A few of my college friends and I took advantage of the long weekend and met in Brooklyn, New York, for a girls’ weekend. Two of my friends live in Brooklyn, one in California and one in upstate New York. We decided Brooklyn was a good meeting spot.

I arrived on Saturday morning and met my friends at the hotel to drop off my luggage. Our first stop was Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club. It was the first time playing shuffleboard for most of us, and our visit started with a brief lesson. There were five of us, so we split into two teams of two, with one of my friends bouncing between teams. After our game, we grabbed lunch from a visiting food truck and spent time catching up. We went back to the hotel to get ready for the rest of our evening plans.

We had dinner reservations at Olea, a Mediterranean tapas restaurant. Everything on the menu sounded delicious, so we decided to share several smaller plates, two entrées and two desserts. The restaurant was cozy and the food was flavorful. We then made our way to the Brooklyn Academy of Music to see The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window. The Lorraine Hansberry play starred Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan. We all enjoyed the performance and spent time discussing it throughout the weekend.

On Sunday, we grabbed bagels and made our way to World Spa. We opted for the four-hour access which granted us use of the various rooms (saunas, hammams, salt therapy, pools, hot tubs). We each were given wristbands for entrance and to use at the café. We spent time in the pool then visited the different rooms before grabbing lunch. After enjoying our salads, we visited the pool and saunas again before our time was up. We then stopped at our friend’s apartment to relax and have pizza later for dinner. Some of us then made our way back to the hotel to watch rom-coms.

Monday morning a few of us grabbed brunch at as you are before checking out and departing for our various travel plans home.

It was a perfect weekend of low-key activities and time together to catch up. We plan to make this an annual tradition. We’re already thinking of locations for Girls’ Weekend 2024.

— Katie Skrzek, vice president/digital director