Day 9: Exploring Asbury Beach, Jersey Shore Premium Outlet & The Mills towards NY

17th April 2022

We are having breakfast promptly at 8 o'clock - even before the sociable big families. There is the usual: scrambled eggs with bacon, meatballs, porridge, giant waffles with maple syrup and pancakes, along with toast and a selection of jams and honey. Of course - authentically American and the biggest environmental mess ever - also served on plastic plates with plastic cutlery. Sooooo terrible...

Shortly after 10 o'clock, we reach the Jersey Shore Premium Outlets and discover a Walmart Supercenter right next to it. We stop here first because we urgently need a 7th suitcase... 🤭🙈🫣

In Walmart, we are once again fascinated by the "packaging sizes" and the abundance of products. We remember all too well our RV tours through the US and Canada, where the first shopping trip for a 3-week RV adventure ended with 4 full XXL shopping carts.

However, it has been several years since we last visited an American Walmart, so we are fascinated and shocked at the same time.

We take the smallest shopping cart and load it with a few bottles of water, snacks, and some finger food fruits & vegetables for the road.

Then, we go on the search for a suitcase and we find one: it is a 90-liter capacity trolley duffel bag - should be sufficient.

Back at the outlet, we realize at around 10:45 that the outlet does not open at 11 as expected, but today - it's Easter Sunday (!) - it opens at 12. Darn...

Since the weather is nice, we decide to go to the beach. In just 15 minutes, we reach the promenade at Asbury Beach Park and relax on the beach and promenade. It is cold and windy again, but the sun is shining! Unfortunately, it is still off-season, all restaurants are still closed, otherwise, we would have liked to have a coffee or have lunch already.

Shockingly, we find a vending machine at the beach where you can get a "Daily Beach Pass" for $5 per person on weekdays and $7 per person on weekends (during high season!?). Hello??? Seriously!? Well, today no one seems to be checking, and we don't want to sit on the beach for hours anyway. Crazy.... 😱😡🙈

At 12 o'clock sharp, we enter the Jersey Shore Premium Outlets and visit the usual shops. By now, we are familiar with the assortment, even though there are differences between the outlets. We still discover some new shops, and our son has also developed a taste for shopping and ends up with 3 pairs of Nikes and several t-shirts.

After lunch and a thorough shopping spree, we leave the outlets in the afternoon and continue towards New York City. Here, we want to make our final shopping stop. The destination is "The Mills" at Jersey Gardens, New Jersey's largest mall. And that's something we were not aware of: it is actually a mall - an indoor shopping center!

And it is crowded here!!! The stores are bursting at the seams. The husband is extremely excited when he approaches the crowded parking lot (Hello? Do you all have to go shopping on Easter Sunday???) and luckily finds a parking spot right away. The mall is packed with people. We first stop at Dunkin Donuts and treat ourselves to a coffee. Just as delicious as Starbucks, but with less waiting time and much cheaper. We remember this place! Our son also gets a Double Chocolate Donut on top. Then we dive into the hustle and bustle. We stick to the essential shops, with the Hollister store being at the top of the list here, much to the delight of the kids. With 40% off everything, the credit card has to be swiped here as well. Unfortunately, it doesn't work out for us to visit the Nike store either - there is an endless line of eager shoppers waiting outside. We would have to wait in line for an hour just to get into the store. No way! Our daughter reluctantly finds "shoe replacement" at Converse, and then we spend the time until the mall closes at 6 o'clock following the "almost 18-year-old daughter" in search of the perfect dress....

I am really relieved when the stores start closing one by one at 6 o'clock and my daughter can no longer try on everything she wants. In the end, she finds the almost perfect dress and everyone is happy! Hooray!

So, off to the car with all the new bags (I wonder if everything will fit in the new suitcase???), and towards Manhattan.

Manhattan welcomes us directly with a toll fee of $16 to use the Lincoln Tunnel from Weehawken/Jersey to Manhattan/NY. The husband is naturally thrilled once again.

We navigate through the traffic across Manhattan on our way to Queens, where our hotel for the next week is located. Of course, we get lost several times, but thanks to the "grid system" of the American metropolis, it is quite easy to find an alternative route ("Then just take the next right...” 😇).

We reach our hotel "LIC Hotel" in the Queens district at 8:30 pm. The hotel was incredibly affordable for our family, especially since it also offers breakfast, which is very important to us. We didn't want to spend time in the morning looking for somewhere to have breakfast.

After checking into our rooms (the kids have a double room with 2 single beds, we have a king-size room), we receive a recommendation at the reception to have dinner at the "Court Square Diner". It is only a few minutes' walk away - perfect!

And the recommendation is great: we love the diner! A real diner, just as you know it from Hollywood movies. The owner, a Greek, is very nice and the food is truly fantastic! One person raves about never having eaten a better moussaka. Salads, wraps, and ravioli are delicious, and the portions are more than generous (we all can't finish our plates. The $80 at the end are definitely worth it! Super tasty!

We fall into bed at 11 o'clock and unfortunately can only sleep to a limited extent tomorrow since we have to return our rental car to an Avis station in Manhattan at 9 o'clock. Tonight, we had to use the hotel's $20 parking lot (the husband would have preferred to drive around the surrounding streets for half an hour to find a free parking spot), but reluctantly agreed to leave the car parked for today.

Starting tomorrow, we are getting rid of the car because, just like in Washington DC, it is absolutely impractical to have a car in these big cities. And the $20 at our hotel is by far the cheapest we have seen for parking garages in New York so far.