New York City in Spring 2025

There really is nothing like a weekend trip to New York City, no matter what season it is. The last time Chris and I were in NYC was November 2024 – it was getting cold, the leaves had fallen, and it was getting dark earlier – still beautiful nonetheless. I had this great vision in my mind of what I wanted to do to celebrate my 29th birthday, and NYC was the focus. Actually, a gnocchi restaurant in the East Village is what inspired this entire trip (thank you Instagram). I planned the weekend festivities in February and it went down without a hitch!

The first part of the trip I planned was reserving dinner reservations at Gnoccheria in East Village. I found them on Instagram and was enamored by the gnocchi flight. From there, I remembered our AMEX credit card has so many great travel perks, including the Fine Hotel Collection. When booking through AMEX, I found The Beekman Hotel, which is a 5-star hotel in the Financial District of NYC. For one night (Easter weekend), it was $497. I found this to be incredibly reasonable considering it was a holiday weekend and we were staying just one night, not to mention the perks when booking through AMEX.

We arrived to the Beekman around 3pm, ate some lunch at The Bar Room and made our way upstairs to the 10th floor. We used valet parking for $80 as it was the only parking option available. We were upgraded from a Queen Room to a King Room. I went down the street to pick up a red velvet cake for us to munch on after dinner and drinks at Layers Bakeshop. We then strolled for a bit until we needed to get ready for photos and dinner. We walked to the World Trade Center and the Oculus Mall nearby.

Getting ready for some photos in this room was so fun – and we decorated it for my birthday. Balloons, signs, champagne – I had a full Pinterest board in mind, of course. We finally made our way to Gnoccheria in East Village using the hotel’s car free of charge, and the gnocchi flight did NOT disappoint. The gnocchi flight is for 2 people, and we added 2 chicken cutlets – this came out to be $100. Not too bad for NYC dinner.

After eating, we traipsed through the neighborhood and took silly videos of me being Carrie Bradshaw (duhhh!). We made our way back to the hotel Bar Room for drinks, which I had reserved for 10pm weeks earlier because it was highly recommended to reserve due to how busy it gets on the weekend. We had a lovely corner booth and indulged in espresso martinis and a fancy cheese board.

After a lovely night’s rest, we got up around 8am to grab our complimentary breakfast in the Bar Room. It was perfectly peaceful – a slow vibe before the craziness of the day began. We asked for our car an hour ahead of time and it was waiting for us after we finished eating. Once we checked out, we made our way to SOJO Spa Club in Edgewater, NJ, about 30 minutes from the hotel. SOJO Spa Club for each of us was $130 for the day with our entry time being 11am. You can stay as long as you want until closing. We didn’t add anything on, as we felt the day pass offered enough as it is.

It is a multi-level spa club with countless varieties of warm pools, hot tubs, walking paths, saunas, and so on. The top floor of the spa has a warm infinity pool that overlooks the city skyline – it was a perfect view! SOJO was pretty packed by 2pm, granted it was Easter Sunday so that seemed to be expected. We left there feeling super refreshed and recharged. We were only away for about 24 hours, but it was the perfect weekend getaway for a birthday celebration.