Taking a Bite Out of the Big Apple : NYC Guide with Kids

Flytographer Captures in Central Park

Ah New York – the city that never sleeps! Sounds like the wrong place to bring the kids right? Well, my husband and I LOVE this city for a couples’ trip (post to come!), or for a weekend girls trip – but we took the plunge since we are in this golden age with our kids (meaning, we don’t need to wipe their butts or get them to their nap time anymore, but they still think we are cool enough for them to be seen with!).

Stay:

New York is NOT an inexpensive city, and while I did look at the Air BnB route – I really didn’t want to be making beds or breakfast on our short trip.

I called American Express to see what benefits we could use with our Centurion program and booked the Manhattan Suite at the Loews Regency. It is a one bedroom suite that is larger than most apartments in Manhattan, but for the price of two adjoining rooms in the noisier Times Square Area. We still had two bathrooms, early check in, late check out, daily breakfast for two and a $100 food and drink credit all thanks to our Centurion benefits.

Two blocks from Central Park – our favourite area and mama got the luxury she craves from a gorgeous boutique hotel.

TIP: check your travel benefits with your credit cards.

Eat:

Oh New York, how you satisfy my appetite for delicious food! We’ve slowly been training our kids to expand their palate and to try new foods. We basically took our kids to eat wherever we wanted to eat, but kept earlier reservations so bedtime meltdowns would be avoided as best possible.

Some of our favs:

Sarabeth’s by Central Park for brunch
Quality Italian & Quality Eats – two delicious restaurants ( the best steak ever! But even the simple butter pasta for the kids was mouthwatering)

Chelsea Market – so many options!
The Spotted Pig – a gastro pub with our favourite burger with blue cheese

Hakkasan – someone is now a fan of dim sum. More specifically, we now have three fans of Michelin Starred Dim Sum!

Marea – a personal favourite, consistently excellent for service and food

Shake Shack – quick and easy for kids and a NYC staple

Eataly in the flatiron district – so many choices under one roof

Le Bernadin – Michelin starred, fine dining (might be best to leave the kids with a sitter!)

Fig & Olive – lots of locations, great for brunch
Beauty & Essex – for a fun night without the kids, great food for sharing, cocktails you’ll want to keep to yourself, and a DJ in house

Do:

For Big Cities and small kids, I love big bus tours where you can hop on and off and see all the major sites without getting too exhausted. However, we opted not to this in NYC (why? I have no idea!)

The weather for us was perfect walking weather, so we took our kids out exploring as much of the city as we could manage.

We also opted to not do as many of the regular touristy things such as the Empire State building and the Statue of Liberty.

Central Park: an obvious one with kids! But so much variety within the gorgeous green space: The Central Park Zoo, Bethesda Fountain, Walk the the Mall with all of the street artists, Belevedere Castle; playgrounds galore; rocks to climb and fields to run in.

Flytographer Captures at Bethesda Foundation in Central park

Museums: perfect rainy day adventures and for some culture. Great options for the kids: American Museum of Natural History (dinosaurs!), The Met, The Guggenheim, MOMA and the Copper Hewitt museum which was recommended to us but we didn’t get a chance to check it out on this trip https://www.cooperhewitt.org/

Dinosaurs! Oh My!

Rockefeller Centre has an amazing Lego Store and American Girl Doll store to get lost in and to spend some of your dough.

The Highline– a wonderful stretch of park to walk along and get in the views of the city from a different perspective with a variety of vendors

Art Collector in the making at the Highline

Times Square – the sights! the sounds! The kids actually loved it! Just fun to sit and people watch.

Times Square

Broadway shows: We took our eldest who is a Potter head to see Harry Potter and The Cursed Child. It is a two part show so hubby and I took turns and each saw one show. It was SPECTACULAR!!!!!! I took the younger kids to see Aladdin and it was super fun and entertaining. Broadway is truly a remarkable experience!

The Details at the Lyric Theater!

Tip: My new favourite obsession is Flytographer! After getting a little tired of selfies and not being in most of our vacay pics, I found this great company that does everything for you to find a great photographer almost anywhere you are traveling. They make gorgeous souvenirs and are a fun experience to learn more about the place you are travelling.