Thursday, September 25, 2025 – This begins my series of blog entries about our:
The cruise sets sail on Sunday, September 28, and we’re in “the city” for 3 days before boarding.
Our flight on Frontier Airlines from Raleigh-Durham International to LaGuardia was uneventful:
Our friend Neal, whom we so appreciate, generously gave us a ride to the Raleigh-Durham International Airport.
BearCruise negotiated a group rate per night for a pre-cruise “host hotel” in NYC, which we’re taking advantage of for 3 days before we set sail on Sunday.
Usually when we go to NYC, we get a hotel down in the Financial District, where it’s much cheaper.
It’ll be a nice change to stay in Times Square without breaking the bank for these 3 days, as we plan to see 2 or 3 Broadway plays that we’ll be able to walk to.
We caught the free Q70 shuttle from LaGuardia to the Jackson Heights–Roosevelt Avenue/74th Street metro station, at which we paid $2.95 each to take the metro E line into Manhattan, exiting at the 42nd Street / Port Authority stop, and then walked 2 blocks to our Holiday Inn Times Square hotel. Without a doubt, this was cheaper than a $54 Uber/Lyft ride.
Bob and I each noticed an absolutely stunning guy on the metro… probably an actor out of work… or perhaps one day to be a superstar. He was flawless until Bob pointed out, “He bites his fingernails.” 😂 😂 😂
The gods were looking down on us with favor with a liquor store directly across the street from our hotel, where we bought a bottle of Buffalo Trace, which had only a $15 Times Square (New York fucking City) mark-up, and a 7-Eleven store right next door to our hotel, where we bought 2 1-quart bottles of club soda for $4 each.
Our friends Kevin and Eric, who aren’t going on the cruise with us this time but are in NYC for the pre-cruise weekend, dropped by our hotel room (we’re on the 21st floor; they’re on the 28th floor) for some cocktails, before they had dinner with a high school friend of Eric’s at a restaurant called Maison Pickle.
It’d been a long day, and we grabbed dinner from the Berlina Café right across the street from our hotel. You just can’t beat deli sandwiches in NYC, and Bob’s Reuben (corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, Russian dressing on rye bread) and my Turkey Club (roasted turkey, bacon, ham, lettuce, tomato, American cheese and chipotle mayo on a roll) hit the spot.
