9/30: NYC Statue of Liberty Edition

Before entering the craziness of NYC, we parked in New Jersey and took the ferry to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. The New Jersey side parking is cheaper and more convenient than the New York side, so after much weighing of options that is what we settled on. The arrival to the parking was stressful because we were running late and didn't know how the ferry tickets worked exactly. Thankfully it all worked out because the time of the ferry ticket is just for the earliest ferry you can take, not the only time. Phew.

We had tickets to go to the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty (we were too late to buy crown tickets :( ), so we had to get there before they stopped letting people in, but Ellis Island was the first stop on the ferry. Oh so confusing! There was a tour starting at Ellis Island, so we jumped on the chance for an overview. The park ranger did an amazing job of leading us through the process of when immigrants arrived at Ellis Island. We saw mainly the outside and the main processing room which left us wanting to explore more, but we had to get to the Statue of Liberty, so we hopped on the ferry. :)

There was a tour starting right as we arrived there too! We decided that going to the pedestal first made more sense, so that is what we did instead. ;) I had really wanted to go to the crown so I was disappointed to only be going to the pedestal. The view from the pedestal was pretty cool though--and it was Alyssa's first time there so she LOVED it!! We will have to go back to go to the crown. :) On our way down we attempted multiple pictures of the statue, but the angle made it difficult to capture all of her. We had a few good laughs at how impossible it was!

*View from the pedestal 

One of my favorite parts of the Statue of Liberty time was the museum. It shared about the history of how the statue was made and gifted to us. There were also pictures and explanation about the opening day. Did you know only men were invited opening day?? It was amazing to be close and personal to life-size models of parts of the statue's body. She is huge!!

Since we wanted to see more of Ellis Island, we got on the NY side ferry, going the opposite direction to return to Ellis Island. We then had the chance to explore more of the rooms and gain a better understanding of what life was like arriving there...it was hard. We are so thankful we were able to return for a little more exploring.

Overall the day was crazy, but absolutely worth it!