New York at Christmas Time!

After staying overnight at Gatwick we took the early flight out and landed with plenty of time to arrive at our fantastic hotel on Time Square!

In our opinion well worth the extra cost to have a room overlooking all the hustle and bustle of Time Square all complete with neon flashing lights to add that bit more excitement!

The first thing on our agenda was to drop off our things and head out straight away to start our experience, we walked around our surrounding areas and took in all the sights of Times Square and the Theatre District including Radio City Music hall and the huge array of shops including the huge Toys R Us store in Times Square, where they had numerous amounts of different characters walking about meeting children before Christmas day all adding to the magic!

After a good meal and a good night sleep we headed out early the next day to travel by subway to Battery Park to catch the ferry to Liberty Island to visit the statue of Liberty, despite the heavy rain and low cloud we were still able to see the skyline of New York in the distance from the Ferry and had the opportunity to visit this iconic statue which in my opinion is a must!

From battery park, we were able to walk to the 9/11 memorial, which was not far at all and we saw the memorial fountains and visited the exhibition centre.

The surprise for me on Christmas eve in Times Square was just like New Year's eve they do a countdown to Christmas day which was great to be involved in and added to the atmosphere!

On Christmas day we decided to head up to Central Park for a wonderful horse and carriage ride around the park which was totally magical.

We walked from Central Park down 5th avenue to the Rockefeller Centre, where the iconic ice skating rink is under the huge Christmas tree, which was absolutely amazing and plenty of couples were taking advantage of this very romantic opportunity to do proposals which was also lovely to watch!

As all the shops were closed Christmas day on Boxing day we headed back to 5th avenue to go into Tiffany's and the famous Schwarz Toy store where the Big Piano is featured on the Film "BIG", we also visited Macys and saw the beautiful Grand Central Station and the Chrysler Building.

This trip was an amazing experience and totally unforgettable especially in such a magical time of year highly recommended!