My dear wife (henceforth known as “DW“) has insisted that one of the greatest advantages of living in New York is accessible, sandy, beaches. Now that’s not to say that we couldn’t reach beaches from London, but the decent ones are a few hours away and tend to be covered in rocks & pebbles. Oh, and the weather – don’t forget the 2 beach-appropriate days per year when the entire populace travels to said beaches.
On Sunday we journeyed to Rockaway Park, taking the very reasonably priced ($2.75) ferry from the Wall Street Pier. This journey was probably the best value-for-money I’ve experienced in NYC so far, considering:
- it’s an hour long;
- you get a great view of NYC; and
- we didn’t need to subject ourselves to the dismal NYC Subway
I was also impressed that they happened to run two ferries for the scheduled time. This made the world of difference as we weren’t high enough in the queue to get on the first ferry.
However, we didn’t count on two things:
- The disappointing weather which curbed our enthusiasm for beach-related activities; and
- A once-and-hour ferry service with an attractive destination means HUGE lines on the return. My guestimate is that there were 4 ferries worth of folk waiting, and there was only one vessel in sight.
So scratch the “not subjecting ourselves to the NYC Subway” part for the return leg.