i've stayed at the mayflower hotel--in a suite. it's wonderful! i don't know how much they charge though, as i was brought in to do a tv show and the program payed for the room.

thanks for posting the links to the hotels, because here is the hotel i was trying to remember that is right on piano row:

carnegie suites hotel

ok, and with a little help from the same web site, i found out it is a HOLIDAY INN that is on west 57th street. here's the link for them:

holiday inn

Thanks to all for the hotel info.

Carnegie Suites has no rooms for that weekend and Holiday Inn only has rooms for $420 cheapest rate for the weekend. I'll keep checking.

I usually stay at the Renaissance (Marriott property), 7th ave at W. 48th. It's a short cab ride or brisk walk to piano row from there.

Rates start at $299.00

It's an older hotel, but kept up nicely.
They have high speed internet access:-)

Foleys restaurant inside the hotel offers great seafood and a perfect view of Times Square. There's even a
Yamaha baby grand off the lobby, next to one of the bars.

try expedia.com and priceline.com

expedia.com buys rooms ahead in blocks at discount prices. i got great deals in hawaii in the high season using them. this also means that there may be empty rooms, but they are being held by a consolidator like expedia.

priceline.com lets you name the price you are willing to pay and the class of hotel. and maybe the neighborhood, too.

i wouldn't put too much store by staying right next to piano row. there is the subway system and cabs, you know!

i myself will be staying at a friend's in gramercy park, which is not convenient to piano row at all. and some of us are coming in from outer boroughs.

I don't mind walking at all. In fact, I much prefer it to other modes of travel. So I don't don't mind being several blocks away. Looks like the Bentley (as recommended by Palindrome) has rooms. Probably worth making a reservation; I can cancel if I decide not to attend.

$299 rate is more than I would want to spend, a matter of priority rather than affordability. All I really need is a bed and a bathroom. Actually, all I really need is a floor and a bathroom (I guess that means that all I really need is a bathroom). Too bad NYC doesn't have those little sleeping cubicle things that they have in Tokyo. Has anyone ever seen them?

$299/night is ridiculous, ed. if you don't mind a european style hotel (shared bath), there are dozens, with rooms available those nights, for under $100 a night.

if you want your own bathroom, and to be in a "nice" hotel, i just did a quick search on expedia.com and found many, many three- and four-star hotels right in manhattan that have rooms available those nights; they start at $140.

the best of these is the new york helmsley, a four-star hotel near grand central station, for $169 a night. that's a special rate just for expedia customers.

you buy the room from expedia. the hotels might tell you they are full, but expedia now owns the rooms at a block discount, so i really think this is your best bet.

if it were me, before i even went the expedia route, however, i would go to priceline.com and tell them i want a four-star hotel in midtown for $80/night, standard room, and see what i get.

if i failed there, i'd go to expedia.

glad to see you can make it. i don't want hotels rooms to stand in anybody's way.

Got a room at the Holiday Day Inn Midtown (two blocks from Central Park) for $179.00+tax through Hotels.com. Thought that was not too bad a rate.

Rich

Hey Rich. I bet you don't know that your AA is now residing in Thailand.

Could someone repeat the itinerary here, including the name of the store, location, and times?

Are we planning on all meeting up at the first store, or someplace else beforehand?

Thanks.

frank,
i got your email saying you didn't get mine, but otherwise haven't heard from you. i've sent you three emails and also left a voice message on your telephone. have you received any of them?

itinerary for saturday oct. 18th

1 p.m. a&c pianocraft
2 p.m. beethoven's
3 p.m. faust harrison
4 p.m. klavier haus

questions to the group at large:

are we or are we not going to a concert that evening with an 8 p.m. curtain?
if we are, then we need a 5:30 p.m. dinner reservation.
if we are not, do we want to revise the above schedule to give ourselves more time at the beginning, so we have time to walk uptown? and then a little more wiggle room so we have time to regather and walk to the next store? then it would be something like this:

1 p.m. a&c pianocraft
2:30 beethoven's
3:45 faust harrison
5 klavier haus

does anyone know if that would be feasible with the stores in question? i believe beethoven's is open late. maybe we could switch them with klavier haus to give us a little more flexibility?

otherwise, if we are going to hear the beax arts trio, or if any of us are, we'll need to stick to the more rigid schedule.

more questions:

do we have a quorum on the restaurant choice? are we going for thai? anyone want to volunteer to make the reservation? and what is our head count at this point?

i will post a notice on the main forum for everyone who is coming to dinner to check in here.

finally, to answer frank's other question, i think it should work fine for all of us to initially meet at a&c pianocraft. some people will no doubt be drifting in and out of the crawl anyway.

who has the address? could you post it again?

Pique,

Thanks for calling our attention to these details again.

I have a small suggestion. Why don't I post a "factsheet" under a separate topic name -- maybe "NYC Itinerary" -- with just piano store appointments and addresses, so people don't have to repost them here all the time? Also restaurant address and time. And I won't revise that itinerary until it's all agreed upon in this 7-page thread?

Count me in, in the head count.

No concert for me.

Once y'all decide on whether to go to the concert or not, we can figure out whether to alter the piano store schedule. But should we be a bit cautious about changing the schedule? as in one case anyway, (Faust) I think they said they're closing off the store to other customers while we're there.

I'll volunteer to make the restaurant reservation. Are we agreed on Bangkok Cuisine? (The restaurant name?) Would anybody who definitely does NOT want Thai food please post here?

realplayer,

the "nyc itinerary" topic is a great idea. thanks for thinking of it and offering to execute it. we could then post links to it in the other forums after it's been finalized.

it shouldn't be a problem to adjust the schedule if we do it soon. we're still giving them nearly three weeks' notice. but we should make a definite plan asap.

hope we get the answers to your other pointed questions soon.

count me in for the whole day.
count me in for thai food.
i could go either way on the concert and will go with the consensus. i lean very slightly towards not having a concert to get to so that we can have more flexibility at the piano showrooms and be more relaxed at dinner.

