New York with children

[Nickinoo30]

We are thinking about booking a week in New next Easter. Our children will be 9 and (nearly) 4.

DH is concerned about what we would do in the evening with the children (last time we went was before kids so bars featured heavily!)

Will they just be jetlagged so it will just be dinner and bed? Leaving us sitting in the dark at 9pm!

I was thinking cinema, basketball game, a show! An I just deluded?

Any advice gratefully received.

They'll probably be a bit tired the first evening or two, but after that should hopefully be ok. But it does depend on your children, are they used to being up late on holiday?
How about the cinema? Or Times Square in the evening is good, they'd probably love the M&M World. Or do the Empire State Building after dark, the city looks amazing all lit up.

I took my just turned 6 year old to New York last October. We were up & out early and done so much sightseeing that I was delighted to be in bed by 9pm! It was exhausting but amazing.

We did 5 days in New York last summer with our kids who were 7 and 3. We had a great time. On day 1 we were up really early, but it meant we got to see the city while it was quiet and were first in the queue for the Empire State Building. Some days we had an afternoon nap and then headed out in the evening (the sunset cruise was great), other days we just got take out. We stayed at the Beacon hotel, which meant we were in separate rooms, so at least we didn't have to sit in the dark and could watch some tv. We walked for miles, but there were playparks everywhere, which the kids loved.
We never expected that it would be as fun and easy as it was with 2 kids in tow!

New York is fab with kids! Afternoon nap sounds like a plan if you want them to stay up late. Or save for a posh hotel where they have a babysitting service AND an amazing restaurant on site

A kids show could work, but I'm not sure about a basketball game. I don't think either of mine would've enjoyed that at nearly-4. There are some fun themed restaurants though, carriage rides through Central Park, restaurants at the top of tall buildings so you can see the lights, etc, that would appeal to the whole family.

We went to NYC with our kids last Oct. They were nearly-8 and 4.5. First couple of days they were really jet-lagged, but then so were we so it was okay. We just had early nights. Once we adjusted it was like being anywhere else - you just do what you feel like doing.

I guess my top tip would be to try and find an apartment, even a small one, so you're not all stuck in one room. We stayed at the Radio City Apartments and that worked quite well as its central. An Air BnB place would've been better, I think, but we couldn't find one we liked the look of for the dates we were there.

You will need to stay in a hotel or somewhere like the Radio City apartments that Juneau described. Practically all NYC apartment rentals under 30 days are illegal and these are sublet illegally by the tenant under the terms of their lease. Sites like you mention also do not check the veracity of such listings so these need to be avoided anyway.

There are suite based hotel chains and aparthotels in NYC (chains like the Embassy Suites, Doubletree suites by Hilton, Homewood Suites). All are worth considering.