New York

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Last Updated: Wednesday, 09 August 2023 00:24

Published: Wednesday, 08 December 2021 02:42

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New York

Nothing lures more than going to New York, the world's most busy city.

Passes:

Buy a pass if you are new to New york city and plan to spend a few days there. These are top passes for New York. All 3 Big players GoCity, Sightseeing Pass and CityPass, are selling passes for NewYork, which entails good competition. Prices are as of Dec, 2021.The link lists all of them: https://www.nycgo.com/things-to-do/tours-in-nyc/attraction-passes.

• Go City Pass: (aka New york city explorer pass): Link: https://gocity.com/new-york/en-us. Go City is the merchant here. 10 choice pass for child is $166, and for adult is $218. The pass is valid for 60 days from first use, and you can choose max of 10 attractions from 100's of attractions they have. Groupon sells them for 5% off ($156/child and $206/adult). They have a unlimited version also known as "All-Inclusive pass" which is sold on below website too as New York Pass.
• New York Pass: Link: https://newyorkpass.com/en-us. It lists that it's by Go City (the same company as above).  It's unlimited version of above pass. 10 day pass for child is $199, and for adult is $305. You can visit unlimited attractions from their catalog of attractions, but it's limited to 10 day of use starting from the day of first use. Groupon sells them for 5% off ($190/child and $290/adult). You can find this pass on GoCity website too shown above. It's called the "All-Inclusive Pass".
• New York sight seeing pass: Link: https://www.sightseeingpass.com/en/new-york. It has 2 options: a Day pass valid for 10 days (with unlimited sightseeing), and a Flex pass valid for 60 days (with specified number of attractions). 10 day pass is $199/child and $319/adult. Flex 12 attraction pass is $209/child and $264/adult.
• New York City pass: Link: https://www.citypass.com/new-york. City pass is the merchant here. This is the cheapest pass and offers only 6 attractions from a list of 9 attractions (3 attractions are fixed, while next 3 gives you a choice b/w the two). Price for pass is  $112/child and $136/adult. Attractions:
  
  • Empire State Building
  • American Museum of Natural History
  • The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • Top of the Rock Observation Deck  OR  Guggenheim Museum
  • Ferry Access to Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island  OR  Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises
  • 9/11 Memorial & Museum  OR  Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum

Conclusion:

For a family of 4, it costs $500 (2 adults + 2 kids) for New york city pass (which allows 6 attractions). This is the lowest, but Gocity pass allows 4 more attractions for $750 for family of 4. For $250, it may be worth it, if you want to be more flexible. Other 2 unlimited attraction passes are more expensive and cost around $1000 for a family of 4. There's no way you can cover more than 2 attractions in a day, especially if you are new. However "10 day unlimited pass" is a good option as you can cover atleast 25 attractions in 10 days which would be about $10/attraction per person for a family of 4. Nothing can beat that price !!

Top attractions:

You can find a lot of attractions in New york, some free too. I'm going to list the paid ones next (along with regular adult prices for each), and free ones below that. Below are top attractions, along with prices.

Paid attractions:

• Tallest buildings: There's a race to the top. New York has an extra charm for visiting tallest buildings, and all tall buildings are in the race competing for your dollar.. avg price is $50 to get to the top of the building, and once you are on top, you don't find it worth $50. However once you do it for New York, you don't need to do it in any other city. Just do one of them. My choice would be "Edge at Hudson Yards".
  • Empire State building => $45. This is very overrated.
  • Edge at Hudson Yards => $40. This is my top choice. They have a glass bottom, which is cool to see. Also, they have glass sides, so you can literally see from top to bottom (it's scary too).
  • Top of the Rock Observation deck => $40. Nothing extraordinary here.
  • One world Observatory => $40. Same as everyone else.
• Museums:
  
  • Metropolitan Museum of Art => $25. Highly recommended. This is one museum you should do, even if you skip on all other museums.
  • American Museum of Natural History =>  $25
  • Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum => $33. OK as all 3 in one place. Cool to see the inside of submarine.
  • 9/11 Memorial and Museum => $28
  • Guggenheim Museum => Never saw this.
• Cruises => generally $40. All of the cruises are almost same. Just do one of them.
  
  • Circle Line NY city landmark cruises => $37
  • Liberty Super Express cruise => $37
  • Harbor Lights cruise
• Big Bus Hop on, Hop off => $60. This is very overrated. If you go in cold weather (Nov-May), weather is so cold, that you can't sit on the upper deck. If you sit inside, you can't see anything.
• Statue of Liberty and Ellis+Liberty Island Ferry => $25 for general admission. Generally both the Ferry and Liberty and Ellis island tour tickets are included. This is the most famous tourist attraction. Your trip to New York would be incomplete if you don't get a picture here :) Best to go early morning as the lines are long, and you spend 1/2 a day visiting this place.
• Madame Tussauds New York => $40. This is worth it as they have multiple floors and lots of Indian celebrities too.

Free Attractions:

• Downtown: Mahattan Downtown is a place to see so many things. Few free ones are:
  • 9/11 Memorial center
  • Wall Street (Big Bull):
• Times Square:
• Macy's:

NYC Transportation:

It's not unusually expensive to rent a car in NYC. However, parking that car is even more expensive than renting it. You may have to pay > $30/day for car parking, and that allows you to get in and out only once. If you plan to stay in suburbs as New Jersey or elsewhere, then renting a car may make sense. However, the amount of time you will spend driving to NYC is just too much. Also, you can't drive into NYC island for 3 reasons. First, it's very high traffic, secondly parking is very expensive and thirdly you have to pay huge toll everytime you drive your vehicle into NYC. I would advise to get a hotel in NYC island itself, even if it's expensive. Off season, you can find a lot of cheap hotels in NYC itself (for $100/night or less). That way you won't need to rent a car, as the system of subway (underground metro trains), buses and intercity trains will carry you from almost anywhere to anywhere in suburbs or city of NYC.

Single rides on Subway trrais is expensive, so get a 7 day or 30 day pass. 7 day pass costs $33/adult and is well worth the cost as single ride is $2.50/ride. So, just 2 rides a day will recover your cost. Also, children under 44 inches tall don't need to pay. I've seen even taller kids (54 inches or so) riding free.

Here's the link for Subeay fares: https://new.mta.info/fares

Free Attractions: