Uber or taxi from Embassy Suites Elizabeth to Times Square area for a tour

[Lorey2007]

Uber or taxi from Embassy Suites, Elizabeth to Times Square area for a city mini bus tour.  Our tour is at 9:30am on a Wednesday how much time should we allow?  Two seniors here we would prefer to be at the 9:30 start time early or very early.

[meadowlander]

36 minutes ago, Lorey2007 said:

Uber or taxi from Embassy Suites, Elizabeth to Times Square area for a city mini bus tour.  Our tour is at 9:30am on a Wednesday how much time should we allow?  Two seniors here we would prefer to be at the 9:30 start time early or very early.

Uber not taxi. Weekday morning commute into New York City is unpredictable. If you are good with early/very early, arrange for pickup between 7-7:30. You can find places to eat or have coffee if you get there before 8:30.

[GTJ]

1 hour ago, Lorey2007 said:

Uber or taxi from Embassy Suites, Elizabeth to Times Square area for a city mini bus tour. Our tour is at 9:30am on a Wednesday how much time should we allow?

Your plan is probably the worst imaginable: a weekday morning during rush hour, and instead of being able to use the contraflow bus lane to bypass all the traffic queued up to enter the Lincoln Tunnel, you may be stationary within that traffic. Times do vary from day-to-day, but typically you could expect the trip to take between 45 minutes and one and one-half hour. No wonder why most people travel to midtown in rush hour by train or bus. Assuming that you would want to arrive before 9:00 a.m., so that you can find your precise meeting point, then you might want to plan on leaving your hotel between 7:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. You might need to allow more time if you're making the taxi or TNC arrangement at the time given that some drivers may not want to get stuck in that traffic for so long (and also be prepared to pay double, so the driver can return empty back to New Jersey, plus $14.75 for the tunnel toll). In sum, it may be a long and expensive trip by taxi or TNC.

 

You might want to consider traveling on the bus direct to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, one block west of Times Square. There's a bus stop on North Avenue, just east of U.S. routes 1 and 9, a short 2-mile taxi ride from your hotel. Buses on New Jersey Transit bus route 112 travel non-stop from that location to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Departing at approximately 8:07 a.m., the bus is scheduled to arrive in New York at 8:41 a.m. The fare for seniors is $3.20. On the way back, you might travel on New Jersey Transit bus route 111, which travels directly from the Port Authority Bus Terminal to your hotel in Elizabeth, or bus route 115, which on some trips travels directly from the Port Authority Bus Terminal to the Jersey Gardens Mall, across the street from your hotel in Elizabeth. The last route 111 bus departs New York at 4:15 p.m., route 115 buses depart New York at 9:00 p.m., 10:30 p.m., and 11:50 p.m. Otherwise, route 112 buses return regularly from New York to North Avenue.

[mjkacmom]

Not a taxi, right now it would take you 42 minutes and rush hour is almost over.

[Lorey2007]

What time is considered rush hour? We need to be there at 9:30 and plan on taking Uber about 7:30. If we're early that's fine will find a coffee shop to wait.

[Lorey2007]

13 hours ago, GTJ said:

Your plan is probably the worst imaginable: a weekday morning during rush hour, and instead of being able to use the contraflow bus lane to bypass all the traffic queued up to enter the Lincoln Tunnel, you may be stationary within that traffic. Times do vary from day-to-day, but typically you could expect the trip to take between 45 minutes and one and one-half hour. No wonder why most people travel to midtown in rush hour by train or bus. Assuming that you would want to arrive before 9:00 a.m., so that you can find your precise meeting point, then you might want to plan on leaving your hotel between 7:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. You might need to allow more time if you're making the taxi or TNC arrangement at the time given that some drivers may not want to get stuck in that traffic for so long (and also be prepared to pay double, so the driver can return empty back to New Jersey, plus $14.75 for the tunnel toll). In sum, it may be a long and expensive trip by taxi or TNC.

 

You might want to consider traveling on the bus direct to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, one block west of Times Square. There's a bus stop on North Avenue, just east of U.S. routes 1 and 9, a short 2-mile taxi ride from your hotel. Buses on New Jersey Transit bus route 112 travel non-stop from that location to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Departing at approximately 8:07 a.m., the bus is scheduled to arrive in New York at 8:41 a.m. The fare for seniors is $3.20. On the way back, you might travel on New Jersey Transit bus route 111, which travels directly from the Port Authority Bus Terminal to your hotel in Elizabeth, or bus route 115, which on some trips travels directly from the Port Authority Bus Terminal to the Jersey Gardens Mall, across the street from your hotel in Elizabeth. The last route 111 bus departs New York at 4:15 p.m., route 115 buses depart New York at 9:00 p.m., 10:30 p.m., and 11:50 p.m. Otherwise, route 112 buses return regularly from New York to North Avenue.

