Frommer's(r) New York City with Kids, 8th Edition

Rating:
Summary: Informative guide for travel with kids
Review: While this seemed like a good guide while planning the trip, in actual fact it was not terribly useful. It's poorly organized, so trying to figure out, on the fly, if there is a decent restaurant near an attraction means flipping back to the index too many times. The author also gave starred attraction prominence to a couple of places where she qualified it in the description with, it may take too long to get here for too little to do. Hmmm. Also the restaurant guidelines needed some sort of a noise index. This is one of those books that assumes kids will only be happy in an atmosphere of Disneyland-like frenzy. I like my kids to eat a normal variety of food (not chicken fingers or cheeseburgers only) in normal restaurants. The two restaurants we tried from the book were so unbelievably loud with non-stop sensory stimulation we couldn't speak to one another. After that I ducked into a bookstore and bought Fodor's Around NYC With Kids and packed this one permanently in the suitcase. I want a guide that lets me know if a place can tolerate a crying baby -- I don't need the waiters always dressed in "character" doing floor shows to get my kids to eat.

Rating:
Summary: Not practical
Review: While this seemed like a good guide while planning the trip, in actual fact it was not terribly useful. It's poorly organized, so trying to figure out, on the fly, if there is a decent restaurant near an attraction means flipping back to the index too many times. The author also gave starred attraction prominence to a couple of places where she qualified it in the description with, it may take too long to get here for too little to do. Hmmm. Also the restaurant guidelines needed some sort of a noise index. This is one of those books that assumes kids will only be happy in an atmosphere of Disneyland-like frenzy. I like my kids to eat a normal variety of food (not chicken fingers or cheeseburgers only) in normal restaurants. The two restaurants we tried from the book were so unbelievably loud with non-stop sensory stimulation we couldn't speak to one another. After that I ducked into a bookstore and bought Fodor's Around NYC With Kids and packed this one permanently in the suitcase. I want a guide that lets me know if a place can tolerate a crying baby -- I don't need the waiters always dressed in "character" doing floor shows to get my kids to eat.