Macy's Thanksgiving Parade with Kids - post by maxyourtravel.com

There is no better destination than The Big Apple for some Thanksgiving holiday travel. To say that NYC, thanks to its Macy's Parade has cemented its reputation as the undisputed center of American Turkey Day travel would be a major understatement.

NYC for Thanksgiving

With Thanksgiving and the rest of the Holiday season looking different this year I thought it would be only right for my next post to try to take you back to much more normal time and touch on a quintessential American Thanksgiving tradition that is the NYC Macy’s Thanksgiving parade. I realized that since our second trip to the parade, last November I have to absolutely recommend, especially for those of you with little kids to plan a trip to this epic event. Perhaps you should also consider checking out the balloon inflation ceremony that precedes it which has been growing in popularity more and more. You cannot do so this holiday season of course, at least not to properly expedience the parade in person as it should be enjoyed. While we were excited to find out that the 2020 event was not cancelled and happily tuned in to NBC the morning of the holiday as they always do a great job of covering this iconic affair the parade was not open to the general public. Not to crowds in the streets, in its typical fashion anyway. Staging the event mainly for the TV audiences was one of multiple counter COVID 19 measures implemented to greatly reduce the crazy, over 3-million-person crowd that this event typically draws. However if watching the event on TV or missing it in person this year made you want to finally make that trip more than ever then be sure to check out our experience and a bit of our family's scoop on the event.

Interestingly, during its nearly century long history there have been three times when the parade has actually been cancelled, all three times associated with World War II helium shortages (in 1942-44). So, you can imagine how grateful we felt being able to take our kiddos to experience not only the parade itself but also its prep since in some ways the ability to view the balloons as they are being inflated can really be almost more exciting than the main event itself. In retrospect, considering the hand 2020 has dealt us we feel even more blessed having given our kids a chance to partake in this event last year and highly recommend you and your family do the same as soon as it’s safe to do so.

NYC with Kids

So, this most recent family NYC trip of ours was interesting in a couple of different ways. For one this was the first time we had traveled there with both kids. After frequenting NYC quite a bit before having the little ones, we traded in our adult fun in the Big Apple for family amusement and decided to take our son there for the first time a few years back. So, we had a pretty good idea of what giving up on NYC bars and clubs in favor of walks in Central Park feels like. We found the rest of the tourist experience to be pretty similar, a bit different logistically but in many ways even more enjoyable and enriched by reliving it through our child’s eyes. We knew this trip would take all of this family entertainment even further as we wondered what both our children’s reaction would be to the ultimate kid experience in New York. Aside form the parade we gave the kiddos a good taste of what we thought your first underage ;-) New York experience should look like but more about that in another post.

I decided to make this a two part write up, sharing the parade itself here first and writing more about the aforementioned balloon inflation separately, in a second post. At the end of this write-up you will also find some of our tips on NYC Thanksgiving travel and get a little more insight into our thinking and strategy when trying to ensure our vacations don’t break the bank and allow us to maximize our time off as well as travel experiences. I included this part at the end in case your interests lie only in learning more about the parade specific experiences themselves.

Parade prep, where to stay and logistics.

So yes, Macy's acclaimed Thanksgiving extravaganza was the main attraction during our trip. When planning for watching of the parade there are a few things to consider, not the least of which of course are when and where to be prior to its start. I could inundate you with a myriad of options as to where to stay, where to watch or how to prep for the even but instead I will share what we think is by far the best way to experience the festivities at least if it's your first time. Most of what you will google will tell to stay as close to the action as possible and get up in the morning hours before the event. We were not looking forward to having to get up too early, at 6 or 7am as some of the parade info suggested in order to grab a prime spot along the route. It's hard to motivate yourself especially with kids to do that and given the fact that we had both of our rugrats with us it would be pretty difficult to try to survive a couple of sit still hours prior to the start of the spectacle (of 9 a.m.) and hope to still be able to enjoy a good portion of the actual event itself.

