Skating at Rockefeller Center

As with all my blog entries related to our trip to Manhattan,
this one will also be heavy in photos.
There is also a relatively short video at the bottom of the page.

We were scheduled for skating sessions at Rockefeller Center and Bryant Park during our stay in Manhattan.  First up was Rockefeller Center though.  I don't remember why we chose Rockefeller Center first but it might have had something to do with being able to make a reservation much farther in advance than at Bryant Park.

Sheila scheduled their skating session at Rockefeller Center for 7:20am which happened to be shortly after sunrise.  This meant we would be walking to Rockefeller Center in the dark which we didn't realize until after she chose the time.  Walking in the dark is not a problem.  We simply were not expecting it.  We wanted to beat the crowds and figured the earliest times would be best for less crowded rinks.  Actually, since it was still dark out, that made the walk even nicer with all the Christmas decorations.

We left the hotel before 7am and the sidewalks and roads were empty but all the Christmas decorations were lit.  It was at this point that I realized the best time to walk around Manhattan to see Christmas decorations was very early in the morning.  Unfortunately, we had already arranged our entire trip schedule and that was arranged to be more in line with nighttime activities.  The walk to the rinks in the mornings was really nice though.

As you can see in these first couple of photos, the sky was just beginning to turn blue and the streets were quiet.  It made for a very nice walk...

When we arrived at Rockefeller Center, the Zamboni was on the ice getting it prepared for the first skating session of the day...

You can see Kenzie and Gee on line waiting to get into the rink until they went down the steps and into the building to check in and put on their skates...

They're on the ice!  This was Gee's first time on skates since bruising her knee and ribs very badly a week before our trip so she was slow to get back into skating again on this morning.  

Before long, the wind was whipping pretty good and Lukey and I were freezing.  The wind was causing a lot of wind noise on the video clips too so I moved to an area that was a bit more protected from the wind.

After a short while, even that new location was getting windy and cold so Lukey and I moved between the buildings toward Sak's Fifth Avenue.  There was no wind at all in this area because it was being blocked by the buildings so it was significantly warmer for us.  This allowed me to capture a few more photos of Rockefeller Center...  oh, and a few of Lukey too...

The 'Top of the Rock' building (which is now also known, perhaps more infamously, as the Comcast Building)...

I was able to get a few photos of Lukey while we were waiting on the girls to finish skating...

Below, Lukey is checking out the Sak's rather boring light display...  I believe he is trying to decipher the symbols in the display...

You know...  it is funny...  we were so focused on figuring out where Kenzie and Gee needed to go to get to the rink that we completely forgot to find out where they would leave the rink and where Lukey and I should meet them!  After about a half hour, I realized that I hadn't seen anyone leaving the rink so they must be leaving through one of the buildings around the rink.  I didn't know which one though!

I figured out the most likely building they would emerge from but I still had no idea which set of doors they would use.  There were doors on each side of the building.  I ended up asking one of the Rockefeller Center employees where we should meet those leaving the rink and he pointed to a set of doors behind me toward Fifth Avenue so that is where Lukey and I waited.  There was no wind in this location so it was a nice place to wait!

It seemed like it was taking forever for the girls to come back up to street level and it was beginning to get close to our breakfast reservation time so I was keeping an eye on my watch.  We later found out that they forgot which locker was their locker so they had to get help!  It turns out they had been trying to get into the correct locker but the lock wasn't opening for them.  Eventually, the Rockefeller Center rink attendants got them into their locker to retrieve their shoes.

Gee and Kenzie had a great time skating!  When they finally emerged back at street level, we made our way over toward Grand Central Terminal.  We had breakfast at one of our favorite breakfast spots, Pershing Square, which is more of a higher end cafe (definitely the best breakfast of our entire trip).  This restaurant is located directly across the street from Grand Central Terminal so, after breakfast, I gave the kids a relatively quick tour of Grand Central Terminal before heading back to the hotel to drop off ice skates.  

I'll write more about our visit to Grand Central Terminal in another blog entry.

In the meantime, here is a relatively short video of Kenzie and Gee skating at Rockefeller Center...