It's always the way. Once the party's over - the party's over. We were keen to get started on the trip home and of course the prospect of "forever" in the plane was daunting and can't believe that at some stage we had thought it was a great idea to go home via Sydney.The morning was leisurely with even some time thrown in to make a last stop at Macys to finish off the shopping. Afterall, there was still room in the luggage for a few more treasures...

Today saw a new benchmark for FREEZING. The sky from our 25th floor view of 7th avenue promised blue skies. A second day of perfect views of the New York skyline. And when you are standing by the radiator as it relentlessly pumps out heat it is easy to be lulled into a false sense of security.The -9 C predicted, combined with a slight breeze, was of course the "perfect" day to walk the Brooklyn Bridge.So we layered up....and this is what it takes to achieve the ...

Third time lucky for us! We just kept on walking straight up to the revolving door of the Empire State Building and we were in. The attendants were advising that there was a one hour wait to get to the top but the queue was moving so quickly and armed with probably the best audio tour of the visit so far it seemed that we had de-robed and re-robed for the security check in a matter of minutes.The ground floor included a detailed interactive display of the changes...

It was a mad scramble this morning to pack up the room for the upgrade. Almost everything fitted back into the suitcases and bags and we were able to leave all of this with Michael and Anthony while the guest services team worked their magic. We have no idea where we would end up .... other than it was UP. Sort of like a little mystery tour or gamble.With that done and arrangements made, the first order of the day was to get to the Empire State Building. No banan...

No rest for the intrepid tourists. It was up and at 'em early this morning. Well, early for us. We were out the door and under ground at the subway by 10 am and we were heading to Lady Liberty.We have used the hop on hop off bus for the last two days which involved a walk from 32 to 47th. Penn Station and the subway was across the road from our hotel. We were keen to take advantage of its proximity...and it came heavily recommended by Michael. We needed to ha...