Flight Direct

 

From wildlife to amusement parks, ancient history to modern culture, the Big Apple provides enough attractions to guarantee an exciting, enlightening and memorable break for any family.

 

Central Park Zoo became the first official zoo to open in New York in the 1860s. It began life as a menagerie and expanded over the decades to accommodate an expanding animal population that now includes a polar bear, snow leopards, California sea lions, red pandas and a range of birds, reptiles and amphibians.

 

Popular exhibits include Tisch Children's Zoo, a walk-through wildlife adventure giving youngsters the opportunity to get close to animals including alpacas, potbellied pigs, goats, sheep and peacocks.

 

Families can also pay a visit to the 4D theatre to see two short films - Planet Earth: Ice Worlds from BBC Earth and Dora & Diego's 4D Adventure.

Based in the Tisch Building at 212 West 83rd Street, the Children's Museum of Manhattan is an institution that encourages children and families to learn about themselves and the diverse world around them through interactive exhibitions and events.

 

It opened as a neighbourhood storefront in 1973 and now welcomes more than 350,000 guests every year.

 

Visitors can check out exhibits such as PlayWorks, which combines play and learning in an environment with features including a giant talking dragon, a fire engine and a soft area for crawling babies.

 

The Monkey King area provides a fun and colourful account of one of the most popular stories in Chinese history, while City Splash invites youngsters to learn more about the environment and the properties of water in an interactive setting.

 

The New York Aquarium opened in Battery Park, Manhattan, in 1896 - making it the oldest continually operating aquarium in the US - and moved to the Coney Island boardwalk in Brooklyn in 1957.

 

Visitors can see hundreds of species of aquatic wildlife at the attraction, including crowd favourites such as the sand tiger shark and giant Pacific octopus. As well as fish, the aquarium houses loggerhead sea turtles and mammals including sea otters, sea lions and Pacific walruses.

 

Other highlights for families to look out for include the Happy Feet 4D Experience and touchscreen terminals offering games and facts about otherworldly sea creatures like flower hat jellyfish and red striped sea nettles.

Luna Park is an amusement park at Coney Island in Brooklyn with a history stretching back to 1903. The current incarnation of the park opened to guests in May 2010.

 

One of the attraction's most famous features is the Cyclone, a rollercoaster that opened in June 1927, meaning it will celebrate its 85th birthday this summer. Riders start with a 26-metre drop before heading into six turnarounds and a further eight drops.

 

Luna Park also offers plenty of family-friendly experiences, such as the Big Top Express circus train, the Mermaid Parade water flume and a spinning teacups ride, as well as an array of games and live entertainment from magicians, comedians and physical performers.

The American Museum of Natural History is one of the largest and most celebrated institutions of its kind in the world.

 

It is located on Manhattan's Upper West Side and boasts a collection comprising more than 32 million specimens, a small percentage of which are displayed in dozens of exhibition halls and interconnected buildings.

 

The museum is home to several permanent exhibits, including a hall that showcases evidence for human evolution and a presentation of 25 opal gemstones in the Harry Frank Guggenheim Hall of Minerals.

 

Also open this year is Journey to the Stars, a brand new planetarium show narrated by actress Whoopi Goldberg that takes viewers on a journey 13 billion years into the past, and a butterfly conservatory allowing visitors to mingle with up to 500 of the flying insects.