Hellobee Boards

@MommySLP: April is hit or miss with weather—could be freezing/rainy/snowy or could be nice or could be anywhere in between. Probably likely to be 40s-60s with rain, but you can check the weather the week before to know what to pack. This whole winter is unseasonably warm though, so who knows.

I can suggest a million things to do with kids that age. How long is the trip total?

Airbnb’s are banned now in NYC unless the owner lives on site (like a brownstone situation), so even though you might see them, I wouldn’t book them because a neighbor can turn them in while you are there and then you are out a place to stay.

Airbnbs are still legal on my side of the river though, if you want to stay in NJ and go across the river. It kind of depends on your budget and your needs (like do you want a kitchen, and do you want separate bedrooms for you and the kids rather than 1 hotel room, etc).

I would maybe make your list of Must Do activities and then pick a place based on what you are doing—like I wouldn’t want to live near Times Square, but if a tourist was coming to watch a bunch of broadway shows, it’s the most convenient.

Off the top of my head—I’d say catch at least 1 broadway show (maybe split up if the older ones and grandparents want to see more than 1. My 4 year old is not good at sitting quietly in shows longer than 1 hour, so I’m not attempting again until she’s like 6+, but my older DD has been seeing broadway shows since she was 4.5 and has never been anything except dead silent, still, and absolutely enthralled.

So other than traditional broadway shows, there’s an interactive kids show called Pips Island that’s fun. There’s the Museum of Ice Cream, Color Factory, American Girl Store, Eloise store and activities at the Plaza hotel (and a fun food court on the lower level of the Plaza).

There’s the Statue of Liberty of course, going there and to Ellis island will burn most of an entire day. You probably can’t get crown tickets because they sell out way in advance, but you can still get platform tickets. Your youngest 2 might not be tall enough for the crown anyway—you have to be 48 inches tall.

There’s the Empire State Building, Top of the Rock, and 1 world tower observation deck. There’s also a new glass observation deck opening in Hudson Yards called the Edge that looks cool. Should be open when you are here. Hudson Yards also has the Vessel sculpture you can climb up—some people have panned it,but I think it’s actually really cool and my kids loved it.

There’s Central Park of course, the 9-11 memorial, the Roosevelt Island aerial tram is fun with kids, the Natural History Museum (avoid on weekends, it gets so crowded).

My kids really love the store CAMP (now there are 2 locations, we’ve only been to the original).

If the weather is nice, you can spend an entire day around Battery Park/downtown. Our favorite places there are the two playgrounds near Brookfield Place (one is teardrop Park), the sea glass carousel, the food courts in Brookfield Place (one of them is a French food court so I like to poke around trying things there).

Walking the Brooklyn bridge is fun and it’s really short (not a long walk). Or you can take the subway to Brooklyn and walk back to Manhattan for the view. If you are downtown, eat a meal at Fraunces Tavern (George Washington are there, you can take kids). Eataly is fun too and there’s a nice restaurant on the rooftop that always has beautiful season decor.

Hmm....what else. Dim sum in chinatown for Sunday brunch is fun—although I guess now the best places aren’t in Chinatown anymore but Jin Fong really gives you that fun cart experience.

Ellen’s Stardust Diner is so touristy but really fun. my older daughter and my niece and nephew (high school) loved it.

My favorite random foods are cookies from Levaine, lady M mille feuille cake, macarons from Laduree (I have a sweet tooth). Too many good food places to name.

Check for events Happening the week you come—there’s always something special going on.

New York botanic gardens is nice, it’s right by Bronx zoo. You could also catch a Yankees game or see if something big is playing at Lincoln Center (NYC ballet is also there but tickets tend to be $$$$).

You can walk around NYU or Columbia if that’s your thing.

You can also take a day trip to Princeton or Yale on the train.

And finally, to super overwhelm you, more parts of the American dream mall may be open by then. It’s in NJ, and it basically like the Mall of America—right now only the indoor skiing, indoor ice skating, and indoor Nickelodeon theme park are open but soon the Dreamworks indoor water park, Sealife Aquarium, and all the other stuff are supposed to be open.

Bryant Park is always having events so check that too. Basically there’s so much to do, you can never do it all—but it’s fun to try!

I would highly recommend checking out Mommy Shorts blog and Instagram account. She has so many tips for what to do in NYC with kids (it’s literally her job to check out fun kids things).

Ok so about accommodation- air bnb is not allowed (but rampant). I will say that the vast majority of hotels are in midtown which is sort of obnoxious but also convenient if you're going all over the place. What I *would* pay attention to when you are looking is: how new the hotel is (generally newer is better) and the square footage of the room (Manhattan hotel rooms can be super tiny). In the end it all usually comes down to budget.

In terms of what to do, the basics in my opinion are Central Park, Times Square, MOMA, MET, Natural history museums, WTC/Financial district, Statue of liberty, Brooklyn bridge and then neighborhoods like Chinatown/Soho/village etc.

Depending on your interests I can provide detailed recommendations, but I suggest looking at these as a place to start, and making an itinerary based on geographic areas.
Personally, I don't care for a lot of commercialized pop-up type things. There's so much stuff to do in NYC. If they are into history there's lots of reading you can do ahead of time to prepare. We recently went to Ellis Island/Statue of Liberty when we had family visiting and the kids were super into it. For event listings that are good for kids, the Mommy Poppins website is good.

And to weigh in on the day trip thing- personally I would not want to spend the time. A week in NYC is not too much. My kids are similar ages (8,7,3.5) and we just went to see the Liberty bell this past week and didn't love the experience. But who knows, your mileage may vary.

And finally, I think April is fine. Generally the weather here is hit or miss all year round! Like there's a couple beautiful weeks in the spring and a couple in the fall but the rest of the time it's too hot, too cold, rainy etc. So you may luck out with one of those beautiful weeks, or it might be rainy and windy and there's just no way to know. Most likely a mix of both!

We just went to NYC for a few days right before xmas with my 7yo and 1yo and had really great trip. My planning threads are below in case you want to take a read (if you haven't searched and read already ).

The hotel we ended up at was the Hotel Beacon and it was FANTASTIC. It was perfectly situated in the city (UWS) for us to be able to navigate anywhere we wanted to go based on our itinerary and how close it was to the subway lines but was still in a fairly quiet area. We stayed in a suite with separate bedroom and pull-out sofa in the living area. There was a small kitchen (with fridge, oven, range, microwave, sink, and some dishes) and the bedroom/bathroom were both off a hallway so you could go to the bathroom without entering the bedroom where smaller children might be sleeping and close off a second door to the living area so that you could have extra noise dampening to the bedroom.

Here's my hotel/general thread: https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/nyc-hotel-rec-with-kids
And a second one once we got into more details: https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/travel-toin-nyc-with-1-yo-12-months

Some of our fun was holiday-specific. But otherwise, we were able to walk to the Diana Ross playground at Central Park and then to the American Museum of Natural History. We loved the CAMP toylab - seriously it's my 7yo's favorite part of the whole trip (went to the one in Union Sq). And had fun going to the top of the rock even though my 7yo decided she did not want to go out on the observation deck.

You're going to have an amazing time!