My husband and I are go to the Baking Show in Atlantic City in September, and we then going to New York on September 23-27. I have contacted several hotels, and they are quite expensive, does anybody have any ideas?? We want to be fairly close to everything that is why my husband suggested Manhattan, and we are going to cab or bus it around for the usual tours, shopping, etc...
This is my first time to New York, and Atantic City, and am very excited!!

Manhattan and inexpensive really aren't found in the same sentence. The only advice i can give is maybe try one of those hotel discount sites. Like hotels.com or orbits, there is one that is advertised on tv all the time about naming your own price for the hotel, i would try there.

What kind of prices are you running into? It might be worth it to be in the middle of things and not have to schlep it into the city and back. I'm Director of Sales for an all suite hotel that's about an hour from NYC, and there is a bus that can take you right into NYC, but it's $35 pp round trip, and you wouldn't have the fun of being in Manhattan. Let me know if you are interested, and I'll hook you up.

Let me look through my contacts and see if I have any friends in the hotel biz that could hook you up in NYC. There was a Radisson that was like $139/night, somewhere around 30th St.

You could stay in Hoboken, NJ and take the PATH train across into the city, or stay somewhere in NJ that has a train where you could go into the city easily. Princeton is really nice, and has a train to NY. It's not far from Philly, either, so you could go and do that one day, too.

You may want to consider staying at a hotel near Newark Liberty Airport in NJ, which is very close to Manhattan. There are lots of shuttle buses that can get you to Penn Station in Newark and from there you can easily get to either Penn Station or Port Authority in NYC. There may also be shuttles going directly from the airport to NYC. If you want to stay anywhere in NJ, there are many buses and trains that go into NYC. Check the NJ Transit website at njtransit.com

New York is expensive, and some months are really expensive. My boss is going (on business) in a couple of weeks and his favorite hotel is $609/night. He's stayed at the same hotel for $299/night (last spring). Just depends on when you go and how particular you are about your accommodations.