Thinking of taking the Mrs for a 50th birthday celebration trip. No idea where to start with flights and accommodation. What would you advise?
Would you say 4 nights is ample? Looking to do all the usual suspects in terms of sight-seeing.
I've done it in all seasons and Feb is pretty cold, and you have to hope you don't get hit by any big winter storms that can limit your plans sometimes.
In terms of flights the timing is the thing that I look at first, and the local arrival time vs departure time. It's ~7.5 hours flight time and you will be -5 hours as EST from GMT, so be aware you'll need to 're-live' those 5 hours again. For me I prefer getting a flight that arrives at 19:00-21:00 local time, so looking at a flight leaving at 16:00-18:00 UK time, this means by the time you get there, checked in, eat something you'll be knackered and ready for a good nights sleep to start bright and early the following morning.
I also prefer going to EWR (Newark) than JFK, as you can jump on the New Jersey transit train (via Air Train) from there to Penn Station on 34th Street for ~$16 each and the trains are very frequent all times of day, and in total you are looking at 45 mins and it is easy if you aren't carting loads of baggage. Taxi's are $70-90 depending on the airport and time of day. You can also do similar via JFK but need to get the Air Train to Jamaica Station and then the subway to wherever you are staying, interesting introduction if you have never been there before.
In terms of costs for flights if you are booking now BA/Virgin direct from London return is £330-380 depending on the exact dates, and how many checked bags you want to take with you. If you are travelling from a regional airport it can be a similar price and if you are smart and book well you can fly via Dublin, meaning you can clear US customs in Dublin before you board the plane saving you a significant amount of time and hassle at the other end (trust me US customs is not fun). As a single example BHX (Birmingham) via Dublin to JFK is £388, with a good 3-4 hours layover in Dublin in case of delays. Ultimately I have no idea where you live in the UK so hard to give accurate advice, just general.
Accommodation, as you might have different standards it is hard to recommend, and as it is for a 50th Birthday you might want something special - Manhattan is expensive per night. You can find some decent deals on Hotwire/Priceline if you know how to use the sites well and get some really good deals. An example I had for a colleague's wedding anniversary recently was 4* Park Lane Hotel right on Park Avenue overlooking Central Park, between The Plaza Hotel and The Ritz Carlton, that was £162 per night including taxes/fees which was much cheaper than if booked via Expedia etc. However it can pay to check sites like Virgin Holidays and BA holidays as they sometimes have decent offers on when booking with flights as well.
In terms of number of days 4 busy days will let you do a lot, but if you don't like hustle and bustle and rushing around you might not get as much done as you expect, as there is shed loads to do there, my advise is use the subway even though you'll miss somethings from not walking if you are time poor and it is cold you'll be better off for it. Getting from the hotel I mentioned to Bowling Green/South Ferry (for Statue of Liberty) is 20 mins on the subway or a 5 mile/1h 40 min walk. If the weather is inclement there are loads of indoor activities as well, many museums, MOMA, Natural History, Guggenheim, 9/11 etc. Again I have no idea what you or your wife likes so hard for me to say go see the Intrepid museum, ans you might hate planes/space shuttles and boats etc. You have all the usual stuff, like going up Rockefeller tower so you get to see the Manhattan skyline, great as the sunsets. I've done the helicopter tour around it a few times, that was fun, and if you like history Ellis Island immigration museum is very interesting , you can do that at the same time as going to Liberty Island.
More data from you is needed really, but perhaps some of that was helpful.
