Day 1

Brittney and I started our day very early with a 5:20am departure from New Orleans. Lauren not too far behind us left Tulsa at 6:30am. Our planes landed about 15 minutes apart and we were all reunited at LaGuardia airport in beautiful NYC. After walking for what seemed like miles to chase down the Uber pickup spot, we landed a driver who spoke no English, just our luck! About an hour later, through much traffic, we arrived at our hotel. We stayed at the Hampton Inn in Times Square. Great hotel in a great location! The staff was super nice and even gave us complimentary water bottles throughout the day. The only complaint: the elevators took forever! Lucky for us we were only on the 3rd floor and the stairs were always a quick option.

After changing and refreshing we headed out on the town for some grub! We came across a great little sandwich shop called MeltShop. www.meltshop.com Our choices:

Lauren- Buffalo Chicken Melt

Brittney- Turkey Melt

Megan- Grilled Cheese Truffle Melt

Inside of the restaurant. Very small but this was actually bigger than most places we ate at.

My grilled cheese truffle melt. Delicious!

Exploring Times Square

After filling our bellies, we went exploring! Here are some photos of the different sites around Times Square!

Radio City Music Hall

NBC Studios Entrance of Rockefeller Center

New York Times Building (witnessed a protest here)

Magnolia Bakery (made famous by Sex in the City)

Fountains across from Rockefeller Center

Ball drop in Times Square. We were all surprised that the ball stayed year round.

NBC Studios Gift Shop

We made our way into the NBC Studios Gift Shop where we were lucky enough to stumble across Michael Scott's desk from The Office! A famous Michael Scott quote that describes NYC traffic to a tee "Occasionally I'll hit someone with my car. So sue me."

We were disappointed to find there was no Friends display at the studio gift shop, but we did come across the Voice chairs!

Junior's

After exploring, we worked up yet another appetite (go figure!) So we headed over to Junior's for what critics claim has the BEST CHEESECAKE. We had to try it out for ourselves. Turns out, Aunt Fran had sent Lauren some for her birthday so we had an insider's opinion on what to try. https://www.juniorscheesecake.com/blog/restaurants/times-square/

Our choices:

Lauren- Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake

Brittney- Red Velvet Cheesecake

Megan- Original Cheesecake

The restaurant was very retro and diner style, super cute!

Red Velvet

Pumpkin Pie

Original

Nothing goes better with cheesecake than afternoon coffee!

Overall, the cheesecake was good, but believe it or not I've had way better right here at home at Walk On's. (Although they took their cheesecake off the menu and I've been sad ever since.) The pumpkin pie was probably my favorite. The red velvet was good but too much icing and the cake was a little dry in my opinion. After cheesecake we made our way back to the hotel to get ready for our first Broadway show of the trip!

Beetlejuice

Our original plan of seeing a Shakespeare Interactive play called Sleep No More fell through so we had to find a backup. We selected Beetlejuice and boy were we glad we did. What an exceptional musical! This was beyond entertaining. We laughed throughout the entire show. The cast was very engaging with the audience and the script was adapted to include current events. This was a great experience to kick off our weekend in NYC. The Winter Garden Theatre was beautiful and there wasn't a bad seat in the house. We sat in the mezzanine level about 4 rows up. The seats were staggered so you weren't stuck behind the person in front of you's head. Everyone in the show was super talented. Lydia was played by 18 year old, Sophia Anne Caruso, whose voice was so very powerful. In the words of Delia, this play was a "SucksYes"!

We tried hard to master the selfie game but eventually learned if you try hard enough someone else will offer to take the picture.

Shout out to the Security Guard who I'm sure was really busy but took the time to take this photo for us at the good angle!

Ellen's Stardust Diner

We had heard a lot about the famous Ellen's Stardust Diner and since it was next door to the Theatre we decided to try it! Most of the reviews mentioned the long lines and thankfully we didn't have to wait longer than 20 minutes for a table. The funny part was, we were under the impression it was named after Ellen Degeneress but it's actually named for Ellen Hart Sturm. The diner serves as a launching pad for many of its waiter/vocalists who have gone on to success in Broadway musicals and touring companies. All wait staff perform musical numbers throughout your dining experience making it one of a kind. This is where we encountered our first minimum spend per person restaurant. It was a minimum of $20/person, which they charged us even though we didn't really spend that much each. The food was mediocre for the price. Nonetheless, we enjoyed the entertainment and can scratch it off our bucket lists!

Mexican Quinoa Bowl- Brittney and I both had this, pretty good but would be better as a hot dish rather than cold. Lauren had an egg and cheese bagel!

It was right around midnight when we made it back to the hotel and set out our agenda for Day 2!

End of the day stats:

18,190 steps

8.6 miles