First thing in the morning we checked out of the hotel – once again a not so pleasant experience, with the guy at the front desk being as helpful as using a sieve to row a boat! After New York breakfast, it was time to begin our last tourist day.

It was another day of Hop On Hop Off buses, except this time we were using them to get to the places were wanted to see in closer detail – the Wall Street Bull, Rockefeller Plaza and the Bronx .

The Bull was covered in people, both rubbing it’s head and around it’s hind area. While Mum was searching for a post office, I utilised the free Wi-Fi in a nearby park.

The bus loop took us back past the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge, so we were able to get a photo of it with the correct flags.

At the stop for the Rockefeller Plaza, we hopped off and had a look around. Located in midtown, the Rockefeller complex consists of 19 buildings covering 22 acres between 48^th and 51^st streets. In 1987 it was declared a nation landmark and the top of the GE building gives you good views of the Empire State Building. Mum got a photo standing outside the 30 Rock building and then we had lunch in an overpriced café that also forgot our orders. After being stung $13 for a hamburger and about the same for a garden salad, we headed back on to the bus until it’s termination at you guessed it… Times Square.

Having given ourselves a bit more time that yesterday, we joined the Uptown loop until the stop where you can join the bus to the Bronx .

It would appear going out to look at Yankee Stadium and the Bronx is not a popular tour as there were only about 10 of us on board. The tour took us through Harlem where we saw someone getting arrested, along Madison Avenue and over a bridge that welcomed us to the area and on to the Grand Concourse. The Bronx while having an awful reputation, was very clean and people seemed quite friendly… we even had a group of young men wave at the bus when we drove past them.
Next stop of the tour was a 15 minute wait at the ‘House that Ruth built’. On this particular day, Yankee stadium was getting ready for another baseball game. This meant there were supporters from both teams hanging around waiting to go in to their seats. I think tonight’s game was the third of five. Across the road for the current stadium is the site of where the original stadium stood, with a large baseball bat marking where the entrance used to be.

The bus headed back into Manhattan and the associated traffic . After cruising past Museum Mile again (the part of 5^th Avenue that has the MET and Guggenheim on it), we began the crawl back to Times Square.

After navigating Times Square on foot, we returned to the hotel to collect our bags. After having dealt with people who really didn’t enjoy their jobs, it was nice breath of fresh air to meet the guy who looks after the luggage storage – he was nice, happy and didn’t give us the attitude that we were an imposition.

Our last hurdle for the day was to get a taxi to where the ship was docked. After waiting 20 minutes in the taxi queue outside the train station, we were on our way… kind of. When we gave him the address (i.e. Manhattan Cruise Terminal), he didn’t know what we were talking about, so we giving him another landmark (Dock 88/90 on 12^th Avenue) and again he didn’t know what we were talking about. Thankfully we knew the ship was docked close to the USS Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum, so this landmark was our final example of where we wanted to go and this time the taxi driver knew where we wanted to go – in actual fact we were right next to the Intrepid, so we should have just gone for that option first!

After a short drive we got close to the dock and it was at this time we encountered our next hurdle . The taxi driver didn’t want to pull into the gated area near the ship and instead stopped in a U-turn area. Since we were close to the ship and over the taxi ride, we decided to just pay the fare and walk across the three lanes of traffic (at the pedestrian crossed nearby) and get to the ship that way. After we had paid and tipped the taxi driver, he suddenly became helpful and decided to do the U-turn and stop his taxi so that it blocked two lanes of peak hour traffic. This was great however I was the one who had to get out on the side that had oncoming and angry traffic on it.

Back on the ship without further incident, we were glad to be back in our cabin and most of all with our own pillows.
At about 8pm, it was time for sail away. Given the New York skyline, it was going to be a good sail away, except for one thing. Over the last couple of days, the weather people had been forecasting thunderstorms and it just so happened that tonight they finally got their predictions right. As you stood on deck, you could see the dark angry clouds filled with lightening and thunder rolling over New Jersey towards the ship and Manhattan .

Watching the storm moving closer was all very exciting until it actually hit. Then it was wet and windy. That said, the heavy rain didn’t really stop people taking photos of the skyline or the Statue of Liberty. I think a couple of people were lucky enough to get a photo of the Statue of Liberty with a bolt of lightening near it.
The rest of the evening was spent unpacking and catching up with people we knew.

Fun fact:The Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum is a military and maritime history museum located on the west side of Manhattan. The museum sits nears the USS Intrepid war ship and has the submarine USS Growler next to it. On the dock next to the Intrepid, there is also a Concorde jet and a Lockheed supersonic reconnaissance plane. In 2011 the Enterprise space shuttle was added to the museum’s collection. During fleet week, the area is also the central hub for various events.