Day 12: 'Night at the Museum', Central Park & Phantom of the Opera

April 20, 2022

This morning at 10 o'clock we have a reservation for the American Museum of History. When we reach the museum, we encounter two seemingly endless queues. Hm, where should we line up? We decide to choose the shorter queue, which is at the entrance to the planetarium. It takes an hour until we finally reach the counter. By the way, there is a strict mask requirement in the museum! We had reserved a ticket for 10 o'clock with the New York City Pass and now we have to exchange our voucher for a ticket. It includes 2 special exhibitions that we can choose. Although we booked the FIRST time slot and reached the ticket counter at 11 o'clock, 2 out of 4 special exhibitions are already fully booked. Too bad, the exhibitions 'Sharks' and 'Butterflies' are no longer available, so we get tickets for the Hayden Planetarium (Hayden Planetarium Space Show) 'Worlds Beyond Earth' and for the Giant Screen Film 'Wings over Water'.

After a tour of the lower part of the museum with meteorites, we go directly upstairs to the 'cinema' for the screening of the film 'Wings over Water'. Although we were a bit disappointed not to get tickets for the Sharks and Butterflies, we are really excited about the film about the migratory birds of America and the endangered ecosystem. Absolutely recommendable!!!

After the film, we go straight to the planetarium, where we watch the space presentation. That's great and recommendable too. Flying through the galaxy is exciting 😜

Now we continue through the exhibition rooms. Past the highlights like Alaska Brown Bear, Blue Whale, of course the elephants, the dinosaurs and our personal highlight (we devoured all parts of 'Night at the Museum' 🤭), the Easter Island statue ('Dumb Dumb, give me Gum Gum!' 🤣)

Otherwise, we see here and there something that we recognize from the movies (Rexy) and explore the various exhibitions until early afternoon, then our feet are tired and our eyes can't absorb anymore...

So we go out to the food truck and then to Central Park to relax.

Central Park impresses us! Great!!! Such a big park with roads only for cyclists, joggers, and horse-drawn carriages. After watching the many dogs on the dog meadow, climbing the rocks, and successfully finding a restroom 🙈🙈🙈, we sit on a rock by the lake and enjoy the beautiful weather.

At around 5:30, we take the subway to Queens to the hotel. Quickly rest, change clothes, and then off to Broadway. Shortly before departure, I managed to get discounted tickets for 'Phantom of the Opera'. Half price - I couldn't resist the deal 😜

In front of the Majestic Theatre, there is already a long queue waiting for us. Our passports are meticulously compared to our vaccination certificates. You can only enter here with a COVID vaccination 😮.

We sit in the upper third, the 'Rear Mezzanine' in the middle, 1st row (A). Very cool seats, we look directly at the stage and can stretch our legs. It starts on time at 8 o'clock. By the way, there is also strictly controlled mask requirement here!

I already know the musical, I saw it many many years ago in Hamburg. Sonnyboy has gone through it in music class and also knows it from the musical school (yes, he would love to become an actor or musical star 😜), hubby and daughter only know the story and the theme song.

We really like the musical, as we leave our seats after 2.5 hours (with intermission). Tired and happy, we return to the hotel in Queens, where we quickly fall asleep tonight 😴😴😴