Travel Agent Cork

After years of pressure from our 4 children, we finally succumbed to their request for a holiday to Orlando. After careful consideration, we decided to include a few days sightseeing in New York at the beginning of the holiday and a Caribbean Cruise at the end of the trip for the purposes of relaxation. We made our plans early and announced them to the family at dinner on Christmas Day. It was the most fantastic Christmas ever – lots of excitement, hyper-activity and noise. Everyone vowed to save their Christmas money for shopping and they immediately started texting all their friends to tell them the good news.

June eventually came and after the exams, we left Cork on 28th and headed for New York. I had organised a surprise for our arrival and we were met by a chauffeur in a stretch limo! The kids were so excited and I would highly recommend it as a very special treat. Everybody was exhausted and after a bite to eat, we all retired for the night and rose the next morning bright and breezy to check out the sights.

After a super breakfast at a typical New York diner close to the hotel, we purchased tickets for the Hop-on, hop-off bus which also included entry to the Empire State Building and The Statue of Liberty. We queued for the Empire State and after approximately 30 minutes, we finally reached the top. The views over Manhattan were magnificent and we spent quite a while admiring the view and taking lots of photographs. After that, we headed off on the bus and visited Wall Street and Ground Zero before heading back to central Manhattan for the long awaited visit to Macys. The girls were in heaven and could not believe the value. We just did a bit of window shopping that day and decided to return and spend a lot longer there the following day. Make-up and handbags were high on the agenda.

The following day, we took the bus to the ferry port and headed out to see the Statue of Liberty. Again, it was fantastic for the kids to see all these sights that they had only seen before in their school geography books. After spending a couple of hours there, we headed back to South Sea Seaport for lunch. This was a really trendy area with lots of great restaurants and excellent shopping. John and I chilled for a while whilst the kids went shopping for more bargains. The afternoon for the girls was spent back at Macys whilst the boys checked out the Sports stores.

The following morning, we checked out of the hotel and headed to the airport to catch the flight to Orlando. We all agreed that New York was fantastic. The kids loved the buzz and pace of life and the sound of sirens going morning, noon and night. The sightseeing and shopping were fantastic and 2 days was really too short to see everything but they were all looking forward to the highlight of the trip – Orlando.
(Full details of our Orlando trip can be found in a separate diary!)