022 we unfortunately had to cancel a cruise we had booked out of New York when our flight got cancelled. We were flying in the day before, thinking that would give us time, but the first flight we could get wouldn't have got us there in time. So we wanted to have a bigger buffer!

Now, I love New York and have been a few times. For this reason we weren't planning on doing a lot of touristy stuff - just a couple of shows, because we are both theatre people (yep, even though you get old, the theatre kid is still there inside you!). Normally we stay near Times Square but this time we decided to stay down near the Financial District. Although it is nice to be closer to the centre of the action, hotels are a lot cheaper if you head down south, and the subway system does make it easy to get around. So we stayed at The Moxy NYC Downtown. 

I would definitely recommend this hotel if you want something with a lively atmosphere. The restaurant and bar area was quiet during the day, but really came to life in the evening. We didn’t eat there as we weren’t really around during meal times, but did like the ‘Grab and Go’ section. The room was small but that is fairly common for NYC and as it is really just a base to explore then that wasn’t a problem. The overall feel of the hotel reminded me of Downtown Camper by Scandi which we stayed in last year when we went to Stockholm.

Our two days in NYC were a mixed bag in terms of weather. On the first day it rained almost the entire time – there was a lot of reports of flooding in the local news. WE braved it and got the subway up to Times Square where we had a delicious breakfast in an Irish Pub. While sat there in the dry we started looking at options for the theatre. There are a few ways to get last minute tickets for Broadway shows. You can of course book direct with the theatre but that is definitely the most expensive way to do it. If I really wanted to see a specific show then I would book in advance to ensure that I got to see it. However, we weren’t too bothered (though we did have one particular show in on our list) and decided to wait till we got there to see what we could get at a discount. Most people who do this head for Times Square to the TKTS ticket booth where they sell on the day tickets at greatly reduced prices. So this was our plan – until the rain! Another option is to try and get rush tickets on the TodayTix app. We use this for West End shows but found that Broadway didn’t have as many options as we are used to for London. Finally there are websites that do online lotteries. You enter for either tickets that day or the next day (depending on the website) and keep everything crossed. So given that we were currently sat indoors we entered some of those. Unfortunately they don’t get drawn until the afternoon and if we didn’t get lucky for that night we could be stuck. The TKTS booth opens at 11am and by the time the lottery was drawn a lot of the shows would be sold out.

So, we braved the rain. And yes it was VERY wet!

We joined the queue at about 10:30am and it was probably around 11:30am by the time we got to the front. Our number one choice of show was ‘Beetlejuice’. We felt that we had unfinished business with this as we had booked to see it back in 2022 when we were due to do a cruise with a few days in NYC post-cruise. Sadly this didn’t go ahead and we had to sell the tickets. The production closed shortly after that but as luck would have it the National Tour of the show was doing a 3 month run on Broadway. In an ideal world we would have seen this on the 31^st as it seemed like a great show for Halloween, and this was the 30^th. So it was a case of do we leave it till the 31^st which was our last night in New York and risk not being able to get tickets, or do we get them while we can. We decided on the later and got two tickets in row F of the orchestra (stalls in UK theatres) for $90 each. This was over 50% off.

So with tickets secured, and some lotteries for the next day already entered we looked for something to do indoors. Although we weren’t planning on doing touristy stuff I had one thing on my list – The Museum of Broadway. This was just off Times Square so we headed straight there.

If you are a fan of musical theatre this is a MUST do. It told the story of musical theatre in New York from the 19^th century through to the present day and took us around two hours to go around it all. I found bits of it quite emotional – the musical ‘Rent’ holds a very special place in my heart and that section was very well done. The museum has costumes from shows from though out the decades along with information showing the impact that these shows have had. The second part of the museum was more about the technical side of it and featured lighting rigs, flying systems, along with set, costume, and prop design. My son is studying Stage Management and Technical Theatre at Central School of Speech and Drama, and he would have spent the whole two hours just in that section!

The shop at the museum has a selection of merchandise from shows which are currently playing which is fantastic. Usually show merch can only be purchased at the theatre and you are only going to get in to buy it if you have a ticket for the show. I picked up some pins for a show I love in London but they don’t sell the pins here!

We then headed back down to the hotel for a break from the rain and a rest before the show. I had recently had a fall and an ankle injury so I was aware of not wanting to push myself too much.

‘Beetlejuice’ was amazing and it was so good to finally see it. If you haven’t seen it then it is opening in London in May 2026 so get booking! We did make the mistake of messaging our kids to see if they wanted any merch. We ended up with a long list from them which we nearly didn’t get in the suitcase!

We had also managed to get lucky in one of the lotteries we entered and had secured tickets for ‘Death Becomes Her’ for the following evening. These were $40 each and had  a face value of $90 so another bargain.

The next day was thankfully dry and we headed over to Brooklyn, which is we’ve never actually been too. We did of course head to DUMBO – along with all the other tourists – to the popular instagram spot to get that photo of the Manhattan Bridge.

I then had some shopping bits I wanted to do for things that I either can’t get at home, or are cheaper in the US, so we got the subway up to Bryant Park from Brooklyn, and walked up Fifth Avenue and ended up back in Times Square. As it was dry I was able to get a photo on the infamous red steps there.

We had a late lunch/early dinner and then headed back to the hotel as we wanted to get some packing done before we headed off on our cruise the next morning.

We headed out back up to Times Square (at this point I was starting to wish we’d paid more to actually book a hotel up there) and this was of course Halloween night. I can honestly say that Halloween on the subway was … interesting! Definitely a new experience for me!

The show was really good. My main reason for wanting to go was to see Megan Hilty who played the character that Meryl Streep played in the movie. She was the first Glinda I saw in Wicked back in 2005. Really enjoyed the show. I wasn’t sure how they were going to do all the special effects but they did it really well. This is also due to open in London in 2026 so I will hopefully get to see it again.

We left the theatre, grabbed a pretzel from a cart in Times Square and headed back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep and got ready for our cruise 😊