I have just came back from a 2 week holiday in New York last week. This wasn't my 1st time there and people say to me "why do you want to go for so long?". I know that New York can typically be a place where a lot of people just go for a few days, and this could be because it is so expensive over there for Hotels but we could afford the 2 weeks so we went for the 2 weeks. This was my 1st time going up "The Rock".

Opening Times/Tickets/Pricing
-------------------------------------

This is open from 8am-midnight 365 days a year! Not sure if the opening times vary depending on holidays though.

You can buy your tickets for The Rock in advance or just when you get there. I plumped to buy our Tickets before we went. This was for 2 reasons -

1. The money for the Tickets wasn't coming off our spending money

2. After not buying our Tickets for the Empire State Building the last time and having to wait approx 40 minutes to get the Tickets last time along with waiting in the other queues then it has been pre-booked Tickets all the way this time. Anything that saves me standing in less queues is good for me!

You can buy the Tickets from the official website www.topoftherocknyc.com. The prices from this website are below

Adult $25
Child 6-12 $16
Senior (over 62) $23
Sunrise/Sunset Adult $38
Sunrise/Sunset Child $20

Bearing in mind that the $ is approx $1.50 = £1 (may not be as good as that when you pay on your card and your Card issuer does the conversion) then an adult Ticket will cost approx £18 perhaps. The Sunrise/Sunset Ticket allows you access twice in 1 day so you can experience the view in the daytime with good clear visability (hopefully) and night time with all the nice lights. We didn't bother with this ticket as we had seen the Empire State Building at night the last time we were there so didn't feel the need to do this twice. It would be a good enough option if you want to see the city at night, or perhaps go to the Empire through the day and here at night?? The Empire doesn't give you a 2 visits in 1 day option and this building is cheaper to go up than the Empire so if you are on a budget then this will still give you a good view of the city - although it isn't as high as the Empire. Anyway, this review is about the Rock, not about the Empire :-)

I bought my Tickets from www.Viator.com. I paid only £12.86 per Ticket as there was a 10% sale on which seems to be on this Ticket quite often on Viator. Even with this the full price it is cheaper to buy this through Viator than the official site. Although you will have to state a date when you plan to use this on Viator it is a flexible ticket and you have 12 months from the date you have entered on the ticket to use this - so I just put down the day after we landed in the city, and I used the ticket 1 week later with no problems. I've used Viator for quite a few tickets so I would recommend a check of their website to compare prices for different Tours in different places.

A little bit about the Rockefeller Centre
-------------------------------------------------

It took 9 years to build the Rock, and building started in 1930. There is 3 Observation floors in the Rock - these are the 67th floor, 69th and 70th Floor. The highest observation deck is 850 feet above the streets below.

The entrance to the building is located between West 49th and West 50th street on 5th Avenue (on the other side of 5th it changes to the East side). The Building is set back from the main street a bit so you can stand back a bit and take some nice picture of the height and view of the building. The building does take up the block so if you walk passed the Building and then turn left to go along W 50th then you will see the base of the building and even if you turn down 6th avenue at the end of the road and go left then you will still see the base of the building. This part of the building is home to different shops and businesses. Radio City Music Hall is in here (you can go on a tour of this as well seperately) as well as the NBC Studios (again a Tour opportunity).

The outside of the centre is pretty nice as well. If you have watched the film "Home Alone 2" where Kevin is at the Christmas Tree at the end of the film that is in front of the Rockefeller (and the Plaza Hotel where he stayed isn't too far away either!) There is greenery as well as Flowers and lots of Flags from different countries.

It is easy enough to navigate through the entrance. Just go in and to the right hand side. You will then be told to go downstairs but there is access if you need it by Wheelchair or cannot manage the Stairs. You walk down a wide spiral staircase which has a beautiful long Swarovski Chandelier with Fibre Optic Light going down the middle of it. Downstairs is where they check/issue your tickets. We went approx 9.30am and only had to wait 1 minute. Not sure if it does get pretty busy here but I was still glad of the prebooked Tickets. Once you have your tickets you take a short walk to the Lift where you will go through a quick security screening. Quick and easy. After this you will have a short walk. While you are walking you get to see different pictures of the building as well as read facts about the building. There is also a short film about the Rock too if you want to watch it for a few minutes. The staff will try to take your Photo against a background of the building. I never bother about these as am not fussed.

Going Up
-----------

It is a short ride in the lift to the 67th floor. The Lift is quite nice. There is light on the inside of the lift shaft and you can see yourself going up - but not in a scary way. The top of the lift has TV screens in it and it plays a short film on loop. Would have been good if the floor was glass I think - don't look down :-)

So you are on the 67th floor - the most spacious of the floors due to the fact that the building gets narrower the higher that it goes. There is a spacious inside bit which has comfy seats and a few more bits of info about the building. To get the best views though you will have to go outside. When you are ouside you can go straight up to near the edge and there is large panels of toughened glass seperating you from the edge. The glass doesn't join up all together, so you will get the odd breeze through it, which unsettled Alex as he is scared of heights. The view from this level I think is great. You get the height but in some cases the buildings can nearly be the height you are, or just a bit taller. Although I loved being on the 102nd floor of the Empire you are really just looking down onto the tops of buildings whereas I think this does give a good view in it's own way. Buildings are clear enough and it is easy to spot some of the familiar ones such as the Empire, Chrysler, Freedom Tower, Central Park, Statue of Liberty (little speck in the distance!) and so on. There is a good amount of space to mill around here, and there is some Binoculur things so you can zoom in on certain parts of the city if you wish. These cost 1 quarter (25c) for a few minutes.

To get up to the 69th Floor you go up an esculator and the area here is smaller but obviously higher so you see much of the same but just looks a bit different. To get to the final level - floor 70 you walk up a small staircase from outside to the middle of the 70th floor. On the 69th and 70th floor there is no glass and just railings but it feels safe enough - perhaps because if you look down then you will see the levels below. The view still looks great from the top and you really get an idea of how large Central Park is with the large green patch amongst the "Concrete Jungle". The air is nice and crisp up here and although you may pick up the odd Toot of a Car horn up here it is quite peaceful. There is no seating on the 69th and 70th and although I think it would be nice to sit up here I guess with the limited space and amount of tourists then I can understand why there is no seating.

There is members of staff milling about so happy to answer any questions about the building or "what's that building?" questions.

The gift shop in here is alright. Plenty of different New York gifts and not just things with this building on it.

So would I recommend a visit to here? Yes. Ok so to compare against the other building - Empire State this doesn't let you up quite as high, but as I said it does give you a great view of the City and is cheaper than the Empire - Empire is £25 if you want up to the 102 floor, so perhaps half the price for just as great a view.

An impressive building which gives an impressive view of an amazing city.