The Watertown City School District does summer swim lessons for kids. There are two different session each include 20 classes, each class an hour long. The great thing about this program is that the classes are each day during the week. So it keeps you busy during the summer.
This swim lessons are a lot cheaper and better then the others offer by the YMCA, at least that is what all my friends says.
Though Watertown is a small city there are still things to keep you busy as long as you look for them. A great and yummy thing is the Farmer's Market. Though you may think that it is a lot of local and fresh fruit and veggies, there is a lot more then just produce. You can find all kinds of yummy foods from baked goods made by the local Mennonites, freshly made Kettle corn, apple cider, crafts, face painting, hand crafted wood items and so much more. It is far from just fruits and veggies for sure! There is also local bands that play as you walk up and down the farmers market. You can have a great time outside and of course eatting some yummy food!
You can go to the Watertown, New York Farmer's Market is on Wednesday from 6:30am- 3:00pm. It runs from the end of May through the beginning of October.
1st. Best Western Carriage House Inn
We stayed in this hotel for 1.5 weeks. It had a great breakfast, pool and very friendly staff. However it is an older building and the room looks a little old. We always had socks on when walking on the floor and didn't sit on the floor either. The wall paper was coming off but room service was great. It also had a small fridge and microwave for warming up food.
2nd Candlewood Suites
We stayed in this hotel the shortest amount of time, 3-4 days because it was the most expensive. It didn't have a pool or breakfast but it did have landry service. So I was able to get all of our landry done. The rooms were nicer and bigger as well. But again not pool, or breakfast! But it does have a small kitchen area which was nice too.
3rd Comfort Inn & Suites
We stayed in this hotel the longest because it ended up being cheaper and had most of what we needed. This room was the smallest out of all three we stayed in but it had a good size FREE breakfast and a pool. It was also attached to a Denny's resturant which made it very easy to go to meals if we needed to go out but didn't really what to go out. Good luck and don't forget to ask for a military discount!
One of the first and most important things to do is get a good Hotels (See Watertown, NY Hotels) in Watertown, NY since you are going to need a place to stay. Now depending on the time of year you come up will depend on the Apartment and houses avalible. Some are lucky and get into a place in a few weeks but like the most of us you might end up living in the hotel for at least a month. Or in my case a month and a half. If you are military than on post housing is great, but you end up on a really long waiting list. For example we got on the Fort Drum Housing list as soon as we left our last post (August 2011). We even went on a month long vacation in between leaving our post and getting to Fort Drum. But still nothing was avalible for us. We are still on the waiting list and it is now July 2012 and there is no sign of us getting offered a house any time soon. Picture below is of Fort Drum housing.
My advice is to find a good place off post at least for now, which again can be very difficult and frustrating. If you get a rental then you can always move onto post when it becomes avalible if you are willing to live in some of the rentals. My husband and I looked for 2 weeks straight at different rentals and were so discouraged by the grossness and smelliness of all the places. The rent is crazy for what you get. Example a 2-3 bedroom was $1500 and that didn't include utilities. Crazy I tell you! So then we started looking at buying a place, which was a big disapointment as well. The houses are falling apart and even the realitors admit that if the military wasn't here the all houses would fall down. I got to the point that I almost took my 2 young children and drove the 7 hours back to my inlaws. But last minute we found a place.
Good Housing is hard to find and when/if you do than jump on it. FYI you will pay a lot for just the normal house or a fixer upper in Watertown, NY. Either way good luck!
As you can tell from the map Watertown is very much "UPSTATE" New York. It is 30 minutes from the boarder of The United States and Canada. And since it is upstate it can get very cold at times here. If you love the snow then this is a great place for you! Our last winter 2011-2012 was one of the mildest winters Watertown, New York has seen in a long time at about 50 inches for the Winter season. We still had to get our snowblower out a few times, since when it would snow it would be in bursts or chunks.I am sure it will go back to its normal winters though. Summers are usually in the 80's maybe 90's but this year we have it more higher days. Again not the norm for Watertown. It seems funny that as soon as we move here the norm doesn't happen. LOL
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