Day three was our last day in New York and it was only a half day. My dad, Mike and I were headed home that afternoon. On Thursday evening we were sitting at the hotel bar talking about all the things we were wanting to do that weekend and the new world trade center was brought up. My mom looked into it on her phone and sure enough, it was opening to the public the next morning! We decided that it would be worth it to fit it in on Sunday morning before the three of us went to the airport.

We were able to visit the observation floor on the third day that it was open to the public. And it was
A M A Z I N G

It’s set up in reservations. We got online and signed up for the 9:00 reservation on Sunday morning. They suggest arriving 15 minutes before your reservation.

They take everyone from the slotted reservation time all at once so the line moved really quickly. The wait time was maybe 6-7 minutes? Can’t complain about that.

This isn’t a great photo, but when you get through security they have an electronic wall that shows the stats of the building so far. We were in the first 25,000 people to visit the observatory! That seems impossible to me but the timing of our trip was accidentally perfect.

The design was very futuristic. I would love to go through again and really take my time to soak everything in, but they bus you to the elevators pretty quickly so not sure if that’s even a possibility.

The elevators take you up 104 floors in 60 seconds.

I don’t have any photos of the elevators, but they were also incredible. The walls are electronic screens and you watch New York being built all around you. Again…
A M A Z I N G

You step out onto the 104th floor and you go through a little presentation. Then they open the doors to the cafe and the observation floor. Its two floors down from where the presentation is though. They give you a little tease of the views, but it gets so much better once you get to the actual observation floor.

The views were unbelievable. I personally felt that the views were better than the Empire State Building. The observation deck is about 20 floors higher than the Empire State Building and it’s completely enclosed with floor to ceiling windows. Seriously unbelievable.

And just like that we were at the ground level again.

We walked through the twin towers memorial afterwards. I had never seen them completed so that was a great experience too. 

And we were on our way..

We walked down to Wall Street, saw this funny form of marketing, caught the train to Grand Central Station, walked back to the hotel to pack, caught a cab to the airport and then waited for 8+ hours for our flight to get delayed and then rerouted to Houston because of weather.

All of this to say, if you’re heading to NYC in the future, the One World Observatory is worth every penny.

And that wraps up our trip to NYC!

We packed in so much stuff in such little time, but so far that’s the only way we know how to do NYC. Maybe next time we’ll treat it as an actual vacation.. Maybe.

Happy Day!

Saturday morning began with a walk to Rockefeller Center.

We stumbled upon this beautiful cathedral that was open to the public. It was under renovations so the inside was almost entirely draped, but the outside was so cool. Crazy to see something like this in the middle of skyscrapers.

Our second stop was to the lego store because why not? I bought a cute little lego man keychain that was on sale. Can’t wait to add him to a house key.

We then made the walk to central park where we enjoyed the grass and fresher air.

The candy shop in FAO Schwartz is the real deal. This was the bakery section. We didn’t buy anything but after looking back at this photo I really wish we had.

Our next stop was Wicked. This will be something I remember forever. We were so fortunate to get our tickets from a girl who grew up down the street from us and who is currently casted in the show. She also took us backstage after the show and gave us a tour. The show was amazing and the tour was amazing. It was all so stinkin’ amazing.

We had dinner at a restaurant in Brooklyn after hanging out at my sisters apartment for awhile. This was when I hit my wall of exhaustion. At one point I closed my eyes briefly on my sisters bed with my knees up by my chest… I woke up 30 minutes later to a laughing husband asking me if I was tired or something.. Oops!

And that’s day two!

I can’t believe we’re almost a week into June. 2 of our 8 weeks/weekends of travel down and only 6 to go. Ha!

Happy day!