Vaughan to New York City: the Manhattan week by chauffeured car

The drive, honestly

New York is the trip Vaughan families price both ways, and the arithmetic surprises them. Five flights from Pearson, the ninety minutes to the airport, the two hours before the gate, the Newark or LaGuardia taxi into Manhattan, and the same in reverse — against a Sprinter at the driveway at seven, the Peace Bridge at nine, the Thruway's rest areas, the Hudson beside the road from Albany, the George Washington Bridge at half past four and the hotel's door at five with the bags carried in. The car is not faster than the plane; it is simpler, it carries a family of five and their week's luggage for one fare, and the day is spent together at a table instead of in three queues. The New York tourism site has the city; this post has the road, the drops and the week, and the border guide has the bridge.

The route, hour by hour

From Woodbridge at 7 a.m.: the 407 and the QEW, the Peace Bridge at Fort Erie by 9 (the chauffeur has checked the wait and will use Lewiston–Queenston if the Peace Bridge is slow), I-190 through Buffalo, I-90 east — the New York Thruway — past Rochester and Syracuse with a stop at the Chittenango or Indian Castle service area, Albany's ring at about 2:30, then I-87 south down the Hudson: the Catskills to the west, the river at Newburgh, the Palisades, and the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan at 4:30 or the Tappan Zee (Cuomo) bridge for a Westchester hotel. The routing estimate's ten hours assumes no stops and no border; the practical day is nine to ten with both. A family that wants the drive split sleeps in Albany or Saratoga; a family that wants it short flies.

Where families stay, and the drop

Midtown between 42nd and 59th is where Vaughan families with children stay — the Broadway theatres, Central Park, the museums on the park's east side and the subway's hub all inside a walk — and the chauffeur drops at the hotel's door on the side street, not the avenue, because Manhattan's kerbs are the chauffeur's problem and not the family's. Families of five book connecting rooms or a two-bedroom suite; the travel desk holds them, and Manhattan's hotel prices are the trip's real bill. A family that stays across the river in Jersey City or Weehawken pays half and takes the ferry or the PATH; the Sprinter's drop is the same.

The week, for a family

Day one is the drive and the Times Square walk after dinner. Day two: Central Park's south end, the American Museum of Natural History's dinosaurs and the blue whale, the Met's Egyptian wing across the park, a carriage or a bicycle rickshaw for the children. Day three: the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island by the ferry from Battery Park with tickets bought months ahead, the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, the Oculus, a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and Brooklyn's pizza. Day four: the Intrepid on the Hudson or the Bronx Zoo, Fifth Avenue's shops, a Broadway matinee — the Broadway League's site sells the tickets — and the Empire State or Top of the Rock at dusk. Day five: the drive home, or Coney Island's boardwalk and the flight. The Sprinter is not used in Manhattan — the subway and the family's feet are faster — and the daily-hire question is whether the family wants it for the Bronx Zoo, a Long Island beach or a New Jersey outlet day; most release it and book the return.

The one-way, and the flight home

Half the Vaughan families that drive to New York fly home: the Sprinter's one-way from Woodbridge to the Manhattan hotel, four nights, and a flight from LaGuardia or JFK to Pearson with the Pearson pickup booked for the arrival. It suits a family whose week ends on a work day, and it suits the family that wanted the drive as an experience once. The booking engine prices the one-way, the return and the daily hire as three numbers; the one-way is not half the return, because the vehicle comes home empty, and the site is plain about that.

The teenagers' New York, and the couple's

A family of teenagers does SoHo and the Village, the High Line and Chelsea Market, a Knicks or Rangers game at the Garden, the Whitney and the Museum of Ice Cream; a couple in a Premium Sedan does a Broadway opening, the Met Opera, a Michelin table and a Fifth Avenue afternoon, with the sedan released for the stay and rebooked for the Monday. The corporate version — a Vaughan company's team at a New York trade show — is the Sprinter on the corporate account with the Javits Center's door as the drop.

What the chauffeur replaces

The Pearson day with five bags; the Newark queue; a rental car in Manhattan, which nobody who has parked one repeats; the Thruway's ten hours at the wheel with children asking how far; and the George Washington Bridge at rush hour, which the chauffeur has driven and the family watches. The fare is one number in the booking engine against five flights, two airport transfers and a week's Manhattan garage, and the site does not claim the car is cheaper for two people; it is the family of four or more, and the group of eight, for whom the Sprinter wins.

