On December 16th 2006, Mom, Aunt Diane, Aunt Sandy, Barb, Nikki, and myself took a bus trip with our church to New York City! A day in the city including a show (hence the title of this post “The Drowsy Chaperone“), lunch, shopping (mostly, if not all by me), and browsing, and ending our night off with dinner. What a fun day!

The day started off with Mom and I driving to New Hanover United Methodist Church (our church) bright and early.. having to be there by 7:00 am. We of course were there at 6:45 and there were only 4 others on the bus at that point… I bet you guessed who – Aunt Diane, Aunt Sandy, Barb and Nikki! They were nice enough to save us two seats, so we would have been fine to show up at 7:00 am on the dot, we’ll know better for next year!

The trip up was relaxing for we had a brand new Easton Coach bus..it was gorgeous, brand new! Nice tvs, blinds on the windows and even curtains. It by far was the best bus I have ever been on. We ended up watching “While You Were Sleeping” a cute romance movie, which brought tears to my eyes, what a tear jerker.

Arriving in NYC, we were dropped off in front of the Merriot, where “The Drowsy Chaperone” was being performed. Since we had until 2:00 pm (which is when the performance was) we headed towards Rockafeller Plaza. I had, up until this day, never seen the BIG Tree and Ice rink at the plaza, so that was one thing I had hoped to do while there. On the way we stopped at Starbucks for a hot beverage. It was a chilly day in the city and the wind really gust between the buildings, so 30 minutes into our NYC trip we found a Starbucks. After a good 20 minute or so wait for our hot drinks we headed across the street to Bryant Park where there was a winter festival. By winter festival I mean a few groups of tents where vendors were selling handmade (some not handmade) merchandise. We (the craft loving family we are) decided to stroll through the park and see what we could find. I managed to be the one who walked away with the packages a Christmas gift for Josh, a cute hand blown glass “Floppie”, and a hat for my cold head!

Continuing on our way we found Sax Fifth Avenue. We decided to stroll through the store and see how beautiful the decorating was for the holiday! Right across the street was Rockafeller Plaza so we made our way through the crowds of people and saw the gorgeous tree and the ice rink. Santa was even ice skating with the children on the ice! Afterwards we walked through the St. Patricks Cathedral across the way from Rockafeller Plaza and then decided it was time for some lunch.

Nikki had seen a Mexican place on the bus ride in… Chevys I believe. We thought we knew where we were headed but upon two people in our party needing to use the “Little Girls Room” we entered the Sheraton and learned that Chevys was in the opposite direction of the theater where we were going to be seeing “The Drowsy Chaperone” so we ventured to find something else for lunch and possibly go to Chevys for dinner. Applebees it is!!! Now I am not one to eat at chain restaurants when you are “out of town”… we have Applebees at home, why waste a “Once in a Life Time” restaurant possibility on a restaurant you can have anyday??? That is my opinion…. however, we were hungry and with our limited time before our show we had the option of either TGIFridays or Applebees, Applebees won. It was your typical visit to Applebees only difference was the jacked up prices. Mom and I decided to share a Caesar salad, and I ordered a French Onion soup. This cost us over $20.00. No alcohol and we SHARED a salad! CRAZY… it’s Applebees!!!!

Upon arriving at the Merriot, we had some spare time so decided to visit “The View” a restaurant on the 8th floor (I believe, could be the 9th floor or maybe the 11th). We really didn’t visit “The View” we used the bathroom and then headed to find our seats back at the Theater Level. Pretty much on time, but having maybe 10 minutes until show time, we sat in the theater and well froze. I am not kidding, Mom was even cold, which must mean the rest of us were in sheer agony! The show was good, but not what any of us were expecting, not that we really knew what to expect. The shows storyline was/is basically about a man who narrates the stage show “The Drowsy Chaperone”. He (the man) did a great job, but still to this day am unsure why the show is called “The Drowsy Chaperone” for the Chaperone really wasn’t a big part of the storyline. We all had some laughs and agreed that it was good, but we would probably never recommend it to anyone.

Being that our bus was leaving NYC at 7:00pm, we had a couple hours to ourselves before having to be back at the Marriot to catch our “coach”. We decided to try and locate Chevys, the Mexican restaurant from earlier. Success we found it! We did have to venture through mobs of people at Times Square, but we survived! Upon locating Chevys we had a 20-25 minutes wait. Now it was early so we figured we would have no problems with getting a table, BUT for some reason they were under staffed so a lot of tables were not being seated. No problem we waited and I think we are all glad we did, even Mom who doesn’t care for Mexican food. While the service was slow the food and drinks were great! We all ended up ordering Margaritas and I even managed to coax Barb into ordering the “grande”…. she started out with a soda and then after she found out I was having a drink ordered a regular margarita and then changed her order once again to the “grande”… you go Barb!  The food, atmosphere, and conversation was great, we had a great time!

Once on the bus, back into our comfy seats, we headed towards PA. The movie choice for the ride home was voted upon. In the morning the movie was picked for us, while the movie on the ride home was voted upon – “What About Bob?” or “Radio”. A tie vote twice and finally after brief descriptions about both movies, “Radio” was the winner. I have seen both movies before so I ended up listening to music on my IPod and took a nap. Before I knew it we were back in PA.

The 6 of us had a wonderful day in the city and we have talked about doing it again next year. It was fun to spend time with my Aunts, 2 cousins and my Mom. What a great day!