I took a cruise during the Pandemic! Part 5

 Part 5 TRAVEL DAY! Preflight night in NYC and more!

Finally, August 4 arrived.  My preflight travel day.  I got a LIFT (as opposed to Lyft) to the Trenton Transit Center where I boarded my AMTRAK train to the new Moynihan Train Hall in New York City.  I had a business class ticket that cost around $30 when I bought it in June.  Amtrak now has assigned seats on some of their trains. I noticed that someone booked the seat next to mine, but I was able to change it the night before travel to one where I'd hoped I'd have both seats to myself.  And it worked.

Trenton Transit Center

Trenton Transit Center

Here comes my ride!

My ride

Lots of legroom

Business class car

The train station in Trenton doesn't have Red Caps so I managed all four bags on my own.  (And if you thought that a conductor MIGHT offer to lend a hand, think again.  He was literally 5 feet away from me and easily could have been helpful. But no.)  I asked him to arrange a Red Cap for me at NYP.  Generally they'll radio ahead and the Red Cap will come to the correct area on the platform,  In this case, he pointed and said "down there".  I'm pretty sure that the conductor never called ahead but I digress.

Moynihan Train Hall is stunning, new, has lots of places to eat, less places to sit (in an effort to cut back on homeless people moving in) and is (currently at least) free of the odor that overcomes everyone in Penn Station: eau de latrine.  Really, I like New York City but something has got to be done about the stench in Penn Station.  It is NOT a nice Number One or even Number Two first impression on tourists.

Moynihan Train Hall

Moynihan Train Hall

My Red Cap hauled my luggage through the station, across the street to the taxi stand and got me settled in a cab.  I PROBABLY over tipped him ($20 bucks 😮) but he was really nice and it was a long walk into the heat of Manhattan.

The cab driver got me to the Kimpton Hotel Muse quickly.  I can't remember the exact fare but I'm thinking it was about $10-15, plus tip.  By this point, it was not even noon yet and I knew I'd have to wait for my room.  I redeemed a bunch of IHG points and hoped that I'd score a nice upgrade.  Yeah, we'll see.  After storing my luggage, I set off to find a branch of my bank so I could get Euros and some cash for the trip.  I also hit a drug store for some water, soda and snacks for my room.  After a mediocre but decently priced (by NYC tourist trap standards) lunch at Junior's Cheesecake, I returned to the hotel to wait for my room.

Once I got to the room, I noticed that it was rather small.  I'd been 'upgraded' to a premier king which wasn't much of an upgrade.  Yes, hotel rooms in NYC are small.  But if this was a better room, I'd hate to see the regular ones.  I kicked off my shoes, stored my beverages and noticed that the rug was wet.  Rut Ro.  And I noticed a slight smell of, well, dog pee.  Kimpton is an animal friendly brand, BUT I'd expect them to properly clean and inspect rooms that pets are checked into.  Honestly, a housekeeper will not know that the rug is wet since they're not walking around barefoot. 

I was assigned another room and moved down, settled in and that was it.  I will say that the hotel needs a renovation as there is a lot of peeling wallpaper all around.  The vents in the bathrooms need to be cleaned or painted, or both. The staff was just so-so.  Many of those working the late afternoon and evening shift would be so wrapped up in their personal conversations that they failed to notice guests.  The doormen were less than useful and not friendly.  Being tipped employees, one would expect them to race over, hold the door and assist with luggage.  Eh, they may also be union employees and paid a higher wage since, when I checked out, the doorman, who DID see me, could not be bothered to move his derriere and help get my luggage into the car to the airport.

After settling into the new room, I successfully repacked my big suitcase and hard side carry on, folded the soft tote, squished IT into the suitcase, sorted out the rolling tote and cheered the fact that I'd just saved myself $100 bucks!

Eighteen months into the pandemic and I am really tired of hotels using it as an excuse to cut services.  I get that staffing may be an issue; that said, there ARE ways to make a hotel stay be a little more 'normal'.  The Muse did at least, have coffee set up in the morning and they are slowly bringing back the well-known wine hour.  I still maintain that they could have offered bottles of wine to top tier loyalty members, and maybe even a bagel or muffin. 

The hotel IS in a great location, about a block from Times Square. It's located across from a cool Cuban restaurant called Havana Central and within walking distance of many sites and places to eat and shop.  I found a tiny Cuban coffee shop next door and wound up having a great, $7 breakfast.  The restaurant is called Margon and it's popular with locals.

$7.00 bargain breakfast at Margon

Interior of Margon

Exterior

As close as I will ever get to seeing this! 😭

As is my usual Modus Operandi, I emailed the manager and we played phone tag for 10 days, but he will be making it up to me on a future stay.  The Kimpton Muse does get generally good reviews but they fell short of the usual Kimpton experience.  Most of you know that I worked for Marriott hotels for many years, almost a lifetime ago, and that I was among other things, a Housekeeping Manager.  I notice stuff that most guests don't see and may not really care about.  That said, when you use 41,000 points for a 'free' room, you expect it to be worth the 'money' and on this occasion, it wasn't.  (Incidentally, it looks like IHG charges room tax even on point redemptions.  I've never paid a cent on a redemption stay at Marriott or Hyatt so this is sort of weird).

After my big lunch at Junior's (Soup, Burger & Fries and cheesecake which was a PM snack) I opted to just run to Havana Central for a light appetizer (empanada) and a mojito.  I love their food but wanted to eat light since tomorrow would be a LONG day.  One thing I did notice everywhere I walked, and even in the hotel elevators?  The scent of marijuana.  The hotel is nonsmoking, so someone walked by after taking part.  It's not technically 100% legal in NYC-yet, but it has been decriminalized.  I was instantly transported to rock concerts of the late 1980s. 

The city was a lot less crowded than I've seen it in the past. Obviously this is due to the pandemic.  Sure there were the usual tourists taking photos with various characters on Times Square, there were a few random musicians and political soap-box speakers. Traffic, other than scooters and bicycle riders who are intent on killing as many people as possible, while running red lights, was considerably lighter than the last time I was in NYC, just before all hell broke loose.

Juniors

Lunch.  Decent but not great. Forgot to get a pic of cheesecake

Mojito at Havana Central

Marriott Marquis

A very uncrowded Times Square

I didn't sleep particularly well but I managed to get in a couple short naps. I never sleep on travel night and this time was no different. I woke up, had coffee, hiked to Starbucks and Krispy Kreme on Times Square for GOOD coffee and a (free, yay!) glazed donut, walked back to Margon where I consumed the aforementioned cheap breakfast and then got my stuff together and went down to wait for my car to the airport! 

Part of my research was finding a cost-effective ride to JFK.  Carmel Limo came in priced very close to the flat rates charged by taxis.  Since the bellman actually stopped his personal conversations long enough to tell me to book a car service as "there aren't many cabs or Ubers and sometimes they don't even come when we call them", I went ahead with my reservation.

The car was supposed to be 'deluxe' or 'luxury' but it was a Toyota Rav-4 and it appeared to be owned by the driver.  It wasn't in really great shape.  The driver was nice enough and loaded my bags since the doorman wasn't about to move from his spot holding up the wall.  We set off for JFK and eventually got stuck in traffic.  The car smelled, again, of Number One 👎 (I hoped that this would NOT be a theme running throughout the trip) and I was stuck holding my breath, in my mask, as much as possible.  Close to an hour of smelling pee.  I'm still trying to get Carmel Limo's customer service to contact me.  Again, phone tag.  

I was very happy to finally get out of the car at the airport.  And I was praying to the travel angels that I'd have better luck soon.

One final look at the Kimpton Muse Hotel