From our Managing Director
Jonathan shares a personal story this month, away from the usual planning topics: a family trip to celebrate their twenty fifth wedding anniversary.
Twenty five years ago, Claire and I got married. This summer, we marked it the only way that felt right: a family trip with our three daughters, Christina (21), and their two younger daughters (19 and 15), taking in London and New York.
We flew out on 23rd July, two nights in London first, using Avios points via BA to cover Edinburgh to Heathrow. One small satisfaction of years of patient point collecting. From there, Virgin Atlantic took us on to New York in Premium Economy, courtesy of Flying Club points. Christina, who works cabin crew for Ryanair, had given us the tip beforehand: take a small gift for the crew on each flight, a box of chocolates does the trick. It clearly worked. Claire and I were handed a bottle of champagne on arrival into New York.
London: brief, but memorable
Two nights was never going to be enough to do London justice, but it gave us exactly what we needed: a slower, familiar pace before the intensity of New York. The clear highlight was dinner at Gordon Ramsay’s Lucky Cat, 22 Bishopsgate. One of those meals that becomes a fixed point in the memory of a trip, the kind you’re still talking about months later.
New York: seven days, full throttle
If London was the warm up, New York was the main event. Seven nights, and we packed in as much as five people with three very different sets of interests could manage.
The food told its own story of the city. Lunch at Locanda Verde (co-owned by Robert De Niro) and at Minetta Tavern, which featured in the film ‘Sleepers‘. Dinners at La Grand Boucherie and Sicily Osteria. Brooklyn Diner gave us a proper New York breakfast, the sort of place that explains why locals stay loyal to their diner.
Broadway and Madison Square Garden (MSG) gave us two of the trip’s highlights: Chicago on Broadway, and Rush at MSG. Both nights the girls still talk about.
For views, we tried all three of the big ones. Top of the Rock came out ahead for us, over The Edge and Summit One. We walked across Brooklyn Bridge, spent an afternoon on the High Line, and gave over a full, unhurried day to Central Park, which turned out to be one of the better decisions of the trip. The Natural History Museum was better than we’d expected, and filled half a day easily.
If you’re going, Jonathan’s picks:
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Dinner in London: Gordon Ramsay’s Lucky Cat, 22 Bishopsgate
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Best view: Top of the Rock (ahead of The Edge and Summit One)
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Lunch: Locanda Verde and Minetta Tavern
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Dinner: La Grand Boucherie and Sicily Osteria
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Breakfast: Brooklyn Diner
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Don’t skip: A full day in Central Park; the Brooklyn Bridge walk; the High Line and, the American Museum of Natural History
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A show or a night out: Chicago on Broadway, or a night at Madison Square Garden
The moments that stayed with me
Two places on this trip went beyond sightseeing.
The first was the Imagine mosaic in Central Park, dedicated to John Lennon. Standing there, I found myself thinking back to 1980, and to my dad’s reaction when Lennon was killed. A memory I hadn’t expected New York to bring back so vividly. A quiet, reflective few minutes in the middle of a busy trip.
The second was the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. Of everything we saw across nine nights, this was the most solemn, and it has stayed with me since. I still regard 9/11 as the defining event of my lifetime, and visiting the memorial in person, reading the names, standing at the footprints of the towers, brought that home in a way twenty five years of news coverage never quite had.
As a financial planner, I couldn’t resist a visit to the Charging Bull and a walk down Wall Street either. Some habits don’t take a holiday.
Coming home
The return leg with Virgin matched the outbound flight. The one blemish was a five hour layover at Heathrow waiting for our connection. Not the most exciting way to spend the last stretch of a family holiday, but a small price for how the rest of the trip went.
What I’ll take from it
Beyond the memories, there was something quietly satisfying about the mechanics of the trip itself: watching years of accumulated Avios and Flying Club points convert into flights for five, in a way that made a milestone trip far more achievable than it would otherwise have been. It’s a small, real world version of something we talk to clients about often. Modest, consistent contributions, given time, compound into something significant. Twenty five years of marriage, and years of quietly building up points for a trip like this. Both proof, in their own way, that patience pays off.
Risk warnings
This article is for general interest only and does not constitute financial advice.
Wells Gibson is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (Firm Reference Number 731027).
