Kwik-E-Mart site added.

I've added the New York Kwik-E-Mart to our sites to see map. This is part of the Simpsons Movie (IMDb) 7-Eleven Promotion. That would be fun to see. Maybe I'll get a Squishee or a Pink Donut (Mmmm... Forbbidden Dooonut).

Rental Car Reservations Made

I'd done some research a couple days ago on rent-a-cars and found that Dollar was cheapest. But Sandy & I wanted to read some reviews. Well, went back and found that Dollar's prices went up (we assume due to the new month)! So, I re-checked all the prices I'd got before and now Enterprise car rentals was the cheapest (by $100, though about $150 more than Dollar's was a week ago). So this morning I placed a reservation with Enterprise for an economy-class car. Three days. This we will pick up on Friday, drive to Cooperstown, and return on Monday when we're due to catch our plane. Cost $393.82.

Hotel Reservations Made

Sandy & I have been browsing around trying to find a hotel in NYC for two nights. Sandy read many reviews, especially customer comments on various sites including Expedia, NYCTourist.com, and other places. I'd been checking out Orbitz, Expedia, and Hotels.com. We even tried Priceline, but they were not even close to being the cheapest so we didn't give them much time. Personally, I thought Hotels.com had the best interface. Great info, pictures and reviews. Easy to navigate. Unfortunately not the best bargain.

From reviews we'd read it seems most NYC hotels have tiny rooms. And several we saw in our price range didn't even offer Queen-sized beds and had no frills/perks. So we decided to put in a few extra bucks a night to get what appears to be a nice hotel. We're going to be staying at the Hampton Inn Manhattan Times Square North. It was renovated in 2005. Offers a free breakfast and our room has a flat screen TV and a King-sized bed. I even called the hotel and they'll hold our luggage until check-in at 3p (we arrive early in the morning) - no problem. In fact, the very friendly representative says it's quite common and they have a special storage area for just that reason.

Nearly all of the hotel sites appear at first glance to have the cheapest rates. But when I actually went to make the reservation they tack on extra fees ranging from $60-80. I went directly to Hampton.com and using my AAA card I was able to get a rate that was only $5 more per night, but no "recovery" fees. So saved money that way. But what really shocked me most were the NYC taxes!!! 13.38% + $3.50 secondary tax per night. Wow! Anyway, the total for two nights was $661.88. Now that's the most I've ever paid for any hotel. But really, after looking around at literally dozens of hotels, it wasn't so bad for NYC.

New Camera.

I'm a little behind, and this isn't going to be a complete post, but I wanted to put something out there. A couple of weeks ago, on May 11th, I got my new camera, a Sony DSC-T10:

Lady Liberty

We purchsed ferry tickets with Circle Line to take us to Liberty Island. The tickets include the Monument Access Pass needed to get in the Statue of Liberty. We also got a audio tour. Total amount for two tickets and one tour was $38.50.

Received a pamphlet, lost a camera.

I put the newly received and charged battery into my camera last night and it turned on and took some pictures. So the accessories pass the quick test. Alas, Sandy went on the Walk for Animals today and broke my camera. Apparently it was dropped, and now the viewscreen doesn't work. I'm researching a replacement...

On an upside, I received a package from AAA's I Love NY. It's a sort of magazine full of ads and tourist info. I've added it to all the other stuff received and have to look through.

Received order from CCS.

I received the camera stuff I ordered the other day from CCS. The iPod charger I ordered is exactly like another travel charger I ordered elsewhere last year. The camera battery charger is different than the charger that came with the Sony, but it looks like it should work fine. The battery is visually the same type and it fits in my camera, but it's really cheap looking. The primary reason for that is the low quality label on it. Literally looks like something printed off a cheap color inkjet and sort of just wrapped around the battery. It's kind of coming off the side too. Still, if it works, it's not bad. I'll charge it tonight and test it this weekend.

AAA Goodies.

I receved the last two packages from AAA. I was especially pleased with the parcel from Diana in Cooperstown. She sent all sorts of nifty flyers and brochures about local places of interests and events. Unfortunately I don't know if there will be time to visit most, but it was nice of her to do. She also took the time to draw the "best route" from NYC to Cooperstown on a map with a highlighter and included a Post-It Note wishing us a great trip.

