Sister act was a huge hit with the children, they laughed all the way through and really enjoyed the songs.

Up and out again early the next day. After a deli breakfast we walked the few blocks up to Central Park and over to the ice skating rink. My daughter (having gone on and on about ice skating) then decided she no longer wanted to do it, so we watched the others for a while before walking back out of the park and picking up a horse and carriage ride. This was a very short ride and in my view not worth the money, but it felt a bit like a "must do" thing in New York.

We then headed off to the Natural History Museum and spent some time trying to spot all the things we had seen in the film "Night at the Museum". We also saw the film at the planetarium which was excellent before walking back through the park to the Hotel. All in all we spent about 3 hours in the park and saw only a fraction of it, it really is huge and in my opinion quite beautiful.

For dinner we went to Outback, before walking into Time Square. Time Square was absolutely heaving and all of the preparations for New Year were in full swing with sound systems, stages and of course barriers being put up everywhere. The reason we went though was that we had booked to travel on "The Ride" at 8.30. This was a real highlight for us. We boarded a coach where the ceiling and one whole side was glass and the seats were laid out facing this side like a cinema. It was full of lights and screens and there were two "tour guides". The coach then sets of on a tour of New York with lots of fun interactions. I don't think I can do it justice here, but there were break dancers, rappers, singers, ballet dancers etc at certain points of the route who interact with the people on the coach. You are of course on permanent view and everywhere you go people stop to wave etc. My highlight was returning to Time Square whilst the whole coach was singing New York New York and hundreds of people who were walking on the street stopping and joining in. If you are ever in NY I highly recommend this, we laughed for nearly the whole tour.

Today is New Years Eve and we are going to have a lazy one getting our strength up for the big one tonight...Having taken lots of advice, we have decided not to go to Time Square as you have to get there really early (about 2pm) and there are no restrooms etc so that means no drinking or eating for 10 hours!! Instead we have booked on a cruise which travels all around the island, has a children's party floor, band etc and then gets in position to see the fireworks at midnight. There is also plenty of screens on board to watch the ball drop from. Afterwards we have booked a stretch limo to take us back to the hotel (my son will be particularly pleased about this as every time we pass one he restarts his campaign to get us to hire one!).