When doing some planning last year for what we wanted to do in the summer of 2023, we booked a two week stay in the Finger Lakes region of New York. Soon before our stay there, we discovered that two different sets of friends would be in New York City on the same weekend which also happened to be the same weekend as Shae’s birthday.
It’s about a 4.5 hour drive from the Finger Lakes to New York City, so we decided to have a quick getaway in the city for the weekend to celebrate her birthday and catch up with friends, one set of whom we’d not seen since living in England almost 15 years ago.
Here’s what we got up to while we were there.
Where We Stayed In New York
The Beekman
Seeing as we were driving into NYC rather than flying, we knew parking would be expensive. I therefore focused our accommodation search on Hyatt properties. That’s because I have Globalist status with Hyatt and one of its benefits is free parking on award stays. Parking in NYC can often cost $50-$75, so staying for two nights could otherwise cost $100-$150.
We’d also have our dog Truffles with us, so we needed somewhere pet-friendly. The majority of Hyatt’s properties in New York are pet-friendly, but most also charge a pet fee of $75-$150. That’s not so bad if you’re booking a longer stay as the average cost per night gets lower the longer you stay, but on a two night stay that makes it feel more expensive.
Thankfully Hyatt’s Thompson brand doesn’t charge pet fees and there are three of them in the city. Our best option overall based on award pricing, location, reviews and room upgrade potential was The Beekman, so we booked a stay there for the two nights.
It ended up being a great stay. The hotel has a classic feel inside without feeling dated. There’s a beautiful atrium, friendly staff and it’s in a decent location in Lower Manhattan.
When checking in we mentioned that it was Shae’s birthday that weekend. Shortly after getting to our room, they brought up a complimentary bottle of wine.
We didn’t spend a ton of time at the hotel, but it was a lovely place to stay and I certainly wouldn’t be against staying there again in the future unless we’d rather not being in Lower Manhattan. I wrote a more extensive review of the hotel over on Frequent Miler, so you can check out that review here.
What We Did In New York City
General Wandering
Shae used to live in NYC and we’ve also visited there quite a few times since we’ve been married, so we didn’t go to a bunch of the regular touristy things like the Empire State Building, Times Square, Statue of Liberty, etc. Before meeting up with the first set of friends, we decided to walk around Lower Manhattan a little and so saw things like the (relatively) new One World Trade Canter building, the Statue of Liberty (from a distance at The Battery), the firehouse used in Ghostbusters, etc.
A Small Pup In The Big Apple
This was Truffles’ first time in New York City and she seemed to love it. Despite being so small, the size of the city didn’t bother her and all of the different sights and smells – plus all the walking – meant she was worn out by the end of both the days.
Something that was particularly nice was that we came across a couple of off-leash dog parks in the city. There was one in The Battery, then we came across Parks Dog Run which is beneath FDR Dr. Parks Dog Run would otherwise be useless space (well, other than being used as additional sidewalk square footage), so it’s great that they’re maximizing the space to let dogs in the city play off-leash.
Dogs are allowed on the subway provided they’re in a carrier or bag. We’ve seen funny photos in the past of giant dogs being carried in those massive blue Ikea bags, but with Truffles being only 10 lbs she easily fit into Shae’s tote bag. We have a K9 Sport Sack (our affiliate link) that we normally use for Truffles, but for short subway rides it was much easier just popping her in the tote bag rather than wrangling her into her normal backpack carrier.
Meeting Up With Shae’s Former Boss
One of the main reasons we’d come into New York City is because her former boss from when we lived in the UK was visiting the US with his family. They’d started off in Philadelphia and came up to NYC for a few days before flying back to the UK.
We’d not seen him for about 15 years, so it was great having a couple of hours to catch up with him and getting to meet his family.
Where We Ate & Drank In New York City
Brotherhood, America’s Oldest Winery
On our way from Lodi to NYC, we made a slight diversion to Brotherhood Winery as it has the distinction of being the USA’s oldest winery having been established in 1839.
Brotherhood is somewhat pet-friendly. Dogs aren’t allowed in their museum and cellar entrance, nor inside the main tasting room. However, they do have a good-sized patio area outside where you can enjoy their wine with your pups.
Some wineries will only let you do tastings in their tasting room which means that if they’re not dog-friendly inside, you can only get a glass of wine to enjoy outside rather than being able to try a variety of wines.
That’s not the case at Brotherhood Winery though which was awesome. They provided us with a sheet listing the 15 different wines we could choose from and we picked five. They then served the wine in small shot-sized cups on a tray where they numbered each wine so that you know which is which based on the numbering on the wine menu.
Shae and I tend to order different wines when going wine tasting so that we can try each other’s in order to double up on the ones we get to experience. We enjoyed all 10 wines we tried between us; Carpe Diem was our favorite, so we got a bottle to go.
What made our time there an even more enjoyable experience was that they had an acoustic band playing and they were excellent – definitely one of the best local bands I’ve ever heard. They were called Juice Box Acoustic and played a mix of covers and their own songs, all of which were great to listen to. They even sang Happy Birthday to Shae as we were there on her birthday.
We could’ve happily stayed through their entire set, but had to continue making our way on to New York City.
Gotham
We got into the city on Shae’s birthday and went out for a fancy dinner that night to celebrate. I still had a ton of referral credits from an inKind offer earlier this year and New York has a lot of restaurants where you can pay for your meal with the app. Gotham is one of those, so our meal was effectively free other than the cost of the tip.
In addition to our two sets of friends we were meeting up with, we have other friends and family in the city. We sadly didn’t have time to see them all, but did get to meet up with Katina who we’d first met back in 2010 or 2011 when we all lived in Thailand.
The food at Gotham was delicious. Seeing as our meal was effectively free, we decided to really treat ourselves by getting a starter of caviar which was the first time Shae and I had ever had it. It ended up tasting better than I was expecting, yet didn’t have as strong of a flavor as I was anticipating.
We got yelllowfin tuna tartare as an appetizer too, then I got their Long Island Duck Breast and Shae ordered the Brandt Strip Steak.
We got through a bottle of wine or two and some tasty cocktails, then finished off with some chocolate cake for dessert.
City Vineyard
The following night we met up with our friends Chris and Steve of Eat Walk Learn at City Vineyard.
We’d gone to City Winery in St Louis back in April and had a great time, so figured we’d check out City Vineyard in New York which is part of the same chain. It’s another restaurant that’s in the inKind app and so we were able to pay for dinner for the four of us using some of my credits.
The menu was different at their restaurant in New York compared to the one in St Louis which was a bit of a shame as their St Louis ribs and flat iron steak had been very good. Shae ordered a few appetizers for the table and as her main – brussels sprouts with feta and balsamic vinegar, mussels and tuna tartare.
I ordered their 18oz ribeye which was pretty good. The service there was OK, but nowhere near as great as City Winery in St Louis. Also, City Vineyard played music ridiculously loud, to the point where it was incredibly hard hearing what the person sitting right next to you was saying. It wasn’t a disappointing experience overall, but I certainly won’t rush to go back.
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