New York City! The most visited city in the USA, home to Broadway, Central Park, Times Square, the Statue of Liberty, and many famous landmarks. There’s a lot to tackle in the city, and being in NYC with kids can feel a bit daunting.

Our youngest son has dreamed of doing a Home Alone NYC adventure since he was six. For his 12th birthday, we decided to make his dreams come true. He also plays the harp and has a goal of going one day going to Julliard, so this surprise trip was a win-win. New York City is a wonderland for the senses; children will love taking it all in!

In our suitcase, we travelled with his middle brother, Everett and Oma. So four of us are on this 4-day adventure. My oldest son has autism and does not love crowds, and fast pace travelled so he stayed with his dad for this adventure.

The Manhattan Club is a top value just minutes from Times Square, Central Park, and the Theater District, ticking off all the marks to create a great stay. It was the perfect location to walk everywhere we wanted while in NYC. We would have loved to stay at the Plaza, only a few blocks away, but the price tag was too high.

We booked a Club Bedroom Suite with a king bed. If travelling with kids, this is the perfect setup with a separate bedroom, living room, kitchen area with a fridge, dishwasher, table and chairs, and TWO full bathrooms, so much space for a New York Hotel room. This room was affordable, and we loved the complimentary breakfast included in our booking. This is not the fanciest hotel but ideal for space and location.

Ready to take a big bite out of the Big Apple? Here is our three-day itinerary!

Once we checked in to our hotel, we headed straight to Time Square. Times Square can be a somewhat overwhelming experience, but most kids aren’t going to want to miss that 3-storey M&M store and that giant Hershey’s store oozing with chocolate. Can you say sugar shock? We had dinner at Tavern on the Green. After a late dinner, we returned to the hotel, for it was a long travel day. This hotel is kitty-corner to Carnegie Hall, is among the most famous concert halls in the world, and it’s a gorgeous concert hall to visit when you are in the city. In the movie Home Alone 2, the Pigeon Lady takes Kevin to a secret spot in the hall where she listens to beautiful music for free, and they have a heartfelt talk. This is our first Home Alone stop.

We decided to start at the American Museum of Natural History on day one. We bought our tickets online and signed up for three times experiences, Butterflies, Invisible Worlds and the Worlds Beyond Earth. This Museum is massive, and we spent over four hours here and didn’t see everything, but it was worth it. If you are a fan of Night at the Museum, you will see many iconic items here, including Dum Dum and the Dinosaur. Upon the exit, there was a 3 level gift shop where we picked up many cool gifts and items. To get to the Museum, we take the route through Central Park. Central Park is a large park that spans over 843 acres and is situated between the Upper East and Upper West sides of Manhattan. There are several spots to visit within the park that were critical locations in the movie Home Alone 2. There’s the Bethesda Fountain at Bethesda Terrace at 72nd Street. The Historic Wollman Rink is also where the criminals go ice skating.

No trip to the US for us is ever complete without a stop at Shake Shack which is one block from the museum so a perfect lunch stop after lots of walking.

After we were full we headed to Julliard. Juilliard is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious performing arts schools in the world and ranks among the top schools for performing arts. The School was closed till Monday we were only able to see a small amount of the school, but enough to make this kid giggle with glee! Plus I think he bought all the MERCH possible.

We headed back to our hotel, to get ready for supper and we were attending an evening performance of Wicked at 7:00 pm. We had dinner at Serfina which is about two blocks from the Gershwin Theatre. We had an outside patio table and I ordered the Ravioli which was incredible, kids had the pizza and Oma had the Lobster ravioli. After our delightful dinner, we headed to the theatre.

We bought our tickets online through Broadway Direct. We wanted to make sure we had the seats we love and the comfort that it was from a reputable source. We picked ORCH, Row E, Seats 9-15. Our seats were PERFECT. We were so close to the stage and just slightly off to the side, the legroom was amazing. This show is my favourite and I was so thrilled to experience it with the boys together for the first time! Make sure you order London Bar, it saves so much time at intermission. This musical was breathtaking! We loved it because the performance was strong, the set was creative, and the plot had unexpected twists and turns who doesn’t love a trip to OZ!

It was a long day with over 25 thousand steps, so we headed back to the hotel so the kids could rest, and Oma and I had a glass of wine.

On day two, we were up and ready early, for we booked an NYC tour with VIATOR. I have mixed feelings about our tour, what they advertised and what we received were not the same, but it was a great way to see the city, but it is a total of 6 hours. The pick-up location was about three blocks from our hotel and included an air-conditioned bus and water bottles, which was nice. We started at 10 am. You drive by a lot on this tour, but the stops included are:

