My daughter is spending two weeks in New York City as part of a film class through her school, Portland State University. The timing worked well with my work schedule, so we went in advance for a few days. Over the next few blog posts, I will share a bit about our trip and share what worked, what didn’t work, and my suggestion to never go when it is hot and humid! (Okay, that does not need an entire post, I just gave you my suggestion!)

Booking Flights

We flew Southwest Airlines, it was the least expensive, and we are frequent flyers on Southwest. Unfourtunately, there was no direct flights from one of the airports in the Bay Area. For my ticket, I took advantage of the Costco deal on the Southwest Air gift cards when they were $430 for a $500 gift card. (hmm, I think I still have money on that!!) For her flight, we used some student loan money from Spring term, since this was a school Study Away class for her. I booked them separtely, but had my computer and phone open at the same time to make sure I got the same flights going there. I was coming back sooner, so we had different return flights.

Getting There – Leg 1

Our flight out of SFO was at 5:50 a.m. and we live about 45 minutes from that airport, so I booked a Fly and Park deal at the DoubleTree San Francisco Airport North Bayfront. I will share more on how that worked in another post. One unfourtunate thing about this hotel is they have limited hours for their airport shuttle, so Lyft it was at 3am! Got there, bag checked, and through security just in time to wait for Illy to open at 4:30 a.m. for breakfast!

We usually fly out of Oakland, so have never spent much time at SFO, but it is a nice airport with very comfy chairs at the gates. Probably one of my favorite airports right now! Our flight out of SFO was ontime and a smooth flight! It was a full flight though, so I sat in the middle, with a deal I got a window on the second flight of the day! Oh, and I always pay extra to have Southwest check me in and most times have an A boarding pass!

Getting There – Leg 2

Our layover was at Chicago-Midway. Just as we landed, I started getting notifications that our flight there to LaGuardia was delayed. We already had a 4 hour layover. After deboarding I asked a ticket agent if there was another flight we could get on as stand-by. The one about to leave had one seat, and I didn’t want to risk we didn’t both get on, and our bags would not necessarily get on with us. So, we got food and hung out.

Midway is a small airport, nothing fancy in the terminal we were in. We kept getting notifications that the flight was delayed more and more. We eventually got to LaGuardia almost 2 hours late. LaGuardia has quite a walk from the gates to baggage claim.

My daughter then had a dream to ride a NYC cab, so $95 dollars later, we were at our hotel! Lyft would have been cheaper for us, or even ordering a car in advance. I looked into ordering a car when we were sitting at Midway, and probably should have done that, but you gotta live the NYC dream, right??!! Next time, I will better plan my arrival and car to the hotel. There is not good public transportation from LaGuardia.