We knew that finding a centrally located hotel, preferably in the middle along the parade route was going to be key. New York hotels that sit directly on the parade route are in very high demand and you can expect to have to pay top dollar for them, but we figured, and in hind sight we can now confirm that finding something a couple of blocks off the parade route isn't a bad option, even if you plan to leave for the parade shortly before it starts.

We stayed at Hilton Garden Inn Times Square which is located on 8th Avenue between 48th and 49th Street. Our first time by the way we booked the Belvedere which in the same general area. This ended up being as good an option as we could have hoped for. The 2019 parade route was to start at 73rd Street along Central Park East and terminate at Macy's on 34th street. Most of its route as far as Time Square goes anyway runs along 6th Avenue. So, our location, a couple of blocks off allowed us to get to 8th from 6th Avenue fairly quickly even though we woke up shortly after 8.

We were on 6th Avenue before 9am with plenty of time to spare before the parade actually reached our spot. There was not much time for an elaborate breakfast so we packed a backpack with some breakfast food, drinks and snacks. We expected a large crowd and there were definitely plenty of people there but despite the crowd we were still able to get decent views of the parade. The kids asked for a higher vantage point so there was some pick-me-up and piggy back riding going on. Oh yeah, if your kids are as little as ours and you're traveling with a stroller forget bringing it with you out to the street during the parade though a baby carrier came in very handy for us. Remember, the balloons are pretty high in the air so even your short family members will catch a glimpse but there's nothing wrong with trying to get as good a view as possible.

In my opinion it's not worth to get up super early and try to battle other folks for a prime spot along the parade route especially if you have young kids with you unless you’re really set on hanging out 2-4 hours before the start of the event which I'm sure could be an experience of its own.

The big event

The 2019 parade by the way was accompanied by some pretty strong winds so the balloons were positioned lower than they are typically flown but even with that said you could still get a very good view of all of the floats. You might not get a great look at the marching bands or other participants of this event who are parading the route but all of the floats are elevated high enough for you to enjoy and you will of course hear the bands play either way. Having said that, as we settled in our spot between 48th and 49th and started relishing in the first few floats little did we know that our already unique enough NYC Thanksgiving experience was about to get even more memorable.

As we were minding our business totally consumed by Macy's Stars floating by, we were flagged down by some suited up individuals that asked us to follow them. Soon enough we found ourselves ushered into a fenced off, elevated courtyard of the building we were previously standing in front of. This exact area is where by the way we jealously directed a few glances during our initial arrival to 6th Avenue observing what we thought was a private viewing party that we unanimously proclaimed as the best spot around to view the parade from. Shortly after being pulled off the street we found lanyards around our necks that said Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with Rockefeller Group and it slowly sunk in that we were just, very inconspicuously, for who knows what reason invited to a private parade watch party.

Apparently, there are many of such watch parties along the parade route with numerous companies renting hotel, restaurant or corporate building space for this exact reason. We would have been satisfied with our spot on 49th Street but being invited to the parade watch party was too much fun to pass up. Again, I'm not sure why this honor was bestowed on us but we gladly obliged. I'm not sure what exact tip to give you to get equally lucky other than perhaps dressing your kiddos extra cute lol but many of the hotels on the parade route hold similar events for their guest though again you will probably have to pay top dollar. The location of our party was a corporate building at 1221 Avenue of Americas. As I mentioned the building has a terrace positioned at a considerably higher level than the street. The terrace was fenced off so that no one uninvited could enter this area and we’ll have to admit that this iconic New York Thanksgiving affair is definitely much better from one of these designated areas booked for corporate events.

This shin dig was complete with some food, drinks, attractions for kids and most of all great , elevated views of the parade. We got some hot chocolate, croissants and desserts and grabbed an even better view by spending much time standing on top one of the courtyard benches that we made our new home base for the duration of the parade.