Central Park Part of the guided tour of Strawberry Fields 15 minutes
The Dakota Part of the guided tour of Strawberry Fields 15 minutes
Strawberry Fields, John Lennon Memorial After a drive through the Times Square area, the first stop is at Central Park West and 72nd Street, at the Dakota Building (the former home of John Lennon). The holiday includes a short guided walk into Central Park to visit the Strawberry Fields with the Imagine mosaic dedicated to John Lennon and the views of other sites in the area, such as the luxury condominiums that numerous celebrities call home. We'll also drive by Central Park Zoo, the famous Plaza Hotel and Carnegie Hall.
Rockefeller Center for views of St. Patrick's Cathedral, the ice skating rink and Christmas Tree location, and NBC's Today Show set. These are also ironic sights seen in the two Home Alone movies.
The third stop is Madison Square Park - the original location of Madison Square Garden Arena. This area provides spectacular views of dramatic architecture featured in numerous books and films: the Flatiron Building (Godzilla, Spider-Man), the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower (The Runaway Skyscraper, Futurama), and the Empire State Building (King Kong, Independence Day).
45-minute lunch stop at Gansevoort Liberty Market, located near the 9/11 Memorial and World Trade Center (not included in the tour price)
The National 9/11 Memorial & Museum The fourth stop is the World Trade Center, as we visit the 9/11 Memorial. The tour does not include entry into the 9/11 Museum. Still, visitors can walk the grounds of the Memorial, visit the waterfalls of "Reflecting Absence" (the footprints of where the original twin towers stood), and see the Survivor Tree that stood through the destruction of 9/11.
We caught the free Ferry to Ellis Island on the New York Harbor to experience magnificent views of the Manhattan and Brooklyn skyline and the Statue of Liberty. In Home Alone 2 Kevin spots the Statue of Liberty through the binoculars in The Battery. It’s one of the most awe-inspiring historical spots in the city that travellers should visit on their first trip to New York. While Kevin merely looks at it, you’ll want to take the time to see it up close. If you can physically mount the equivalent of 20 stories of stairs, you can even trek up to the crown.

After our tour, we had a dinner reservation at Serendipity, owned by Selena Gomez. It is the home of over-the-top food and desserts, such as the world-famous Frozen Hot Chocolate. It is filled with magic and whimsy. The food portions are so huge, so sharing is an easy choice!

After dinner, we were so full that we decided to walk to some of the spots on the tour that we saw and wanted to tour more. En route, it started to pour, so we took cover for a moment of reflection and gratitude at St. Patrick's Cathedral. Then we headed to the ICONIC FAO Swatchz for our take on Duncan’s Toy Chest. But the most important stop of the evening was the flagship Nintendo Store. Another 25 thousand steps complete time to head to the hotel to rest up for our last full day of entertainment.

On our final full day, we start with getting breakfast at the adorable Cafe Serfina, which is pink, floral and all shades of cute. After this, we return to Central Park to find Bethesda Fountain. The Fountain commemorates the opening of the Croton Aqueduct, which first brought fresh water to New York City in 1842. Clean water was “healing” to New Yorkers, who suffered from numerous devastating disease outbreaks because of contaminated drinking water. In Home Alone 2, after Kevin wriggles away from the Wet Bandits, the duo chases Kevin to Bethesda Fountain in Central Park—a long way to run, mind you. When they lose him, Marv reassures Harry: "This time, he doesn't have a house full of dangerous goodies to get us with. He's in the park. He's alone. Kids are scared of the park."

We head to our final Broadway show Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, at 1:00 pm. It is recommended to arrive 1 hour before the performance, which we did, for it takes some time to get into the theatre, and there are so many immersive experiences inside. We start with ordering our intermission drink and treat before we wander the theatre. This show is over 3 hours, and arriving an hour early is a full-day experience. Our seats were perfect. We did Orchestra Row S, seats 10 - 14. Before we found our seats, we visited Honeydukes, found our patronus and drank some butterbeer.

This play was worth every cent. It was magical, alluring, haunting. The magic and illusions are amazing. I can only say that time flew by, and it did not feel like a 3.5-hour show.

After the show, we had a reservation at Hard Rock, right next door, because we knew we would be starving. Reservations after the show were a great idea; when we arrived at 5:00, the wait times for walk-up guests were over an hour. We wanted to walk a bit, so we headed back toward the park and grabbed the best deal in NYC, Million Dollar shortbread, for only $5. We sat in the garden outside a restaurant hosting a wedding and a band playing outside. It was the perfect ending to a fantastic day!

On our final day, we had a few hours in the morning, so we decided to spend it all in Central Park. We revisited Bethesda Fountain and Terrace, Belvedere Castle, Loeb Boathouse, and the Central Park Carousel.

“The Belvedere,” which means “beautiful view” in Italian. The entire complex, completed in 1872, was designed as a place from which to enjoy views of the surrounding landscape; the building originally had no windows or doors, as it was intended as an open-air lookout tower. Constructed out of Manhattan schist, the building was also designed as a focal point in the landscape, drawing visitors to it. It appears to emerge from the dramatic Vista Rock on which it is perched.

The Belvedere still draws visitors to take in the sweeping views of Turtle Pond and Great Lawn to the north, the Ramble to the south, and the surrounding cityscape. We were delighted to see so many turtles; they were everywhere.

After the castle, we found one of the most famous artworks in Central Park, Alice in Wonderland. The large bronze sculpture is on a terrace at the northern end of Conservatory Water. The figure of Alice and her kitten, Dinah, sits atop a giant mushroom, surrounded by her Wonderland friends: the Cheshire Cat, Mad Hatter, Dormouse, and the White Rabbit. Right beside Alice was the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen Bronze (1805–1875), best known for his fairy tales, including The Little Mermaid, The Emperor’s New Clothes, and The Little Match Girl.

We wanted to ride the Carosul on our way out, but it was booked for a private birthday party. Sadly, our NYC adventure has come to an end. We hope you enjoyed travelling with us.

Happy travels from our suitcase to yours!