It's the little personal touch that makes it oh so much better!

Another Battery, Charger, & Map.

I'm interested in getting some accessories for my Sony DSC-T9 digital camera for the trip. Right now I have two 120min batteries and a 2GB memory card. That's about four hours of power and 1300 pics (at the 3MP size I usually use). While that should be plenty, I'd like to get one more battery, a second charger, and possibly another memory card. I don't want to miss anything. And I don't know that I'm going to bother bringing my video camera, which means my T9 will have to double as a camcorder (which means I'll probably want to get a 4GB expansion card).

Yesterday Sandy & I stopped by Best Buy to price the items. They don't stock the charger and have discontinued the battery, though had a couple-three left in stock. I bought a new battery, while I had a chance. It was $49.99, but I had $20 in RewardZone certs so my cost out the door (with tax) was $32.31. They had plenty of the memory cards in stock and there's little chance of those being gone so I'll wait on that.

But last night when I went searching for a charger I found the battery so much cheaper. In fact a site I found, CCS (Calcellular.com), had either for $15.99. For that kind of savings I took the risk of ordering from a "generic" site and ordered one of each. I also got a $4.99 iPod travel charger. The total w/shipping and tax is $46.01. I received an e-mail today that my order has shipped via USPS. I'll let you know when I get it and the quality of the items.

Today I went back to Best Buy and returned the battery I purchased there. Also, I received in the mail the Albany map that Gail sent to me from AAA. But after the other day's research and decisions, I don't think I'll be needing it.

Received first set of AAA gear.

Today in the mail I recieved a package from SoCal AAA. Nifty, now I got a tour book and some maps to pour over. Inside I found a ad for I Love New York and ordered a couple tourist brochures from there.

I also added a few points of interest to My Google Map.

More Planning and New Tool - Google Map

I'm having a blast researching this trip. I'm really getting into it! Heh.

I not at all familiar with NYC so I don't know where to get the hotel. So I was messing around with Google Maps trying to orient myself in Manhattan when I found their "My Map" feature. I played with that some and made myself a NYTrip Map. What I've started doing is plotting places Sandy & I are going (and/or might like) to visit. From there we'll look for hotels in those areas.

The NYTrip Map is going to be neat too... Once the trip is all planned I can post where we're going to be and then aftewards I can update/add places we actually visited and link it all to my blog for journal entries and photo gallery for pictures. Sweet. My OCD is in heaven. LOL.

Planning reconsidered, Return flight purchased.

After doing some more calling around, including talking to a couple rental car agencies, I found out it will be much more expensive to rent the car at one location and drop of at another, instead of the traditional return to pick-up location. Plus, I could find no direct flights from Albany to San Diego. All of them required multiple-stops, many required changing airlines!

I talked it over with Sandy and we've decided that rather than driving from Cooperstown to Albany to fly out, we'll just drive back to JFK. Which means we'll pick-up/drop-off the car at the same location. I did some searching and found a non-stop flight home from JFK to SAN on Monday on Delta. So that'll be nice. It was actually cheapest to get directly from Delta instead of Orbitz. In fact, had we purchased our flight into NYC from Delta we'd've saved ~$10 a ticket. Oh well. Too late to cancel the Orbitz tickets without penalty (more than $10) so we'll just leave it at Live and Learn. Total cost to fly home $328.80.

So now we need to nail down the NYC hotel and car rental.

Calling AAA for Info.

I spent some time today calling AAA (of which Sandy & I are Plus Members) to get maps and other info.

