Trip Report: September 25, 2019 5 Night to Bermuda on the Disney Magic – Day 6

You can start this trip report from the beginning by clicking here.

You can see all of the daily navigators for this cruise by clicking here.

Day 6:  NYC

This morning, my husband and I woke up at 4:30 AM so that we could watch as we sailed past the Statue of Liberty and into the harbor.  This is very unlike me as I hate early mornings in general, let alone on vacation.  But, I really wanted to see the city at night.

We had asked an officer the night before what time we would be sailing into the harbor, and she told us about 5:00 – 5:30 AM.  To play it safe, we went to deck 4 at 4:45 and we were just approaching the Statue of Liberty.  Our timing was perfect.  This is what deck 4 looks like at 4:45 AM:

We went up to deck 10 for a better view.  It was very cold and windy outside, which made it hard to take pictures as my hands were freezing, my hair was blowing everywhere, and it was hard to keep the camera still.  I finally put my hood on and tightened the string as much as possible. Some shots of a deserted ship:

I thought there would be more people out, but we only saw 4 or 5 others, including a couple of joggers.  It was strange to experience the ship so early in the morning.  I think the earliest I have ever been out and about before was around 7:00 AM.

Soon we approached the Statue of Liberty.  It was so beautiful all lit up!  I didn’t get a good picture because for some reason my camera on my phone was having a hard time focusing.  I eventually gave up and just enjoyed watching it with my own two eyes.

Next we went around to the other side of the ship to see the city.

Seeing the city at night was spectacular and I am so glad we got up early for it!  My lousy pictures do not do it justice.

As we started walking back to the room, I noticed this perfect view of the concierge lounge:

Next I decided to try and do a load of laundry when I knew the laundry room would be empty (you can read all the details about laundry on the ships here).  I grabbed our laundry bag and my detergent and went to the nearest laundry room (I had asked Abhay the day before where it was).  Of course it was empty:

These are the laundry detergent sheets I use when I travel – so much cheaper than buying it onboard for $1 per load!  I buy mine on Amazon and I’ll put the link here.

Unfortunately, my laundry plans hit a snag when I realized that the machine would not let me purchase tokens, probably because everyone’s shipboard accounts had been settled and they were not allowing any charges on the morning of disembarkation. Bummer!

I returned to the room and took my time getting ready for the day.  At one point my husband and I went up to Cabanas to get some pastries to bring back to the room for breakfast. Then we woke up the girls, who were once again sleeping through the noise and vibrations of the ship thrusters as we were docking.

We were ready to leave the ship at about 8:30 AM to spend some time in the city.  By the way, here are the instructions that the back-to-back guests received the night before:

These were the re-boarding cards:

When we did our back-to-back last year in Vancouver, I remember our boarding passes allowed us to get back on the ship before general boarding began.  However, this time I’m pretty sure that the back-to-backers had to wait for general boarding to begin due to a Coast Guard inspection (more on this later).

We walked off the ship about 8:30 to head into the city.  We chose to go to Central Park and enjoy the beautiful fall weather for a few hours.  It was strange not having luggage with us when everyone else did.

Now I am going to give some details for those of you interested in the disembarkation process in NYC.  I will also give some details on the final day when we actually disembarked for good, but I took more pictures this day since I wasn’t carrying a bunch of luggage. The first thing you will do is claim your luggage in the terminal, if you set it out the night before.  Then you will be directed to a customs line. After you clear customs, you will walk down this long corridor:

There were porters readily available with large luggage carts, which we did utilize on our final disembarkation.  Everyone had to follow this path, regardless of transportation method:

Once you reach the end of the corridor, you will be at the street level. Everyone who wanted a taxi or ride share was told to walk across the street straight ahead, as there was a line of taxis on the other side of this intersection:

However, I discovered during our final disembarkation that there is another option.  In the photo above, just to the right side, is an elevator.  It is huge and can accommodate several porters with luggage carts.  You can go up to level 2 or 3.  Level 2 takes you to the drop-off area for new cruisers, and this is where we ended up meeting our car service after the next cruise.  I saw several other families meeting car services there, and there were also taxis lined up and waiting.  So, if you don’t want to cross the street for a taxi, or you have hired a car service, then I suggest taking the elevator to level 2.  Also do this if you want a taxi and it is raining as it will keep you out of the elements and under cover.  The elevator can also take you to level 3, which is where the parking lot is for those who parked at the terminal.

We were going to get an Uber, so we walked across the street.  It was a very easy process:

After crossing the street, I turned around and took this picture of where we came from:

Here is the line of taxis waiting for cruisers:

We were told that there were no taxis that accommodate 5 people, and we wanted to Uber anyway so we walked a short distance down the street to get away from traffic.  Here you can see where we were standing, as you can see the Pier 88 sign and the intersection that we walked through in the background:

Once here, I ordered an Uber Black.  Since there were 5 of us, it needed to be either an UberXL or Uber Black, and I prefer to spend more for the Black service since I know that the car will be clean, will not smell, and the driver will be a professional.

After less than 5 minutes, our driver pulled up and we were on our way to Central Park.  It probably took about 10 minutes to get to the south side of the park, where our driver dropped us off.  This is where we entered the park:

I had printed out a walking tour of the southern portion of the park and brought it with us, so we had a rough idea of the path we wanted to take.

It was a beautiful day with temperatures in the 60s.  Lots of people were jogging or walking their dogs.

We spent about 2-3 hours walking through the park.  The sun came out and it was just the perfect day! The walking tour guide was handy and helped us find some spots that we would have otherwise missed.

This is one of my favorite pictures of the whole trip:

Eventually we came upon a large, open field and we stopped to take a break.  The girls were a little tired of walking at this point.  They had brought their gloves and a softball, so they threw the ball for about 30 minutes.

We had pretty much gone in a complete circle at this point, so we started making our way back to the spot where we had started.  Along the way we came across this huge rock and let the girls climb on it for a bit:

By now it was about 11:30 and we decided to get an Uber back to the ship. We found a spot on the street where we thought it would be easy for our driver to find us.  It only took about 5 minutes for our driver to arrive, and another 10-15 minutes to get back to the terminal. Our driver dropped us off at the passenger drop off area on level 2 at about 11:50..

I’m going to stop here for now as it is officially the end of this trip report and the start of the next cruise. In the next post I will include all of the back-to-back reboarding details.

Up Next:  Maine/Canada Trip Report Day 1 – Re-Boarding the Disney Magic