I've been to New York many times.   My most previous was six years ago  when I took a Panda Tour for Hawaii football at West Point to play Army.  Stayed at the Sheraton, a short walk away from the Marriott Marquis.  This was the prime hotel for the 1964 New York World's Fair, and was at that time called the Americana.  501 feet high, this was once the tallest hotel in the world, with around 800 rooms. Our flight from Honolulu arrived early in the morning, and the 200 in the group had to wait in one of the ballrooms until mid-afternoon.  I was a Sheraton Lifetime Platinum member, so thought I'd check if I could get my room early.  I did, was successful and took a nap at 8:30AM while the others just did not do much.  It was raining outside. We had a  nice visit to West Point,  although we lost the game.  Also  went to Yankee Stadium,  had a Nathan's foot-long and garlic fries with beer.  Went to see  Book of Mormons  and  Beautiful .  Used the Hop-On/Hop-Off bus, and, of

  Well, the good news is that we're back in Honolulu, and all is well.  Started off in New York City. Hotel said there was a set $70 cost of the taxi ride to JFK Airport.  Well, when you add the toll charges and tip, it was up to $90.  That in itself was okay.  So we checked in for our 1PM departure time, which was ticketed more than three months ago.  After we picked up our tickets, we went to the excellent Alaska Airline lounge and was beginning a leisurely breakfast when we found out that we needed to board the plane at 11:05, which was less than half an hour away.  We never got any notice for this change.  We came extra early to be safe, and it turned out that we only barely made this flight. Some photos. Bloody Mary and champagne in Alaska Air lounge. Here is about when we learned we had only a few minutes rather than a couple of hours in the lounge.  Our plane. Goodbye Manhattan from air. Then noticed the plane we were on was the  Boeing 737 MAX  9, the one that lost a door i