After realising we could visit Cape May and Atlantic City in a day, we now had a free Sunday to fill. The weather was set to be sunny so we decided to visit Ellis Island. We had visited the Statue of Liberty 4 years ago with the kids from NYC and had climbed to the crown but we did not venture on to Ellis Island.

We booked ferry tickets from Liberty State park and set off really early to give ourselves plenty of time. We arrived in the car-park at about 9.30am (for our 10.15am ferry) and realised we didn’t really want to take bags with us as you can’t take them into the statue so sat and ate our lunch as we didn’t know how long we’d be.

We still had plenty of time so had a walk around the ferry terminal. The building is beautiful as it is an old train station and all the old tracks are still in place showing where they would have led to. Also Liberty State Park must have the best views of the Manhattan skyline we have ever seen!

We boarded the ferry and sat outside on the top deck. As we waited for it to leave we were so cold so had to move inside. The ferry was pretty quiet, possibly due to the weather but also Corona-virus was starting to dominate the news so people were not going out so much. This meant we could move in and out as we liked to take photos.

Our first stop was Ellis Island. We went round the whole museum – it was really good and I do want to return with the kids.

^{Ellis Island Baggage and Immigration Halls}

We then boarded another ferry to get to the Statue of Liberty. We played around on deck for a bit trying to take some cool photos of the American Flag with Manhattan in the background before having to go back inside due to the cold.

^{Ferry between Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty}

Once at the Statue we went straight in and headed for the pedestal. There was a queue for the lift so we took the stairs – it was a bit of a climb but nothing major. We had a wander and noticed the small stairs up to the crown which we’d climbed 4 years ago.

We then headed out and walked around the bottom at which point Izzy video called me from school so I was able to show her (and her friends who were also on the video call) where we were and show them the NYC skyline.

We then boarded our return ferry home. At this point we were hungry having eaten our lunch so early so bought a packet of Cheetos on the boat.