Our Day In NYC 🗽

We consider ourselves a Disney Family through and through, so no matter where we travel we like to include disney whether in our style, as a part of our adventure, or an actual disney destination. We can be the first to tell you its not hard finding a touch of disney everywhere you go but the best is when Disney pops up where you least expect it. New York City was a destination we knew we would find that magical touch, we definitely had to visit the world “famouse” Disney store in times square but what was neat was finding Disney in central park, and in our visit to the empire state building. 

The main part of this blog post is to inspire you to take a visit to a place that is extremely magical in its own way. Our first and most important tip is to be prepared to walk, we enjoy visiting new places and thanks to our family spreading through the world we tend to always have a car where ever we visit, rentals are always an option too, but in the city parking is a headache and can turn into a time wasting and costly situation, we decided to map out our visit to the city the night before and locate the most centralized parking we could find to all of our locations. So we packed accordingly, first things first our traveling companion that makes us a party of four, our graco stroller, can sincerely say it was the best purchase in the baby department of our lives, Penelope travels in style at no sacrifice of comfort whether shes looking around or napping. We were looking at around 7 miles of walking between our locations and back to our parked car so our adventure began.

First on our list was the famous New York city traffic….. well it wasnt but yet that’s how we were greeted by the people of New York. When it came to our first stop, Central Park, we decided to locate a parking spot closest to it, it was the one location on its own and out of the way so parking there was a must, Central park is stunning and a stop that should be made by anyone visiting the City, and to our surprise this park has a special Disney touch. Inside the park and through it’s trails you will come up on a gorgeous bronze statue featuringt the main characters of the beloved Alice in Wonderland story. It was donated by a philanthropist, George Delacorte, as a gift to the children of New York City in Memory of his wife who loved & read this story to her children almost every night.

The stroll through the park in search of this statue led us to the Bethesda Fountain, a world famous Fountain and one of the largest in New York, fun fact this Fountain was a part of the original blue prints of Central Park. It was a stunning area & very busy but locating Alice took us around many parts of the Park & on our way back to the car we took a different route to view more of this Historic place.

Finding a place to park may take a bit as you go up and Down streets but it is free in some areas or low cost, from here we were headed to our most centralized parking to walk to our next locations. We Found this parking garage on the outskirts of Times Square for $32 and our true walking adventure began, when in Times Square one must go visit The World Famouse Disney Store and so we did exactly that. Penelope was in total awe as “me-mouse” was everywhere she looked, we had to grab a Statue of Liberty Minnie Mouse to commemorate the Visit. The Disney store is vast and carries many unique NYC Disney items as well as the classic Disney Store Merchandise. Times Square is a fantastic area with lots to do and many places to enter and see like the M&M store amongst others. Our visit was short as we also wanted to check out some more locations in the City.

We were on the road again with our stroller headed to Grand Central Station, I’ve seen this place in movies & shows but no justice for its true grace & beauty. I was in total awe just thinking about it’s history, design & it’s overall significance. We popped in & did the tourist loop around it, though there isn’t much to do unless you are actually catching a train we recommend you stop by just to see it in all its gracious glory.

We were enjoying our stroll through The City & as we walked towards the Direction of our next stop we decided to derail and pay the New York City Library a quick visit as well. There were art exhibits open to the public & it was a full functioning library with what we can only imagine, a vast variety of books, this place was also stunning & a bit breathtaking as it seemed to stand still in time. It was an unplanned great addition to our day, but it is a quiet space & we took the chance because Penelope was napping at the time, but we didn’t see many children so it is a place for the older less loud crowd.

We have made it to the part in our Stroll in The City that was one of our main Destinations, The Empire State Building. The excitement was all too real, the price tag was hefty at nearly $80 for Jared & I, the littles are free, but The View, the experience, & the surprises were well worth it. You have to do it at-least once if you are in The City. You are greeted by a gallery of pictures of some icons that have visited the Famous building and to our surprise & Penelope’s total excitement on of these pictures featured her favorite mouse, Minnie!

We spent sometime looking through the amazing gallery that featured artists, Icons & even Godzilla as it guided you to the beginning of your tour. You are headed up high to the 89th floor viewing deck, and every person headed up must go through a metal detector and pass their bags through a bag scan pretty much exactly like you would at airport security. They are very stroller friendly & our stroller is quite large but we found no problem getting through the lines & in the elevators. You ride a total of three elevators to make it to the top, once you do the World is beneath you as you take some of the most breathtaking views of such an iconic & Historic City. We walked all around taking the views in from each side, we loved every second of it & no picture will ever give it justice, we still took a ton but you will never get it right unless your eyes see it live. We didn’t know were to look, we wanted to see it all at once.

The View of New York City from The Empire State Building will forever have my heart & to have been there with Jared & Our little Penelope was something we will cherish for eternity. Get out there when your kids are small, the look of awe and amazement as they discover the world is worth everything, even if they may not remember every detail you can always pull out the Photos and relive those moments. We did more on this trip with Penelope than when Jared and I came to The City alone. We accomplished all these stops by 5:30 pm just in time for Penelope’s afternoon Nap as we walked back to the car, it was the perfect day for us filled with new places & Disney Magic everywhere we went.

Our Advice is to hold true, those sayings, of exploring & see all there is to see in the magical world outside of Disney with a Special Disney touch.

Like always Pals we hope you have the most Magical Day and that you enjoyed going on this adventure with us through this blog post or through our story on Instagram. If you don’t already subscribe to receive updates on our next adventures as a party of three.