Seasons

December for the tree, the windows and the Rockettes, with the Thruway's weather watched by the chauffeur and the Sprinter on winter tires; spring break for the museums and the parks before the summer crowds; the Thanksgiving-weekend trip for the parade on Thursday and the Black Friday shopping on Fifth Avenue — the American holiday, which is a normal Vaughan work week, is the quietest time to cross the bridge; summer for Coney Island and the Yankees. The city is a year-round trip; the drive is a year-round road.

Pairing it

New York pairs with Philadelphia as a two-city week (ninety minutes apart), with Washington as the East Coast loop, and with the Poconos for a family that wants a lake week before the city. Boston is the other direction and the other week.

The Thursday, in order, for a family of five

From Kleinburg at 6:45 in the Sprinter with five passports in the envelope and a week's bags in the bay: the Peace Bridge at 8:50 with a twelve-minute wait; I-90's Angola service area at 9:40 for coffee; the Thruway past Rochester and Syracuse with the children at the tables and the Wi-Fi on; the Indian Castle service area at 12:30 for lunch; Albany's ring at 2:20; the Hudson beside I-87 from Newburgh; the Palisades and the George Washington Bridge's upper deck at 4:35 with the skyline to the left, which is the moment the children stop watching screens; the Henry Hudson Parkway down the west side, the hotel's 54th Street door at 5:05, the bags carried in. Nine hours and twenty minutes, one stop for the border and two for the family, and nobody in it drove.

Manhattan without the vehicle, and the day it comes back

The Sprinter goes to a New Jersey garage or home, and the family's four days are the subway's, the ferries' and the sidewalks' — the MetroCard or the tap-to-pay, the 1 train from Columbus Circle to the Battery, the Staten Island Ferry for the free view of the Statue. The day it comes back is the Bronx Zoo and Arthur Avenue's Italian lunch, or the Woodbury Common outlets an hour north, or a Jones Beach afternoon on Long Island, booked as one daily-hire day inside the trip; the booking engine shows the day's number and the family decides.

The group version

Eight friends from Woodbridge for a Yankees weekend or a Rangers game: the Sprinter on Friday morning, a Midtown hotel's block of rooms, the Bronx by the 4 train, Saturday's game, Sunday's brunch and the Monday drive home asleep from Albany — the daily-hire fare split eight ways, and the site's plain claim that for eight it beats eight flights and two airport vans. The corporate version is the Javits Center's drop for a Vaughan company's team on the corporate account.

Costs, plainly

The fare is one number in the booking engine for the return, another for the one-way, another for the daily hire; against it are five Pearson–LaGuardia fares, two airport transfers of forty minutes each, and — if the family drove itself — a Manhattan garage at the city's rates for four nights plus the Thruway's tolls and the fuel. For two people the plane wins and this site says so; for the family of four or five and the group of eight the Sprinter wins on money and on the day, and the Manhattan hotel is the trip's real bill whichever way the family arrives.

Broadway, booked from Vaughan

The show is the week's fixed point and the one to book first: the Broadway League's official listings sell the tickets without the resellers' markup, the TKTS booth in Times Square sells the day's unsold seats at a discount from three o'clock for a family willing to queue, and the matinees on Wednesday and Saturday are the ones that suit children who will be asleep by the eight o'clock curtain after a museum day. A family from Woodbridge that books the Sprinter in March for a July week books the Saturday matinee the same day, and the travel desk puts the curtain time in the plan so the Bronx Zoo's daily-hire day is not the same day.

The younger children's New York

A family with children under eight does a different city: the Central Park Zoo and the carousel, the Children's Museum of Manhattan, the Intrepid's aircraft carrier deck, the Staten Island Ferry for the Statue without the queue, FAO Schwarz's piano, a Coney Island afternoon with the Cyclone for the brave and the aquarium for the rest, and dinner early. The Sprinter's boosters at $25 each stay fitted for the drive and the daily-hire day, and the hotel with the pool is the travel desk's job.

Booking it

Book from your Vaughan address as a return, a one-way or a daily hire; tell us the hotel, the seats, the bags and every passenger's citizenship status for the border, and the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before with the bridge's wait times on it.

Book the New York trip