It was an early start on Sunday, Day 2 in New York.  Complimentary breakfast was waiting on the 2nd floor.  Breakfast consisted of Orange Juice, criossants, pastries, cereal, all the usual stuff you'd expect.  With that over it was back to the 10th floor and the free internet access to figure out which city bus tour we would take.

The Bus tour was the main thing Sandra wanted to do on this trip.  On previous trips we've done pleanty of tourist things but getting around New York on the subway makes it hard to comprehend where everything is.  The open top double decker tours allow you to see the big picture.

We settled on the Grey Line and did a bit of price checking online.  The starting point for the various tours is in or around Times Square so we didn't have far to go.  We opted to avoid the guys trying to sell tickets to passers by on the street and head for the guys actually loading people on to buses.

Getting a ticket was easy, and getting a seat upstairs wasn't to difficult.  The buses have air conditioned seats downstairs but you really can't see anything as we were about to find out.

We are seated comfortably and ready to go when our guide "Sean" steps up to the microphone and immediately we sense something is wrong.  He's talking like a stoned Elmer Fudd.  On the rare occasion that he gets out a coherant sentence it's a repeat of the last sentance.  I don't like to be mean, but we were paying good money for these tours and I really can't do justice to just how bad this guy was.  Within 30 seconds I had decided that I was getting off at the next stop and catching the next bus that came along.  For the first time I truly appreciated the phrase Hop on Hop off.

It's a long weekend in the US, so we're in New York.  We decided to fly early on Saturday morning rather than late on Friday night,  no point paying for a hotel room for Friday night just so we have some place to sleep.  The downside of that appraoch is the 4.00am alarm clock, and the 6.00am flight.

It's easy to forget how long it can take to get from A to B.  The flight is about 2 and a half hours, but we spent the best part of another hour and a half catching trains and subways, and then walking to our hotel.  We're staying at the Millenium hotel just off Times Square.  Sorry, let me correct myself, we were supposed to be staying there, but it appears we were one of the lucky people plucked out of their big hat to be upgraded, so instead we're staying at 'The Premier'.  Some of the perks of which include complimentary breakfasts during our stay, complimentary coctail hour (2 hours actually) with heure d'oeuvres (finger food to you and I), and the internet that I'm using to write to you is also complimentary.

They were also nice enough to allow us to check in even though we arrived long before the check in time.  And as if all that wasn't good enough, our room is the right next to the elevator, rather than the usual situation of having to walk to the end of an endless hallway.