Planning for Canada New England Cruise

What is different about this trip is we have never done this itinerary before.  We have never been to any of the ports (except Halifax and St. John).  We are sailing out of New York and neither of us have been there before.

So the first thing we had to do was some research.  I read thru some of the Cruise Critic boards in the port section on advice on where the pier was and good location for hotels and took notes.

After checking flights it was very obvious that flying out of Seattle (3 hours away) was much cheaper than flying out of Vancouver.  We were able to scoop up a very good deal on a direct flight for $325 each.

Now search began for a hotel for one night.  Where to stay?  Oh my New York is so big and so many options.  And since we are only there one night where should we go?  

After some discussion we ended up agreeing we need to stay downtown and do a bit of exploring since we have never been and we do get in rather early.  

Check out Priceline for hotels and decided to try my chances and book with the option of naming our own bid.  We bid on four star, Manhattan West for one night and got the Sheraton Times Square.  Looks good and close to lots and we got it for $170 for one night.  Which was very good because when I go to their site I see that the same night booked thru them is $270.

Now for car service.  At first we weren't sure, do we take transit, shuttle with others or a reserved private car.  Again we went to Cruise Critic to check out what they would recommend from the boards.  We check some shuttles and then some private cars and since the price for a private car was really not that much more we decided to book a private car.

In the end we reserved a private car with Carmel Limo.  They can be found at www.carmellimo.com 

For pick up at the airport to the hotel in Manhattan the price is $44 and they have some free coupons on their web page too and we have a $4 off coupon we can use.  We then decided why not just reserve them again for transportation to the pier the next day and we got that for $38 plus there is a $3 off coupon on their site.

Now that Flights, Hotel and Transportation are reserved we can sit back for a bit and relax.  

We are hoping to see a show downtown on Broadway while we are there.  We will make our way to Times Square and the Tickets Tonight booth http://www.nyctourist.com/broadway_tkts.asp  We will see what we can get.