Tuesday 11th December 2012
[07:48 EST]
Today is our travelling day. We are mostly packed up already, even though we are not due to check-out of the hotel until midday. Linda convinced me that we should order breakfast this morning in our room. OK, I didn't need much persuading! It's expected at 9am so that gives us plenty of time. Linda's on the Skype with Shirley at the moment.
Our plan is to check out of here at noon, get a cab over to the Sheraton Hotel where we expect to pick up this Limoliner coach. We then have a four hour drive into New York, arriving at around 5pm in Midtown. I didn't fancy driving over to New York and flying is too much of a hassle with the baggage. We had originally wanted to go by train over to New York, but with the inability to check in our luggage on the route we were looking at meant that we switched to coaches instead. This Limoliner thing looked different, so we decided to give it a go.
[11:01 EST]
OK that's not quite how we planned it!
Our breakfast arrived dead on 9am, we were almost completely packed up although Linda was still in her PJs. The guy insisted that Linda sit on the bed and arranged the table so she could sit in comfort whilst I was relegated to one of the room chairs. Breakfast was very nice - although at $87 I'd not expect anything else!!
During the last day or so we've heard distant tapping as though there was some maintenance going on. Not long after we'd finished breakfast there was a knock at the door and a guy was there asking whether he could get into the bathroom to turn off the water. He peered under the basin area then left muttering that the stop-cock wasn't where it was supposed to be. Not long after, we got a call from the front desk asking if we'd mind being moved from one room to another across the corridor so that the water in our room could be shut off. Linda had commented that there was the sound of running water coming from somewhere near the ceiling in the bathroom. So with the help of Michael from the front desk, we moved our stuff over to room 306. It looks slightly larger than our room, but looks out over a small rooftop garden to the buildings over the road - no park view. Apparently, there's been an accident that has caused a water leak in one of the pipes in a room above 305, where we'd been staying. We left them to it and am currently sitting in 306 biding our time before noon when we'll head off to the Limoliner.
Forecast for New York looks like it'll be 8 to 10'C over the next few days, but no sign of rain which is good.
[21:50 EST]
We made it to New York as planned, although we're both a little more grey after the trip. We were at the pick up point without any hitches and the coach arrived about 20 minutes ahead of the planned pick up time. It was a big coach, although I noticed quite a few dings and scratches along its sides... I wonder where they came from!?
We put our bags into the hold and settled into our comfy chairs. We were soon on our way. I watched a couple of films on my tablet during the 4.5 hour trip. It was around a hour before we hit New York that it suddenly occurred to me that I didn't have my camera with me! I'd been carrying my A55 with it's new-ish 18-250 lens in a small camera bag. Our camcorder was also in there too. However, for the life of me I couldn't recall seeing it with the luggage. In fact, I couldn't even recall seeing that bag at any point this morning. Yesterday afternoon it was certainly in our room, but since then we'd had a turn down service (the Four Seasons had two visits from the maid - the morning visit to clean/change linen, the evening visit to turn down the bed) plus we'd had to move rooms due to the water issue.
There was no way I could check anything as all the cases were in the coach's hold. So we just had to sit and wait. Eventually we hit Midtown and the traffic became a nightmare.
I think it took us a hour to drive down the side of Central Park to 45th street then cross over to 6th Avenue and finally to the Hilton for the drop off point. We took our cases over to 7th Avenue and attempted to get a cab over to the New Yorker, by the time we did get a taxi, at least half a dozen small limo/black cars had stopped to offer us a lift which we politely declined!
A quick check-in and finally up to the room. We are on the top floor (40th). First thing once in the room was to pull apart the cases and guess what... NO camera bag :(
So the first thing I did was call up Michael (who'd dealt with us with the water leak in the morning and had fortunately given us his card). He answered and almost before I'd explained why I was calling, he told me that he had the camera bag (with contents) in his possession and that indeed they'd been attempting to reach us. He passed me over to the security team who agreed to courier it down to me at the hotel. What's more, since we'd been inconvenienced over the water thing in the morning, they said they wouldn't charge us for sending it. What a nice turn of events! I was even called back later by the security team who gave me the tracking number of the package that they were sending out tomorrow morning. Hopefully it'll be back in my possession by Thursday.
Needless to say, we were both relieved at the final outcome and maybe a little more grey!
We stepped out for a hour or so to walk around the block and have a look at the (slightly less festive) Macy's windows. It was a chilly night but thousands were still milling about.
We are going to visit Macy's super sale tomorrow morning... and perhaps look for some Hallmark ornaments as our list appears to be growing somewhat!