Last weekend, my husband Kevin and I visited New York City during the Christmas season! Visiting New York has always been on my bucket list and December seemed like the perfect time to go! We really tried to fit as much as possible during our trip (as we normally do), so I wanted to share our itinerary for anyone else who loves to have a jam packed schedule to see as much as possible while travelling.
Here’s how we spent one day in New York City during the Christmas Season!
Day 1, Friday:
Our hotel was in New Jersey because prices were WAY cheaper than in New York. We stayed at the Howard Johnson by Whyndam in Clifton New Jersey. At 7 am, we took the bus into Port Authority Terminal. We’ve only taken the bus once together in Mexico, so we were kinda nervous we would get on the wrong bus. But thankfully, we got on the right bus and it was really simple. We made it to the Port Authority Terminal and wow, it was very hectic and there were lots of interesting people haha. Once we got out of the terminal we walked over to Vanilla Gorilla Cafe for breakfast.
We got a breakfast wrap, a breakfast sandwich, and two coffees, and were still trying to figure out how that added up to $50 haha. This is when we knew our trip was probably going to be a lot more expensive than we imagined. Breakfast was good and we walked over to see Times Square before it got too busy.
I definitely like the view of times square during the night better since it’s more mesmerizing but it was cool to see it during the day too!
After our quick visit to Times Square we walked over to the Rockefeller Center. On the way we got a few pics at NBC Studios, Radio City Music Hall and the tree on Avenue of the Americas. It was around 8:30 am at this point and they were actually filming the today show by the Rockefeller Tree. We tried to see what exactly they were filming but the crowd of people was just way too big. We walked around to get a better view of the tree.
We watched the skaters at the Rockefeller Plaza for a bit and then headed over for our reservation at Top of the Rock! I think I’ll make a whole review about our experience here but the views were great!
We spent about an hour here and then walked over to the Museum of Modern Art. We got there right before it got super busy which was great and had a nice time looking at all the art. By the time we left around noon, the lobby was PACKED.
After this we walked down 5th Avenue to look at the elaborate Christmas window displays and we saw the Louis Vuitton suitcases!
We walked down 5th avenue to Central Park, checked out the skating rink and walked down the Mall and Literacy walk to find Jim Henson’s bench. I’m a huge Jim Henson and Muppets fan so this was really cool to see!
We kept walking to see the Bethesda Terrace (they filmed scenes for John Wick 2 here and Friends with Benefits)
We kept walking through Central Park taking in all the views.
Eventually, we made it to the American Museum of Natural History. This was a really cool museum and we spent a lot of time here. Kevin was especially excited to see the things that were shown in Night at the Museum.
After a few hours, we hopped on the Subway for the first time on our trip and headed down to Bryant Park. Taking the Subway was pretty simple, after the first time it definitely got a lot easier. We used Google Maps and it made it really easy.
We got to Bryant Park for their Christmas Market just after 4:30 pm and it was crazy hectic. I was definitely expecting it to be busy but it was WAY busier than I thought it would be. The shops are really cute but super small so only a few people could go in at a time, but the stores we looked in were really nice! We didn’t end up buying anything and watched people ice skate for a while before walking over to New York Public Library.
Going to New York Public Library was a super last minute thing we decided to do, we had originally planned to spend more time at Bryant Park but since it was so busy we decided to leave. The architecture at the library was so beautiful and they had a really nice Christmas tree set up.
I was so surprised to see the original Winnie the Pooh Charaters here. For some reason, I thought they were at the Smithsonan. I’ve wanted to see them in person for a long time now so this was an amazing surprise! And we almost didn’t even go in the library, I’m so glad we went in last minute!
After, we kept walking to Macy’s Herold Square, which is the largest store in the US! Kevin and I have a weird fascination with going to the largest malls, dead malls and unique stores while travelling, so we knew we needed to make a stop here. We walked through a bit and it was decorated super beautifully. It looked just like a movie. We went up all the escalators (10 floors) taking a quick peek at each floor. The upper floors even had the original wooden escalators which are the oldest escalators in the world!
Then, we walked back up to the Rockefeller Plaza. We stopped at the Nintendo store because I thought they had a lifesize Mewtwo, but turns out that’s in Shibuya. Not sure how I got that confused haha. But, Pikachu and Eevee were there taking pictures! I would’ve taken a picture with them but the line was out the door and around the building. The Nintendo store was still really cool to visit!
We took some pictures with the Rockefeller Tree at night and then went to see Times Square at night
Times Square at night was a lot more eye catching. I know it’s just a bunch of ads but it was really neat to see in person.
It’d be really cool to be at Times Square on New Years, but I don’t think I’d like waiting in a crowd there. So, we got to do the next best thing, Planet Fitness (sponsor of the 2025 New Year’s Ball Drop), had a station set up to write your wish for 2025 on a piece of confetti. We both wrote our wishes on our pieces of confetti that will drop at New Years! I think it’s super cool that they do this and I’m so excited to watch the confetti fall now! I wonder if anyone will read my wish (btw writing on a small piece of confetti is a lot harder than it sounds, it was way too windy for it).
At this point we were SO tired, we had walked over 30,000 steps and didn’t get much sleep the night before so we headed back to Port Authority and took the bus back to our hotel.
I’ll post about our 2nd day in New York City tomorrow!