Our daughter had plenty of room to run around which obviously would not have been possible had we stayed with the rest of the crowd.

Our son enjoyed the Spider-Man made for him by a balloon artist almost as much as being entertained by some of his favorite enlarged, floating characters passing by in front of us.

I will let the rest of the images of the floats and the party speak for themselves and invite you to read the second part of my write up, which I will try to publish as soon as possible focusing on the pre parade balloon inflation viewing . The inflation as it’s known, which of course has nothing to do with what happens to the prices of our goods each year '-) is, as I already mentioned a significantly less known Thanksgiving attraction where you can get much more up close and personal with all the floats and this parade prep event is gaining steam each year so we highly recommend building it into your complete Big Apple Turkey day experience travel plans.

Finally, after you check out the photos and try to identify all of the characters feel free to read on about some of our insights into logistics of travel to New York city during this busy and expensive time of the year.

Traveling to NYC during the Holidays.

While air travel is on pause for our family as it probably is as well for many of you, we cannot wait until we can safely get on an airplane again and are slowly starting to plan it. This trip was the first time we had not flown into New York City directly as well as the first time we had used the Southwest Airlines companion pass. Having relied on air miles quite a bit our goal is to fly for free as much as possible and we were looking forward to using the companion pass feature to aid in accomplishing that goal. A huge component of our strategy to fly for free is to stay loyal to Southwest, our favorite domestic Airline partly because they are the cheapest option but also the most flexible/innovative one and because they have one of the best bang-for-the-buck airmiles programs.

However, flights to New York around Thanksgiving, even with Southwest can be pretty expensive and we like to utilize our miles responsibly so we rarely use them on expensive flights trying to maximize their value.

This meant we had to put on one of our creative hats in order to find the cheapest way to get to NYC during this busy time. This creativity sometimes involves flying into a less expensive, relatively near-by airport especially if it means we’ll get to see and enjoy some new location, on top of our final destination which often tend to turn into just as focal a part of our trip. Southwest’s flexibility to book fairly priced one-way flights comes in very handy when we get creative like this and even our domestic trips often turn into multiple destination vacations. So, after checking a few different combinations of various destinations around New York City airports within reasonable driving distance we settled on a much cheaper round-trip flight into Baltimore and decided to rent a car and spend a couple of days in Philadelphia before driving to NYC. Having been to Boston in the past and having thoroughly enjoyed its historic nature we were excited to add an equally historic Philly as a stop on our trip.

More about Philadelphia and its attractions in a different post since this one is all about New York City but keep in mind that you have many different options of getting to NYC during Thanksgiving. Philly is only a 1.5-hour drive from Baltimore and to get to the Big Apple you will drive another hour and a half. This might seem like more of an effort than you’d like to go through but when you consider the high cost of transportation in NYC, our renting a vehicle (which by the way we returned right after arriving in Times Square to avoid having to pay high parking fees) in combination with the cheaper flights for each member of our family, even with the companion pass saved us about a thousand dollars or its equivalent in miles. Plus, we got to visit Philly at the same time. We had to rent another car again on the way back, so an Uber ride the hubby took to the rental spot to pick it up would be need to be added to the inconvenient three-hour drive back to Baltimore but all in all we saved a thousand bucks and made our vacation more eventful.

The one factor we did overlook in this case was road tolls. I think we paid about $35-40 one way. So that was an $80 that we didn’t plan for but that’s peanuts compared to the airfare savings. As I’m writing this I came to a realization that I should probably come up with a detailed, visual breakdown of all of this to make the savings more clear and I guess that will be a topic of another, future post but my point is- consider giving careful consideration to planning your transportation options. Paying less doesn’t always have to mean making your travel more difficult if you get creative. If you enjoyed this post be sure to check out the rest of my blog at www.maxyourtravel.com or my Instagram account at www.instagram.com/ms.max.your.travel/ for other visuals and write ups on our family's travel tips, experiences and reviews. ©maxyourtravel.com