We had a great flight from JFK to Hong Kong, our flight flew over Europe, through Russia and China before descending into Hong Kong so technically we've flown around the world on this trip.
Our Cathay Pacific 777 on arrival into Hong Kong after travelling 16h 19m from JFK
Our Cathay Pacific 777 to take us to Sydney in 8h 41m B-KQX
Touch down. The front bogie about to touch down on runway 34L at Sydney Kingsford Smith airport SYD
Today marks the end of our holiday and we begin our journey home. We are travelling home with Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong. We've had a fantastic holiday and it's with mixed blessings that we say adieu to the USA although we will be back soon.
Jeff relaxing in the American Airlines Admiral Club before our departure to Hong Kong
Enjoying the Flagship lounge experience at JFK Terminal 8
Last view of the Manhattan skyline for the time being
CX831 B-KPQ B777-367ER JFK-HKG
Well the time has almost come for us to return home and today is the last full day in New York. We had a look at uptown Manhattan this morning before heading to our second last (show 6). We saw Waitress (Brooks Atkinson theatre) at 2pm and we absolutely loved the show. Such a great story, great songs and funny.
Tonight we saw our final Broadway show (show 7) Dear Evan Hansen. This was such a superb way to finish off our time on Broadway. The show has amazing songs, great cast and Ben Platt was simply incredible as Evan Hansen.
The set was amazing and it was great to finally see this show after playing the cast recording many times. Time to get some sleep before our long journey home tomorrow.
Today the weather has started to change and we had our first day below 20 degrees, we've been having temperatures in the high 20s pretty much for most of the trip so it was a real surprise to have to wear jeans and a jacket. We headed downtown to the World Trade Centre site as we had tickets for the One World Observatory which has been built near to where the World Trade Centre towers once stood. We went to the observation deck which is on levels 100 to 102 and the views were amazing. We chose today as the forecast was the best all week and we weren't disappointed.
Jersey City across the Hudson River
The Statue of Liberty
One World Trade Center
9/11 Memorial where the World Trade Centre Tower once stood
Twisted metal beams from the World Trade Centre
Most of the Memorial doesn't allow photographs or video and the whole experience is sombre.
Tonight we saw our 5th Broadway show - Come From Away, which coincidentally was conceived on the 10th anniversary of September 11th 2001. The show was fantastic.
A great way to end our second last day in New York.
Today was a slow start but we headed downtown to 14th street to walk the Highline to 34th street. We then wandered around New York City and looked at some famous locations.
Views from Highline
New York public library
Grand Central station
Show 4 of 7 - 'A Bronx Tale' such a surprise. We enjoyed the show.
Today was a relaxing day as we have 2 shows. We did a run this morning after a sleep in and then a bit of retail therapy.
Show # 2 - Hamilton (Richard Rogers Theatre)
We had amazing seats in the front of the mezzanine
We've been wanting to see this show for a long time after hearing the cast recording and instantly falling in love with the whole concept of a hip-hop musical about Alexander Hamilton. The book, songs and music are sensational and we both agree that this has to be one of the best musicals we've ever seen. It's like nothing we've seen before.
Show # 3 - Hello, Dolly! (Shubert Theatre)
We had great seats in the orchestra tonight. Bette Midler was sublime as Dolly Levi and the show was well done, great sets, costumes and an amazing cast.
Today we ventured down to Battery Park and took the ferry across to Liberty Is. to take a closer look at the Statue of Liberty and we had pedestal tickets, I wasn't quick enough to get us Crown tickets.
The 3 deck ferry that transports you to/from Liberty Is.
Standing in front of the Status of Liberty on Liberty Is.
Panaramic view of New Jersey and Manhattan from the statue pedestal
Tonight will be the first of 7 Broadway shows that we'll see this week, we kick it off with Anastasia. The show was absolutely wonderful, the cast were fabulous including our very own Carolyn O'Connor. The set was amazing with the LED screens and I've not seen three revolves before which allowed sets to be changed extremely fast. The following shows are going to have a hard act to follow.
Outside the Broadhurst theatre
Inside the Broadhurst theatre
The Broadhurst theatre for Anastasia
Today was our first full day in New York and we did some pampering and some exploring. The morning was spent having a relaxing massage that we had originally intended to do on our cruise which we ended up cancelling so we found a place in New York, not far from our hotel and we had a 60 minute deep tissue massage. Next stop was a haircut for us both and then we grabbed some lunch and ate it in Central Park.
Central Park - lunch with a view and so quiet
A selfie in the park
A ride on the subway
Apologies for the delay in getting this blog posted. We had a big day on Sunday with an early start at 6am with a plan to depart our hotel at around 8am for our flights to New York via Washington (Reagan DCA airport).
Our bags are packed. It was a miracle that we got our bags closed before heading to the airport
Passing through Orlando was very busy with people everywhere. Once we passed through security it was smooth sailing. We waited for our flight in the small Admirals Club lounge.
Waiting for our first flight of the day MCO to DCA
Cruising at 39,000 ft on our Airbus A319-112 AAL1890 MCO-DCA
ERJ-175LR DCA-LGA AAL4755 @ LGA (New York)
Both of our flights were fun and we enjoyed our flight experiences with American Airlines. It took us about an hour to travel into Manhattan from the airport and that's considering LGA is the closest airport. We settled into our hotel and then went out exploring in the city that never sleeps. It's great to be back in the big apple.
The view from our room, our room overlooks Times Square
Our final day in Orlando and we've had a relaxing day. We did some exercise this morning before breakfast and then we packed up all of our stuff so that we can get it all up to New York tomorrow, it took us until midday to rearrange our stuff into our bags as we've purchased a lot already. Once we had our bags packed we decided to head out and get some lunch so we wandered down to Disney Springs. We actually found a section that we hadn't explored before and we came across The House of Blues, we liked the menu so we decided to eat there.
Balloon flight from Disney Springs
House of Blues restaurant
House of Blues theming. The water tower can be seen from the balcony of our hotel
We've had an amazing stay at the Holiday Inn Disney Springs and all of the staff have been amazing. We've had 17 days in Orlando and 12 nights at the Holiday Inn and it's going to be sad to leave tomorrow, but we're very excited about seeing New York and all of our shows that we have booked.
We had an early start today to make our way to Cape Canaveral to visit the Kennedy Space Center which opens at 9am. It has only just reopened after sustaining some damage due to Hurricane Irma
NASA / Kenedy Space Center entry
Vehicle Assembly Building - the flag alone is 21 stories
Atlantis space shuttle
Atlantis experience at Kennedy Space Center
We had a great day exploring the centre and seeing the past explorations and hearing about what is planned for the future of space travel and exploration. Since the challenger missions were finished in 2011 these are now being run by private enterprises to maintain the international space station ISS project.
