Introduction and a Welcome to NYC Party

Even though we said we were going to cut back on travel once we retired,  2014 is not the cut-back year yet. Somehow we managed to schedule 5 trips this year.  In January we took a one week Caribbean  cruise  for our 35th wedding anniversary. In May we drove north to spend a week in Pennsylvania, taking care of the graves at 7 cemeteries I have family in, visiting old friends, and then extended the trip to celebrate our newest great-niece's christening in NJ.

During that last trip, I got a email from Park West, offering us a free cruise to Bermuda.  We had the week open and it sounded like fun, so what the heck.   We only had to get to NYC to do it. So I booked 2 seats on Delta from Orlando to LaGuardia and here we are. (I'll talk about the other 2 trips as they happen - I like leaving you all guessing.)

A view of Manhattan from the airplane on the way into LaGuardia

The  adventure began Saturday morning. The Villages Airport Van picked us up at 8:30AM. We made several stops around the Villages picking up additional passengers until the van was full with 8 travelers and the driver.  Our Delta flight from Orlando to La Guardia in NYC was smooth and uneventful.   We had reserved a car to pick us up and bring us into Manhattan and the driver showed up quickly after we called to say we had our bags. He had a little trouble fitting our 2 large suitcases into the trunk, but he and Ray finally squeezed them in.  They just don't make trunks large enough anymore!  There was a lot of traffic in in the city, but the driver was skilled at getting around. Since we had a flat fee, it was to his advantage to get us to our hotel as quickly as possible so he could go on to pick up another fare.

Unlike most hotels, the reception desk for the Marriott Marquis is on the 8th floor of the building.
Check in was easy though and we were soon comfortably in our room on the 32nd floor.  It would be a great location for New Year's Eve - we have a direct view from our room to the building the ball drops from in Times Square.  We went back down to the 3rd floor to check in with our Park West hosts and get our itinerary fir the week, then went back upstairs to rest prior to the evening's activities.

A welcome cocktail party was scheduled for 7pm and dinner at Carmine's Italian restaurant at 8pm.  There are 40 couples in the group . With activities planned together for the week, we will have a chance to meet many of them. Tonight we met Paul and Susan during the cocktail party and went on to meet Joe, Mary, Michael, Harriet, David, Kathy, Roman and Vicki at diner.

Dinner was great - an 8 course Italian feast at Carmine's!  We had salad, a basket of breads, calamari, pasta in white sauce with sausage, pasta in red sauce, shrimp in red sauce with stewed tomatoes, lemon chicken, spinach, a tray of desserts, and coffee.  They kept bottles of the house red and white wines coming through the meal.  Conversation was lively as well. I can already see we may make a few new friends on this trip.