Our Experience at The FRIENDS Experience – NYC
Now many of you know that Courtney is a HUGE Friends fan. We’ve even shared how she planned a Friends themed bachelorette in NYC in a previous blog post here. Did you know that you can experience the “Friends Experience” yourself too? No need to carry and inflate an orange couch all the way to Central Park for this one… Just go to the Friends Experience in any of the 6 cities in the US or 1 in Canada for yourself! Here is our FRIENDS Experience review for the NYC location and how you can get tickets too!
Arrival & What to Expect
Centrally located in New York City at 130 E 23rd St (corner of 23rd St and Lexington Ave), it really makes it easy to arrive at their flagship location. Since we were coming from New Jersey, we just hopped on the PATH subway and got off just a few blocks away. We then walked on over and got in line during our time slot. They ask that you arrive at least 10 minutes prior to your scheduled time slot. All around outside the building, there are famous quotes on the windows and the attendants are in full character feeling your energy and matching it. It really helped build up the anticipation to enter.
You may have noticed I mentioned “time slot”. That is due to the fact that for social distancing, they have time slots in place to help alleviate crowds. Guests are let in a few at a time in the pairs/groups that they came with but you may also be with other guests in small numbers. They do offer a “Private Access” experience that you can book before doors open in the morning. This allows for you to have a maximum of maximum of either 6 guests or 10 guests with your group.
In regards to health and safety, when we attended in April 2021, there was temperature screening at the door and masks were required but as of December 2021, vaccinations are now also required. Please check their website for the most up to date health & safety protocols. They do keep the experience not only clean, but “Monica Clean!”
Inside the FRIENDS Experience
The experience takes about an hour to get through but you could spend longer if you really took your time to soak it all in or you could rush through it in 30 minutes if you really wanted to. We were there for about 2 hours including our time at Central Perk at the end.
Kicking off the experience, the first thing you do, after a short video intro, is get your picture taken on the iconic orange couch! We wanted to be last for our photo so that when we were going through with our “group” we were able to take our time and social distance on our own. Highly recommend if you don’t want to feel rushed when looking at memorabilia.
After the couch photo op, you immediately hit the museum portion filled with memorabilia like scripts, costumes, and props. Take your time looking at these because right around the corner is the line for your 1st photo opportunity, the PIVOT scene. Since we were last in our group, we spent some time taking pictures with a giant Huggys and got in a quick bathroom break. The attendant even let us take some extra pictures at the photo op spot since we were so patient. See, it really pays off to be patient and go last!
I don’t want to ruin the entire experience for you from the sets you will walk on to the items from the actual show that you will see but what I will add is that as you go from room to room, there are attendants taking your photo for immediate download after the event. Don’t worry, you can take as many pictures and videos as you would like too!
How to Get Tickets to the the FRIENDS Experience
Whether you are going to the NYC location like us or any of their 6 locations, you will want to head to www.friendstheexperience.com to secure your tickets.
You can pick between:
- New York City
- Denver
- Washington D.C.
- Phoenix
- San Fransisco
- Nashville
- Toronto
Ticket prices will vary but start at $45 if you go to the NYC location like we did.
Would We Go Back?
Long story short, yes!
Do we have a feeling that the flagship NYC location is the best? Yes, probably.
Does that mean that the other locations won’t be good? Not the case at all. From the research and tagged photos online, we can assume that all of the locations are similar but each will have different memorabilia items. The sets and scenes will probably be the same at each location but we can’t speak on that until we visit them all!
So yes, we would 100% go back but most likely visit it in a different city to get see if our FRIENDS Experience review would be the same.
Overall, our FRIENDS Experience review is a 10/10. Isn’t that just kick-you-in-the-crotch, spit-on-your-neck fantastic?
