Monday, January 14, 2013 • 5:30pm

NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS
1535 Broadway
New York, NY 10036

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Image from Hotels.com

I would recommend Yotel for the location and modern ambience.

We were able to book using a Travelzoo promotion and paid a total of $415.45 for one night at a spacious “first cabin” which is similar to a suite in other hotels.

LOCATION
The hotel is a walk away from Times Square, but not a short walk. It is a 10-minute walk from the closest subway station. Regardless, the area is pretty convenient with a CVS right across the street and restaurants everywhere.

PREMISES
The hotel was clean and decorated accordingly with the technological amenities the hotel offered. First floor lobby is practically manned by technology. Kiosks lined the left wall for checking in and out. A robot on the right side of the lobby holds your luggage for you. There were a couple of hotel staff in the lobby to help out the technologically-challenged. The main front desk manned by humans was on the 4th floor. You have to go to the 4th floor to get to the elevators that service the cabin floors.

STAFF
We haven’t had much interaction with the staff except when housekeeping came to drop off extra towels I requested. He was quite friendly.

ROOMS
We were given cabin 814, a first cabin with terrace and hot tub. It was a very nice room and very spacious especially for a NY hotel.

The big space however wasn’t fully utilized. The closet was tiny when it could have been bigger.

There was really no night stand. The desk is tiny which is situated on one side of the bed serving as a night stand on one side. A bed table is tucked in on the other side of the bed which was nice. The king bed wasn’t soft, but I found it fine.

The TV wasn’t small, but watching all the way from the bed (too far) makes the size inadequate. The room was pretty clean except for one feminine wash packet I found between the couches.

The bathroom was pretty spacious with a huge shower. The bathroom walls were glass and curtain and blinds covered the walls for privacy. I like that there was a door in the bathroom that opens into the terrace.

The shower head was nice. The heated towel rack wasn’t working.

There was not a lot of counter space in the bathroom. There were 2 bath towels, 2 beach towels, 3 hand towels and a very soft bathrobe. Instead of the boxed facial tissues you usually find in hotels, there were 2 travel-size facial tissues which I hated. There was only one very tiny trash can located in the bathroom which I found insufficient.

The terrace was huge, but there was no view. The sides were covered with metal fences and tall greeneries. I hate that there were no lights in the terrace except for the small spotlights lighting the greeneries.

The hot tub was a 2-person tub, though 4 of my girlfriends and I did fit in there. The plug for the drain didn’t work very well in covering the drain. Sometimes we had to let the water flow while we were in the tub to keep the water at level.

AMENITIES

Galley
Each cabin floor had a “mini kitchen” galley and the 8th floor galley was right across our room. Your room key card is needed to access the galley. The galley was equipped with ice, water and coffee machine, microwave, small fridge, and a soft drink vending machine. There were complimentary coffee, tea, latte, espresso and hot chocolate which was a plus.

MY RATING:

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Work is slow in the Summer so I decided to host a picnic party for the family one Sunday.  It wasn’t perfect, but we had fun.

Invitation

Click here to download invitation template

We visited a few parks and settled with Flushing Meadows Corona Park.  The park was huge, but beautiful.  The park had a lot of trees spread out making it great for picnics and/or barbecues especially on sunny days.

Click here for a printable map

We went to the park the weekend before the picnic to find a good spot and figure out how soon we need to get there to reserve it.  We found the perfect spot with a view of the lake, and close to the parking lot and bathroom.  We got there around 11:30am and luckily the spot was available!

We have set up a “Pack-Your-Own” picnic where guests get a basket each, fill their baskets with food, find a spot on the grass and enjoy their lunch.  I have created a welcome poster describing the concept.

Click here to download poster template.
Poster is 15″ x 21″ and can be printed on 4 letter-size paper.
When printing, check the option to tile large pages.

I covered the table with red and white gingham tablecloth.  I bought baskets from Paper Mart for guests to use.  I lined the baskets with red and white gingham fabric that I bought at the garment district in NYC.  I decided to use wooden forks and knives (I love them!) and tied them to Tekla dish towels from Ikea that I was using as napkins.

We served salad in white take-out containers from Paper Mart.  We left the containers open so guests can add dressing, there were two to choose from.  I printed 2×4 labels for sealing the salad containers.  My mom cooked Sotanghon (Filipino noodle dish) and we served it in kraft take-out containers, sealed with 2×4 labels.  Click here for template for the 2×4 labels.

I couldn’t find generic foil-lined bags that are not labeled, so I bought foil lined hot dog bags instead for the pork shish kabobs (pork bbq).  I then printed labels to cover the “hot dog” text.  I used the kraft take-out containers for the burgers.  I ordered wood boats for the corn and bratwurst.

Here are photos of my cousins’ baskets filled with food.

After eating, we played Pictionary.  I bought the Mala easel from Ikea together with the Mala drawing paper roll.  We used The Game Gal’s word generator to generate words to draw and we used our phones as timer.  It was a lot of fun.

I chose this spot in the park because of a small tree that I thought would be perfect for a “photo booth” I was thinking.  And here was our set-up and one of our photos:

A few tips:

• Visit the park ahead of time and figure out the best time to get there to reserve the spot you like. Summer is a very popular season for picnics.
• Serve food that can be served lukewarm. This is one disadvantage of hosting a picnic in a park instead of your backyard.
• If you can, pack the food in their individual containers at home. It is less stressful when you have the food all ready to be set up on the table when you get to the park.
• Be prepared for guests to bring food. The original plan was to have all food in containers that can be sealed. But bring plates and extra flatware for food that guests may bring.
• Have a rain plan.

The work week was pretty successful.  No major problems with the roll-out at work.  To celebrate, my husband met me in the city to watch The Avengers.

I left my work building and I started having abdominal pain.  It was tolerable so I decided to walk from work to Union Square.  I figured it was just gas and it will go away after a few minutes.  Food in tow, we sat ourselves at the movie theater and waited for the movie to start.  The pain got worse.  I was fine I thought.  I convinced myself it will go away.  Half an hour later, the pain didn’t go away, it was more severe.  I needed to go to the ER.

Midnight came and I was told I needed surgery to take out my appendix.  I had laparoscopic appendectomy the next morning.

Ready for surgery

After the surgery, I was sent back to my hospital room appendix-free.  They kept me overnight for observation and I had this for a view.

New York City

Now I stay at home resting… hoping that from all these, I have become stronger and ready to face whatever fate may have in store for me.

5/16/12: A month filled with a whole lot of emotions, part 1
5/17/12: A month filled with a whole lot of emotions, part 2
5/18/12: A month filled with a whole lot of emotions, part 3