My parents are visiting me in the US this year and I wanted to show them some important tourist places here. So I was exploring my options. Even though I didn’t have much time off from office, I wanted to cover as many places as possible. I wanted the travel to be stress free and easy on pocket. With all these criteria in mind I started my search and came across www.GotoBus.com. I saw many vacations packages in there which looked exciting. I wanted to visit my uncle in Philadelphia during this east coast visit and hence opted for a 5 day east coast tour that started from Philadelphia. After having my airline tickets (from Chicago to Philadelphia) booked with Southwest Airlines, I booked the 5 day east coast tour with GotoBus.com. Here is the package that I opted for:
We reached Philadelphia on the 3rd of July and started my 5 day trip on the 6th of July. Here is the day wise breakup of the 5 day tour.
Day 1
The tour company had asked us to reach at the parking lot of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia by 9:45 a.m. We reached there on time but didn’t find the bus. I contacted the tour guide and he said that they would be reaching the parking lot shortly. We waited there for a while before the bus finally arrived. Afterwards I realized that the bus that we were supposed to take was coming from New York and it already had a bunch of people who had started their tour from Boston, New York etc and we were just joining them. So it was day 1 for us but for some it was already day 3. We were supposed to see the Independence Hall and Liberty Bell in Philadelphia but missed that since we could catch the bus after these attractions were already covered. I was a bit disappointed. Finally we started our tour at 10:00 am and the first place we visited was the US Mint in Philadelphia. It was a half an hour tour of the facility. We saw various coins and documents related to their history. It was informational but not that exciting. We saw some old buildings in Philadelphia city and started our journey towards Washington DC. At around 12 pm we stopped for lunch at a Chinese buffet. The food at Kings Buffet (Newark, DE) was ok. Since my parents are not used to Chinese food they didn’t like it much. Then we continued our onward journey to DC.
We reached DC at around 2:30 pm and started our sight-seeing right away. We started with a photo session at the Capitol. Then we saw the ‘Indian’ museum. We then proceeded towards the ‘White House’. After a photo session there, we moved on to see the Jefferson memorial and then the Lincoln memorial. We also saw the Vietnam and the Korean memorials. We had loads of photo sessions in between. On our way back to Maryland, we stopped at Tyson Buffet and restaurant for our dinner. It was again a Chinese buffet but with more variety than what we had for lunch. The pricing was $15 per person as against $10 at Kings Buffet. After dinner we checked into the nearby Hilton hotel in Maryland. The hotel was good and it had free WiFi too. Overall it was an exciting and tiring day so we crashed into bed once we checked in.
Day 2
Our bus left the hotel at 7:30 a.m. and we headed straight to the ‘Sweetest place on earth’. We reached there around 9:30 a.m. and we took the Hershey’s chocolate factory tour. The small trolleys took us around the entire process of chocolate making. It was fun and exciting. We tasted some ‘Hershey’s Kisses’ as we left the tour. We did some shopping at the gift shop. Our next stop was for lunch. We went to McDonalds for a quick bite. My parents enjoyed the ‘Fries’ there and it became one of their favorite foods for the next few days. After that we visited the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY. We watched the ‘Hot Glass Show’. The person gave us a live demo by preparing a vase from molten glass. The process was articulate and exciting. Again we shopped for some memorabilia in the gift shop. Next it was time for a 3 hour drive to Niagara. We watched some movies and TV series (with Chinese subtitles) in the bus during our long rides. We reached Niagara by 8 p.m. and we enjoyed the evening scenes there. The ‘American’ side of the falls was looking beautiful. We couldn’t see the entire light show due to time constraints. We took some photographs and collected some more gifts. We then checked into ‘Holiday Inn’ at Buffalo, NY and spent our night there.
Day 3
We started from the hotel at 8:15 am. As we continued our Niagara tour, we first experienced the ‘Niagara’ movie. It showed us the history and the magic of Niagara. After that we took the ‘Maid of the Mist’ boat tour. It was a thrilling experience to feel the power of nature up close. I had my disposable camera ready for some pictures aboard the ‘Maid of the Mist’. We had Indian food at the nearby food court and started our journey towards Boston at 12 p.m. It was an 8 hour drive with breaks in between. So we did a lot of road journey on day 3. By the evening we reached Boston. We saw the Boston downtown, took some pictures and checked into Sheraton Hotel for the night. One important thing I realized was that I should have had more cash on hand for this tour. Only the bus ride and lodging is included. We need to pay for the entry tickets and tour guide tips. The tour guide had our tickets ready for various attractions and he requested us to pay him in cash for the tickets and for his tips. Since I didn’t have much cash with me, I had to withdraw the same from an ATM at a rest area. Since it was not an ATM recognized by my bank, I had to pay the ATM fees plus my bank fees for the amount that I withdrew. Also at Niagara the temperatures dropped and I wasn’t prepared for that. I checked one of the ‘Target’ stores at a rest area for some warm clothes but it was out of stock. Fortunately at Niagara I was able to buy some warm clothes at the ‘Cave of the Wind’ gift shop. I have AAA membership which I used to receive discounts at various attractions. I gave my card to the tour guide who was able to get the discounts for my tickets.
Day 4
The day started very early on day 4. Our bus was out of the hotel by 6:30 a.m. We visited Harvard University at Cambridge first. Took some pictures and our tour guide gave us some information regarding the university and its history. We then made our stop at MIT for more pictures and information. We visited the 150 year old Trinity Church at Boston. We then took the Boston Harbor Cruise. The Boston skyline was amazing and the weather was beautiful. We then we made a stop at the Quincy market. We found an Indian food counter there and had our lunch. After that we started off for NY. After taking couple of breaks we reached Brooklyn. We experienced the sights and sounds of NY City and were involved in some traffic jams before we made our way to the ‘Fairfield Inn’ at NJ. We checked in at 6:00 pm in the hotel. Some of our tour members finished their tour on day 4 and were dropped off at JFK and EWR airports. Since we checked in early we had more time to take rest at the hotel. Our tour guide and the bus driver also ended their tours today and they left after checking us into the hotel.
Day 5
The day started at 7:00 am. We were only 16 people left in the tour party for the last day. We had a new tour guide, a new driver and a new vehicle (an eighteen seater instead of a bus) for the last day. We were taken to China town in NYC where they added a couple of people to our group. The first attraction that we visited was Wall Street. We saw the NYSE and the ‘Federal Hall National Memorial’. After that we saw the ‘Bronze Charging Bull’ and took some pictures. We then visited the ‘Trinity Church’ followed by ‘Ground Zero’. We then were taken to Pier 17 for the ‘Circle Line Cruise’ aboard the ‘Zephyr’. It was a one hour cruise that showed us the ‘Brooklyn Bridge’, ‘Manhattan Bridge’, ‘Statue of Liberty’, ‘Ellis Island’ and the New York City skyline. One of the crew members on ‘Zephyr’ helped us with taking pictures and the narrator told us interesting things about New York during the cruise. Our next stop was the ‘Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum’ in the Hudson River. Intrepid was the battle ship that had participated in the World War II. It has a bright history which we learnt about in the 10 minute film; ‘Story of Intrepid’. Aboard the ‘Intrepid’ we also saw the ‘British Airways Concorde’ which is the fastest commercial jet liner in the world. We did the routine photo sessions here too. After having our lunch here, we proceeded to ‘Times Square’. Our next stop was the ‘Top of the Rock Observatory’ near the Rockefeller center. The elevator took us to the 67th floor of the observatory in about a minute. The view from the top was amazing and we took some pictures with Empire State and Chrysler buildings in the background. We then went to the 69th level of the observatory. Cabs looked like small toys and the panoramic view of NYC was exhilarating. We visited the Rockefeller center next. Our last stop in NYC was the United Nations building. The exhibits at the UN told us the story of things that are happening around our world. We couldn’t take a guided tour because of time constraints. Our tour guide had given us a package containing the tickets for the ‘Circle Line Cruise’, ‘Intrepid Museum’ and ‘Top of the Rock observatory’. It also had a complimentary lunch. We had to pay for the tickets and the tour guide tips in advance and the cash that I had withdrawn on day 3 came handy here. The UN was the last stop on our tour and we ended our 5 day tour at around 5:00 pm on day 5. We were dropped off at China Town NYC by our driver. The tour guide transferred us to another bus that operated between NYC and Philadelphia. We paid for the tickets from NYC to Philadelphia. The bus from NYC to Philadelphia was shabby and the restroom in the bus was stinky. We reached Philadelphia City at around 7:30 pm where my uncle received us thus ending our 5 day tour.
Conclusion
The 5 day east coast trip was informational and exciting. At the same time it had its dull moments too. Some of the learning’s and observations at this trip were:
1) It was well planned so we didn’t have to worry about the places to visit, tickets, accommodation etc. We could sit back, relax and enjoy the tour.
2) About 90% of the participants in this tour were Chinese nationals. Hence the tour guide had to explain things both in Chinese and English. Frankly his English and the way he pronounced the words were funny and entertaining. One of his famous quote was “Philadelphia is one of the ming cities in US" which means “Philadelphia is one of the main city in the US”. He had a habit of making everything as plural as possible. E.g. “The Smithsonian’s donated a lot of monies and hence we have a lot of free museums at Washington DC”. Having said that, the tour guide was friendly and helpful. We had a tour party which was punctual and as a result we reached all the attractions on time and covered almost everything mentioned in the tour brochure.
3) Carry enough cash was one thing that I learnt on the tour. You never know when the cash will come in handy.
4) My AAA card came in handy at some attractions and I could save some money as a result of that. The tour guide helped me get the discounts. I couldn’t get similar discounts at NY City since the tickets were already booked by the tour guide who claimed that the group discounts were more than the AAA discounts. Anyways it’s a good idea to check with the tour guide for such discounts.
5) There were some instances that we had to leave from a particular attraction early due to time constraints. One of the examples being the light show during night at Niagara. This is one of the compromises that come with such group tours.
6) There is a chance that some alternate attractions may be visited instead of the original one. We were originally scheduled to visit the ‘Empire State’ building and ‘Madam Tussauds’ Museum at NYC but it was changed to ‘Top of the Rock Observatory’ and ‘Intrepid Sea, Air and Space’ Museum. We came to know about this only on the day that we took the NYC tour.
7) Since majority of the tour participants are Chinese nationals, there are chances that you will be dining at Chinese restaurants many a times. We were given an option of ‘Lobster dinner’ at Boston which we didn’t take since we never had lobsters anytime. Since we had other options, we preferred McDonalds instead.
And Finally
Bus tour and accommodation for three persons: $777
Tickets to attractions and tour guide tips ($6 per day per person, $18 per day in our case): $500 (approx)
Food and memorabilia: $500 (approx)
Air tickets to Philadelphia and back: $600
Comfort on the tour and parents’ satisfaction: Priceless
2 comments:
Good one dude.. really informative, so wheres the next destination?? Ne info abt chini u liked n ur bus tour??
Your last line "Comfort on the tour and parents’ satisfaction: Priceless" was worth the time I spent reading the blog. This was the aim of your trip and you achieved that :)
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