Best/Worst NYE Experiences

[dgies9156]

Best: Two years ago when we were at our Florida home. We went to dinner at a bistro and wine bar where we began to (and still ) frequent. The owner invited us to an impromptu party on the terrace with about 30 people from the area, most of whom were fairly prominent locally. It was an absolute hoot and we never had felt so welcome.  We spent our time with the publisher of the local newspaper, a reporter who was embedded in Afghanistan and Iraq with the Army and a former NYC cop. My wife got me to dance, something I almost never do. It was a wonderful night in a new community where the bistro owner went out of her way to get us introduced and settled.

Worst: Not long after we were graduated Marquette, my wife and I went to a friend's NYE party in Milwaukee. We stayed at a hotel in Wauwatosa with thin walls and an old-folks-on-the-loose party next door. Our party was great and we went home about 1:30 a.m. Unfortunately, the party next door went all night and had way too much alcohol. They were from rural Wisconsin and from the sounds of things, didn't get out much. One of the revelers spent his evening snapping the bras of the female party guests. Geez, 70-year-old adolescents I could do with out. By the time the night was over, someone's wife was swearing out a divorce petition. We heard the WHOLE thing! Yikes!

Al was right, New Year's Eve is for amateurs!

[dgies9156]

Best:   A long time ago, a lovely young lady who lived in downtown Chicago at the time. 
Worst:  A messy fatal shooting.

Are the two related???

[tower912]

No.  About 15 years apart.

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

Better late than never.
I've had such diverse experiences on NYE with no real bad experiences.  Some less interesting than others.

• The first big NYE plans that I recall were freshman year at Marquette.  I was back home in Connecticut on break and went to a NYE party at our fellow Jesuit institution of Fairfield University, hanging with some friends from high school who went there.  I found out a what high level of partying went on at Marquette as I treated it like it was a normal weekend back on campus and everyone was like holy cow!
• I've been to a formal NYE dance at the Polish Club.
• I've had plenty of quiet nights which consisted of going to an early family dinner, followed by just watching movies at home with the family and taking a break at 11:30 for the ramp-up through the Times Square ball drop.
• I've been to parties at friend's houses that ended up being lame.
• I've been to Times Square three times.  All three have been interesting and I did not end up in Pennsylvania like Boone.  I distinctly remember being herded into barricades as Boone indicated and being told if you leave you cannot return. 
  *We were starving and the cop stationed at the barricade would not allow us to simply walk to the Popeye's in eyeshot across the sidewalk. 
  *Every public place and fast food restaurant in Manhattan mysteriously has their bathrooms Closed for maintenance. on NYE.
  *Despite large TV screens, mostly everyone has no visibility at all of the TV shows and live performances (or lip syncing) going on. 
  *One year my very drunk friend grabbed a New York pretzel out of a 10 year old kids hand as he walked past him, and the kids dad came back and slapped the pretzel out of his hand and his face in one hard swoop. 
  *The millions of people in the streets around Times Square are almost entirely all gone by 12:15pm.
  *The Metro-North train ride back to Connecticut is a free-for-all and you usually get stuck standing until Stamford.  And one just hopes you don't end up in a rail car with a puker.

[Boone]

MU Fan:

Hopefully, for spectators' sake, NYE in TS has changed for the better in recent years, but I doubt it. If only the TV cameras panned to the interior of the crowd and not those on the perimeter, so viewers at home could get a real taste of how miserable that experience is for most people.

[vogue65]

Al McGuire:  "New Years Eve is for ameauters, the professionals stay at home".

Al McGuire: "The only people you find in bars are losers".  I should have listened.

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

MU Fan:

Hopefully, for spectators' sake, NYE in TS has changed for the better in recent years, but I doubt it. If only the TV cameras panned to the interior of the crowd and not those on the perimeter, so viewers at home could get a real taste of how miserable that experience is for most people.

I have not done in time but would definitely do again.  Just pick a relatively warm NYE like this past one, and know what you are getting into being stuck in the barricade until midnight.