We spent last weekend (the weekend of September 14th) in New York City to celebrate my daughter’s 10th birthday!!! She has been asking to go to New York for several years now (she’s never been) and we had so much fun making it happen this year for her 1oth birthday. We went with our friends and also celebrated her daughter’s 12th birthday over the weekend and watching both girls see NYC for the first time was such a joy. They were eyes wide open and in complete awe of the big city and so ecstatic to be there.
We flew into LaGuardia on Friday afternoon around 4pm and the traffic was pretty bad. It took us at least an hour to get from the LGA airport to our hotel in midtown by Central Park. Although the traffic was unfortunate, I have to say that the LGA is so beautiful and was such a breeze. We landed, got our luggage from baggage claim so quickly and then we were able to call a Lyft easily and didn’t have to walk a mile to the ride share pickup. It was right there off baggage claim, so I was very pleased about that.
We arrived at our hotel, The Trump Tower Columbus Circle, which was right on Central Park around 5:15pm. We checked into the hotel room and the girls were surprised with the cutest balloons from Kings Balloons. The vibe was supposed to be Taylor Swift’s Life of A Showgirl, and I think they did a pretty good job nailing it.
As soon as we settled into our hotel, the girls were dying to go walk around close by to some of the shops before we headed to dinner. So we did just that. We found a Sephora, Target, Lululemon and Al0, all right by our hotel. They have the Columbus Circle mall right by the hotel, so they had lots of good shopping options. Before we left for our trip, I had put together a pretty fun itinerary for our weekend but I knew there were sooo many things to do in New York; that there was a good chance that we would shuffle some things around as we went.
Here’s a look at what we put together:
We had dinner reservations on Friday night at 9:15pm at Harry Cipriani’s. I knew this was a very nice restaurant and probably not the most kid-friendly place, but it was close by our hotel and I had heard rave reviews; so we went for it. And boy, I am so glad we did!! We had an absolute blast at this spot and yes, our girls were the only kids in the whole restaurant; but it didn’t seem to matter at all. As soon as we sat down, we saw Kelly Rutherford (Mother on Gossip Girl) walk in with her kids and family. It was so much fun to see her. The little girls had no idea who she actually was other then that we said she was famous and they were so excited to meet her. She was so kind.
We got home late that night, I had some special surprises for the girls to open when we got home. I had some matching pajamas, fun face masks and some cute tea party accessories because we had a fun activity planned the following day.
Saturday morning we had to get up and go fairly early. We ordered some delicious bagels and bagel sandwiches to our room for breakfast and then got out the door to head to the Tea Around Town Bus. This was a fun thing that I came across on instagram one day and saved. You never know with these type of things if they are going to be worth it or if its just a cheesy tourist thing. Overall, it was cute enough. I wouldn’t over hype this activity to all of you as a must-do, but it worked out well in our itinerary made for a fun little morning for the girls to see different parts of town. The little treats they serve were actually really cute.
From there, we walked around, found some cute knock-off purses for the girls, walked through central station, and then ultimately walked to the St. Regis to sit down for a nice lunch. My brother happened to be in town the same weekend as us, so we got to have a quick visit with him.
After lunch, it was time to head up to the upper east side to hit some shops we had on our list… Roller Rabbit, Love Shack Fancy, Tuckernuck and more!
We attempted to walk all the way back to our hotel from our shopping adventure, but finally the girls were ready to hail their first cab down! It was so cute to watch the girls get so excited about it.
We headed back to the hotel to make a pretty quick turn around and get ready for the night. We headed straight to Times Square and only had enough time to grab some classic New York street food and head to our Broadway show. We went to see & Juliet and I will say that I was wishing I had picked one of the other shows we were looking at. We ended up leaving the show at Intermission. It was fine, the girls were ready to go. We grabbed a cab to go get the famous frozen hot chocolate from Serendipity III. It was a perfect end to the night.
My girl looking like she’s a teenager already!
Sunday morning was Madelyn’s actual birthday! It was so much fun to celebrate for the whole day. We had a jammed packed day scheduled out and we also had another Mom/Daughter friend that was in NYC the same weekend and we were so excited to meet up with them for the day too!
We started our morning heading to FAO Schwarz for a VIP experience. I would highly recommend scheduling this “insider access” if you are in town for a special occasion. I know prices vary, but it was around $125 that I paid ahead of time and picked a time slot and we had personal access throughout the store and special treatment. It was worth it for sure in my opinion.
They were most excited about the Jellycat Cafe. It was cute to watch.
We also hit up Crazy Aarons clime, the Bauble Bar, Purse making and new born babies. Phew, watch out, you can get talked into all kinds of things!!
From there, we headed over to the Top of the Rock. This was fun to check out. They have the observation deck, plus a cute little cafe area that you can grab a drink and plenty of spots to take photos.
From there, we went to the Staredust cafe in Times Square. We had pre-booked tickets for a Mamma Mia brunch show at the Stardust cafe. At the time, I didn’t realize it would be a bit of a different experience than just walking into Stardust cafe and just grabbing a table and having lunch. This was downstairs in the basement with brunch menu and the wait staff put on a Mama Mia show.
The girls were still dying to fit in one more thing before we headed up to get ready for the night. They wanted to do a horse and carriage ride through Central Park. So we squeezed that in before we headed up to our room to get ready.
We booked through Classic Harbour Line and went out on the Manhattan II.
I had so much fun with these girls! We had the best weekend. It was time to pack up and fly home Monday morning, but I loved our long weekend in NYC and I can’t wait to go back for the next girls trip!!!
Here’s a look at a quick video from our weekend:
