Getting from Chi to NYC to Philly

Our Trip to Philly & NYC, was insane. We did have a lot of fun, but I figured before I get super excited for the fun stuff I should share that all fun comes with work. Things don't always go smoothly and I feel like people rarely mention the bad. So the negative first UP.

We originally only wanted to go to just Philly but we found super cheap flights to NYC. We figured we could use a lot of public transportation to get to Philly and make the flight to NYC work. Plus, I've never been to NYC so why not right? We had read some articles and talked to some people and it seemed like it was going to be easy enough.....and it was on the way home, but not so much on the way there.

The only bummer to the trip, the big bummer to the trip, was that we spent so much time in plains, trains and subways that the "relaxing" part of vacation was pretty much a wash. Case in point.

We started with a 7am flight out of Chicago (a flight out of Chicago almost always means a delayed flight). It was our first time using JetBlue and the hubs was exceptionally excited about all the leg room, the individual monitors, and the snacks.

Thank goodness for the comfort, because of high winds, we had a delay. BIG SURPRISE. We finally made it out of Chicago but we made it to JFK an hour late.

From JFK we asked the customer service desk how to get to get to the Jamaican Train Stop, they said to take the AirTrain and follow it to the Jamaican stop. Well, apparently, we were supposed to take the AirTrain we got on, to a different stop and then transfer to the Jamaican stop...oops. That caused a few more delays.

We finally made it to the station but we wasted some time trying to figure out the tickets for the AirTrain that we had already ridden (apparently you pay after?) and the tickets to board the Long Island Express (they are not the same ticket, I repeats they are not the same ticket). After the ticket situation was resolved, we boarded the 25 minute Long Island Express to Penn Station in NYC. Finally a little time to relax. WRONG.

Knowing that things always run later than expected and that we were flying out of Chicago, we booked our Amtrack Tickets for 2.5 hours later than we thought it would take based on all the research we had done. We were later than that.

When we got off at Penn Station, we had realized we needed to see if we could switch our Amtrack train to Philly for a later time. Hubs talked a  fantastic representative, Mary, about switching our tickets. All seemed well until the end of the conversation when she said these tickets cost more because we were buying them the day of. O'well, at this point we just really wanted to make it to Philly.

After the stress of exchanging our tickets was over, we realized that Penn Station was right below Madison Square Garden, we thought that was cool anyway.

After a quick bite to eat we took the 1.5hr Amtrack train into Philly.Once you get past some of the junk yards, there were some pretty sights, especially with the fall colors in full effect.

Finally we had arrived at the 30th St station, our hotel was only a cab away and then we could make our way to the Flyers game (which we had to take a subway too).

Does that amke you as tired as it did us? We were so exhausted that when we checked into our hotel, we were relieved to see 2 beds. At least we'd be getting some good rest post Flyers game.