The bus sounds like too much for us. DH has a slight mobility issue so we will have to use taxi or Uber. Do you think we will have a problem getting a Uber at 7-730? 

[mjkacmom]

7 minutes ago, Lorey2007 said:

The bus sounds like too much for us. DH has a slight mobility issue so we will have to use taxi or Uber. Do you think we will have a problem getting a Uber at 7-730? 

You should be fine, my husband just took an Uber at 4:30 am to Newark airport. You can also arrange car service. Taxi cabs can’t take passengers back and forth to the city so not a good option. We live 10 miles west of Manhattan, when my husband took the bus to work in midtown he gave himself a solid hour.

[Lorey2007]

10 minutes ago, mjkacmom said:

You should be fine, my husband just took an Uber at 4:30 am to Newark airport. You can also arrange car service. Taxi cabs can’t take passengers back and forth to the city so not a good option. We live 10 miles west of Manhattan, when my husband took the bus to work in midtown he gave himself a solid hour.

Do you have the name of the car service?

[mjkacmom]

1 minute ago, Lorey2007 said:

Do you have the name of the car service?

Dial 7 and Carmel are the ones I’ve heard mentioned they most, I think some of their drivers do Uber and Lyft too but scheduling it in advance is nice (I’m still not sure if scheduling Uber in advance is actually scheduling a particular driver).

[Lorey2007]

5 minutes ago, mjkacmom said:

Dial 7 and Carmel are the ones I’ve heard mentioned they most, I think some of their drivers do Uber and Lyft too but scheduling it in advance is nice (I’m still not sure if scheduling Uber in advance is actually scheduling a particular driver).

Thanks I'll check them out.

 

[princeton123211]

1 hour ago, Lorey2007 said:

Thanks I'll check them out.

From Elizabeth Uber will be very available-- no need to preschedule a car service unless you want to.

 

Your 7:30 departure time is fine-- you will most likely get there with plenty of time to grab some coffee but it will also ensure that even if you hit a lot of traffic your tour won't be impacted. In likelihood you could leave around 8:15 and still make it but I would do the same as you and buffer it by 45 minutes if 9:30 is a hard start time, which it sounds like it is.  

[Lorey2007]

8 minutes ago, princeton123211 said:

From Elizabeth Uber will be very available-- no need to preschedule a car service unless you want to.

 

Your 7:30 departure time is fine-- you will most likely get there with plenty of time to grab some coffee but it will also ensure that even if you hit a lot of traffic your tour won't be impacted. In likelihood you could leave around 8:15 and still make it but I would do the same as you and buffer it by 45 minutes if 9:30 is a hard start time, which it sounds like it is.  

Oh thank you feeling much better now. Our tour starts at 10 but it is requested to be there at 9:30. 

 

[GTJ]

33 minutes ago, Lorey2007 said:

Our tour starts at 10 but it is requested to be there at 9:30.

You already had a built-in buffer, so that gives you an extra half hour! A planned departure time between 7:30 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. should work. You may get a good travel day, and get into the city quickly with plenty of time to spare. It is also possible that you'll experience the traffic that nearly everyone despises--it is such a terrible introduction to New York City--but this timing should accommodate such a delay.

 

The video below shows the journey from the New Jersey Turnpike to midtown Manhattan on the most congested part of the trip, on a day when traffic is flowing reasonably well. It is about 15 to 20 minutes from your hotel to the point where the video begins, and it might be another 10 minutes (two crosstown avenues) from the end of the video to Times Square itself, for a total of about 45 minutes total travel time. When traffic is heavy, the buses continue to move regularly, but the automotive traffic will stand still.

 

[Lorey2007]

Thanks everyone I have a plan I hope it works. Call Uber at 7:15 and hopefully arrive in about a hour to hour and a half at our meeting point. Stop at Gregory's cafe for a quick coffee and muffin and meet the tour at 9:30.  If we're stuck in traffic I'll be praying.

[Lorey2007]

Well our plan didn't work out. When we arrived I asked at Embassy Suites about the Uber pick up to NYC. She proceeded to tell me that you can order it but it will be most likely cancelled.  She gave me a card of a private car service.  Went to the room and tried to pre order Uber for the next day with no luck.  I then called the private car service and arranged it for the next morning. It came with a hefty price and he came back to pick us up later and even waited 45 min when the tour ran over.  These 2 seniors survived and we had a great time.