Travel

New York City Pass

  • Last Updated:
  • Aug 20th, 2019 7:19 pm
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May 3, 2015
258 posts
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BC

New York City Pass

Wife and I will be visiting New York in September for 3 days before our cruise. Would like to hear any experiences with the “New York City Pass”. Is it worth it? Couple of things we want to do. Bigbus hop on hop off, Top of the Rock, 911 memorial and Circle Line water tour. Thinking of a 3 day pass. Do these passes help you avoid lines? Cheaper than buying individual tickets.
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Deal Guru
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Jul 12, 2003
12399 posts
4935 upvotes
Toronto
I used New York Pass (not New York City Pass) a few years ago and was worth the money only because we planned ahead our destinations and run to each attractions one by one. If you take your time and stay at each attraction for few hours, then you will probably losing out.

I think in 4 days and 3 nights, we visited:

Empire State Building
Top of the Rock Observation Deck
9/11 Memorial & Museum
Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum
Madame Tussaud
MoMA
Hop On Hop off Bus
Rockefeller Tour
Hop on Hop Off Water Taxi (pass by Statue of Liberty and Brooklyn Bridge)
911 Tribute Memorial and World Trade Center
Police Museum.

Some other places that doesn't need the Pass, we just walk it through, like Wall Street, Times Square, Central Station...etc

The pass also give you discount on certain restaurant and we take advantage of going to 2 of them.


Key is to plan ahead the attraction in one place and next day go to those close to each other to avoid wasting time in commute.

No, the pass doesn't get you to go to line faster or skip the lines. we waited to get on the Empire State Building for close to an hour.
The busy attraction, you probably try to wake up early and go there first as it will get very busy during the day especially summer time.
Retired Forum Moderator February 2009 - June 2015
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Aug 19, 2010
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Vancouver
The passes do not give you express line access. Figure out the cost of the attractions that you really want to see and figure out if buying the pass makes it worth it or not or weather you should just pay for the attraction you want to see. Don't worry about planning to see certain attractions that you aren't really into seeing just because it's included with the pass otherwise it might waste a lot of your time and you might feel like you missed out on other things you could have seen or done while there..

Also, if you are set on doing the Hop on hop off bus, plan accordingly because there is a lot of waiting, it will take a big chunk of your time cuz you will be stopping frequently and sitting in slow moving traffic.. Don't plan to use it to go from point A to point B then to C etc. Use Subway for that. Also consider the one world observatory over the 9/11 museum as it has great views.

The only top attractions city pass has worth seeing are;
- Empire State Building
- Top of the Rock
- Circle Line - Liberty cruise
- MoMA

Note: MoMA has free Admission Friday nights 4-8 if you will be there on a Friday.

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