First I called AAA Member Services (877) 428-2277 and spoke to Donna. She reminded me if I needed AAA Service while in NY call the "Outside CA" Number on my card (800) 222-4357. She gave me the local AAA Club phone numbers for the areas I'll be in:

• NYC (212) 757-2000
• Cooperstown (607) 547-2519
• Albany (518) 426-1000

Finally, she is sending me a package (ETA 05/07) containing:

• AAA NY Tour Book
• NY State Map
• NYC Map
• NY Metro Map

I then called the local Cooperstown AAA Club and spoke to Diana is going to mail me:

• Cooperstown Map
• Local County Map
• Tourist Info

Jane in NYC is sending me:

• Member maps, tourist info, etc...
• Trip Tix (Route booklet from NYC -> Cooperstown -> Albany)
• Then put on Donna from Tourism who's sending me their '07 book.
• She also recommended: http://www.grayline.com/
• http://www.grayline.com/Grayline/destinations/us/newyork.go

And finally Gail from Albany is sending:

• Albany Map

Note that all of the documents being sent to me are is free as part of my AAA membership. Also I'd like to point out that all the people I spoke to were exceptionally friendly and inquisitive about my trip. They really seemed to want to know about the trip, asking all kinds of questions and wishing me a good trip. Great customer service!

Spamalot notes and General Plan.

Today I was reading over our Orbitz info and was curious about our Spamalot seating. I called Spamalot's Customer Service (866) 302-0995 and was told we have excellent seats. Orchestra level, Center, Row K, Seats 105-106. Sounds good to me! The lady said we already have our tickets reserved and we just have to go up to the window with ID and they'll give them to us. She recommends arriving at a half-hour before showtime.

Note: that the show is being held at the Shubert Theatre (866) 302-0995.

Sandy & I have talked and our current idea is that we're going to stay in NYC for three days and two nights, rent a car and drive up to Cooperstown and meet up with Kirt, Karen and the rest of the gang. Then on Monday drive to Albany and fly home. Will need to reseach rental cars and the return trip...

We finally bought plane tickets.

Tonight Sandy & I purchsed our plane tickets to fly into JFK International Airport. I feel quite relieved to have completed that. And now I find myself really looking forward to the trip! It's like the floodgates are open and I can't wait to go. Heh. Weird.

Anyway, we purchased the tickets from Orbitz. We looked around at a half-dozen travel sites and they were the cheapest. We only purchased one-way tickets since we're not really sure how all this is being planned. We'll be leaving from SAN Int'l Airport on Tuesday night on a Delta flight to LAX where we'll catch another Delta to JFK, arriving Wednesday morning. Total price for both of us via Orbitz is $309.58 (including taxes/service fees).

During the Orbitz purchase we also bought tickets to see the Broadway play Spamalot. We got two Orchestra tickets on Wednesday night for $222.50.

Lastly we purchased our tickets for the National Baseball Hall of Fame from Cooperstown Tickets (total $26.00).

Planning the Dates.

As my intro states, we've been talking about this trip for a long time. Pretty much were chatting about it since Tony retired. A few weeks ago Kirt & Karen (KK) told Sandy & I that they'd reserved a cabin near Cooperstown and we all (along with Adele and others?) could share the space and cost. Since then Sandy & I have been dragging tail making plans/reservations for the other parts of the trip, most notably the plane tickets.

We know the induction ceremony will be held on July 29 2007. But we didn't know when we were all going to arrive/depart, how many days to stay, etc. Part of the problem was in scheduling. It was uncertain when KK were going and if we would be traveling with one or both of them (it was possible that Karen would go separately with the kids from Kirt). The other part, as least for me, was a lack of desire to go. I can't explain why, we'd been talking about this for years, but I had no enthusiasm for the trip. I think mostly it had to do with the cost involved.

Sandy has been watching plane ticket for the last couple weeks. And each time she goes back the prices are a little more expensive. So we finally sat down the other day and figured out which dates we were going to go and where. Today I confirmed with my boss Maris which days I wanted/needed off and he gave his approval.

This weekend we plan to buy our plane tickets.

About this Blog

I've been a fan of Tony Gwynn since I was a kid. Since his retirement we (Sandy, Kirt, Karen & I) had talked about making a trip to Cooperstown to see Tony get inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Earlier this year it was announced that he was accepted, along with Cal Ripken Jr (one of Karen's heroes). So we've been making our talk a reality.

Kirt & Karen make a trip to up-state New York nearly every year to visit family and have even been to the BHoF. Sandy has also made one trip to New York City while a teenager. I myself have never been to NY. Instead of just going to Cooperstown, Sandy & I have decided to spend a few days in NYC.

This blog will be my journal and reference space for the planning of the trip and documention of events after our return.