The Great American Ballpark Tour: Day 3: New York, NY

Just because we are on a stadium tour doesn't mean we can't tour a city for a couple of days right? Today we are going to wake up early, leave the car at the hotel and be true New Yorkers taking New York taxis. The first part of the day we are going to explore the face of the city, the Statue of Liberty. One of the biggest tourist attractions, I will be sure to have my camera on me as we walk through the exhibits and concessions that it has to offer. We will then hop on the Circle Lines ferry and roam Ellis Island until lunch time.

Statue of Liberty

After a quick bite, continuing on with our busy day of touring we will do a little more site seeing, kicking off with one of the most recognizable skyscraper in New York, the Empire State Building. We will pay the appropriate fare and head to the 102nd floor observation deck to take in the view of this eye-opening city. After taking a quick look from the 86th floor observation deck we are going to head to the Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan, which will take us until dinner to pass through its 22 acres of land.

Empire State Building

The dinner scene that we will enjoy eating at is going to be in New York's famous Times Square. After enjoying a meal we will take a stroll along the major intersection of shops, lights and buildings; particularly One Times Square.
As the night moves on we will check out the NYC nightlife, beginning with club 40/40, owned by Jay-Z. Be prepared for a late night!

Why?

Experiencing a baseball stadium tour around the United States is something that I have always dreamed of doing, since I have loved baseball (which has been always). I have grown up to adore the game of baseball mainly due to my father and brothers. Each one of us like the game more than the next.

When I was around 5 years old, my family went to both Fenway Park in Boston and Veteran's Stadium in Philadelphia but I hardly remember anything remotely close to the wonders of a beautiful baseball stadium.

To this day, the only baseball stadium that I have a recollection of is the Rogers Centre in Toronto. While Toronto, is one of the cooler cities to live in, the ballpark where the Blue Jays play is, to me, nothing but a concrete, ugly box. I want to smell grass! I want to see the seats packed! I also would love to try some real American ballpark snacks!

Along the way of my tour, I hope to explore the cities that I visit, and not just the ballparks to see their different natures of tourism

When?

The trip that I have planned out will take place in the summer time (as that is when baseball is played) shortly after my friends and I finish our fourth year a university. This is the best time to go as we will not have the pressures of school on us, we will all be 21 (the legal age in the U.S.), driving many hours will be easier, and we will have enough money as we will be working the next year as opposed to going back to school.

For the purposes of planning out a vacation such as this, I have taken the schedule of the 2010 MLB season and have based the itinerary of the trip on June 1-15, 2010. This displays the type of planning needed for a trip such as this, as home teams may not always be at home when we desire, but it can always be worked out!

Who?

Selecting people to join me on this trip is a very important decision, as these are people that I will spending a total of 50+ hours with inside of a car. For the purposes of the trip I will be going to with my 2 good friends (only two as to have enough room in the car), Ari and Kyle.

These boys are just as big baseball fans as I am and have been dreaming to experience something like this since they were young as well. I live with them regularly so I could handle the long days and hours that will be constantly seeing each other. Having them with me doesn't change the fact that I have set out the itinerary and they are following every move that I made, after all, this is MY dream vacation!

Costs?

A trip such as this can either be extremely expensive, or extremely cheap. I decided that the only way for this to be a dream of mine is if it is done expensively.

Each day we will incur different costs as some days we will be doing and see less then others.

Below is a budget created by me, taking into account the cheap, and expensive hotels that we will stay in, gas money, baseball tickets and day-to-day expenses!

Hotels

The Drake Chicago: $100/night X 4 nights = $400

Trump International Hotel and Tower: $278/night X 3 nights = $834

Other Hotels: $50/night X 8 nights = $400

Total hotel expenses: $1,634

*prices per person

Gas

In the U.S. it is give or take $1.80/gallon

If the Mazda 3 that we will drive uses about 1 gallon every 41 miles, filling up 11 gallons every time and traveling approximately 2, 784 miles then:

We would travel 451 miles before every gas fill up, meaning we would fill up around (2,784/451) 7 times throughout the trip, but to call it safe, about 10 times throughout.

10 X (1.80 X 11) = $200

Ballparks

Adding up all the ticket costs from the 10 games that we see comes to:

$500 for tickets

The amount that we eat and drink will vary, along with the prices at each stadium so to approximate:

$60 (avg.) per game x 10 = $600

Other Expenses

Touring cities when not going to baseball games will cost money too, between lunches, dinners, shopping and site-seeing we will come up with a alloted budget for each day (not including gas, baseball tickets and hotels)

$150 per day (food, shopping etc.)

Totals:

$1,634 (hotel) + $200 (gas) + $1,100 (tickets and food) + $150 (daily expenses)

= $ 3, 084 total expensese

The Great American Ballpark Tour

Day 3: New York, NY

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