I'm probably not up for the concert. Thai is fine with me.

I think we have a ball-park figure of about 20 people.

NEW THREAD

As discussed above, I've posted a new thread named "NYC Itinerary" in this forum. Please read it, but don't post to it. This is where we can go to see exactly where we're going and when -- according to current consensus, which I will revise according to decisions in the "new york city in october" thread.

Your comments are welcome.

Should I list the Beaux Arts concert in the NYC Itinerary notice?

just saw pique's post on the other forum ..


I'll say again, Count me in for crawl and dinner.


Show is no good for my finances though.

I'm in for some crawling and dinner -- thai is my first choice. Would prefer not to rush off for a concert.

Hi, All:

Bangkok Cuisine is fine with me.

Does anyone know the ticket prices for Beaux Arts Trio - or where they are performing so that I can check on ticket prices?

I'd vote to leave the dealer times as they are currently confirmed to allow time for anyone who wants to do something after dinner.

Thanks . . . Linda

I'm in for the crawl and dinner.

rich

It looks like I'm in for the crawl and the dinner, but somebody has to tell me what I'm eating:-)

linda,

the beaux arts trio is at the metropolitan museum of art, which is at 5th avenue and east 82nd street. the tickets were for $35.

i think a lot of us want to skip the concert because we want to be able to take more time at the showrooms, so i don't know if it will work to keep to the stricter schedule if a smaller number of us want to go to a concert later.

if it turns out that the majority want flex time at the dealers, and to eat dinner later, and a few want to go to the concert, how should we handle that?

With the intention of getting a head count, could we hear from a few people who haven't posted here in a while?

Please state which of the following you want to attend: piano crawl, dinner, concert.

Earlier posters we haven't heard from in a while are:

Lucy in the Sky
David Burton
Sam
Kluurs
PianoMuse
Concertkey
TomK

Jodi and Ed responded to this thread, but they live far away. Not coming?

Thanks. I've noted who has responded in the last few days. Maybe I'll keep running tab on who's attending what, and update it on "NYC Itinerary".

So far, for the concert we have only two people interested, and they are undecided: Pique and Linda in PA.

pique: Thanks for the info!

Joe: Good idea!

For itinerary purposes, my plans are:

* Piano Crawl: Yes
* Dinner: Yes
* Beaux Arts Trio: Would be interested if others are planning to attend.

Thanks . . . Linda

"Far away" is relative. Jodi lives far away.

I'll do my best to commit to this event or not ASAP.

The default should be, assume I won't make it unless you hear otherwise. If there's an issue with dinner reservations, I can always go listen to the pianist at Mickey D's. No concert. I'm partial to Frank's idea of a jazz piano bar.

Hi all,

This is my first post here, though I've followed--and enjoyed--the forum since my piano purchase a couple of years ago. (For the curious: a Young Chang U-131 from the Piano Mill outside of Boston.)

Anyway, I just moved to Manhattan in September and would love to come along on your crawl and dinner. Probably not up for the concert.

Thanks much.

For those of us unable to make it, will someone in on the crawl remember to bring a digital camera and post LOTS of pics afterwards? Thanks. I would love to live vicariously thru you all!

Ockie,

Welcome to the Forum, and welcome to New York as well! You're included in on the piano crawl and the dinner (which is looking like Thai right now).

BeeLady,

Thanks for the reminder about pics. I bought my wife a digital camera recently, and we're still sort of just learning about it (which is why you all haven't yet seen pics of my M&H yet!) I'll try to remember to bring it along, but also hope someone else will bring a camera too.

Re: Head Count

I have revised "NYC Itinerary" to include who's attending what, as of Oct. 7. See that thread for details, let me know of corrections.

We have 10 for the piano crawl, 11 for dinner, none committed to concert yet.

Thanks, Realplayer. I'm thinking we should get off the dime, and make a reservation at the Thai place, and just say we have 11-16 or so people.

Any objections out there?

yes, i think it is time to firm things up.

and it looks like there isn't a lot of interest in the concert.

therefore, i think we should perhaps redesign our schedule a bit so that we get a little more time at the stores, and have a relaxing dinner as well.

i think it would be nice if we had at least a full hour at each store, and since the first store is not near the others, it would be nice to have a little more wiggle room on time.

here is a proposal:

1 pm a&c pianocraft

2:30 beethoven's

3:30 faust harrison

4:30 klavier haus

i don't know how late klavier haus is open, but i understand they have some incredible pianos, including some hamburg steinways.

if 4:30 is too late for them, perhaps we could switch their time with beethoven's, as beethoven's is open late. and then we wouldn't be rushed at the end.

then it would be:

1 pm a&c
2:30 klavier haus
3:30 faust harrison
4:30 beethoven's

we could make our dinner reservation for 6 or 6:30 pm, since the restaurant is also a distance from piano row. that way, if anyone has gotten tickets for the evening, they'll still have enough time to eat and run off to a concert (though we'd rather they stuck around to do the piano jazz bar crawl later ).

what do all of you think?

if we call the stores now to change the schedule, they'll still have a week and a half's notice. i can't think a half hour would impact them too much, as long as they are given advance warning.

i think also we should go ahead and make a reservation at the thai restaurant. make it for 16 people to be on the safe side.

i might be bringing a friend along for the crawl and dinner, btw.

Phlebas,

I think Pique had the idea that before setting a restaurant time we should a) find out if anyone's going to the concert and b) if not, extend our times at the piano dealers and then arrange for a later, more leisurely dinner.