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New York City 1-Day Hop-on Hop-off with Empire State Building Admission

New York City 1-Day Hop-on Hop-off with Empire State Building Admission

Overview

Discover all the magic of New York City from an Open Top Sightseeing Bus Tour and view the City from above on top of the iconic Empire State Building, the skyscraper that defines the Manhattan Skyline. Enjoy your day of unlimited rides throughout New York City where you can hop on and hop off as often as you'd like and for as long as you'd like. Explore all the famous sights in Midtown, Downtown, and Uptown such as Times Square, the Empire State Building, Wall St. and the Statue of Liberty. Grab a breath of fresh air navigating around Central Park or be able to hop off at world-famous museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

City: New York City

Mon 23 Dec

Other dates

You can choose the date already on the booking website

Starting at $82.50

Make a reservation

Mon 23 Dec

Starting at $82.50

Make a reservation

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What's Included

Hop-on hop-off, open-top, sightseeing bus tour

Wi-Fi on board

Entry to the Empire State Building

Additional Info

Wheelchair accessible
Infants and small children can ride in a pram or stroller
Service animals allowed
Public transportation options are available nearby
Infants are required to sit on an adult’s lap
Transportation options are wheelchair accessible
Suitable for all physical fitness levels
Hand sanitiser available to travellers and staff
Regularly sanitised high-traffic areas
Gear/equipment sanitised between use
Transportation vehicles regularly sanitised
Guides required to regularly wash hands
Contactless payments for gratuities and add-ons
Customers are advised to download the Big Bus app to find out more about our new health and safety measures and for real-time bus tracking information. Alternatively please visit the Big Bus website.

Cancellation Policy

For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.

Traveler Photos

Reviews (39)

Charles M

Aug 2017

Hmmm! This is a difficult review to write because, although my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed the Big Bus experience, we can empathise with some of the negative comments given by other reviewers too. Firstly, it's important to decide what you want to do because big savings can be made by booking ‘combos’. For example, the Big Bus 2-day deluxe ticket is priced at $80 and the Circle Line Best of NYC circumnavigation of Manhatten costs $42. But we obtained both via a Circle Line ‘combo’ at just $62 – virtually a 50% saving. The down side to our combo is that we had to go to the Circle Line pier to change our Circle Line reservations into Big Bus vouchers and then go to the Big Bus office (inside Madam Tussauds, Times Square) to change these into a Big Bus tickets. We were based near Times Square, so this was not too bad for us, but if your hotel's not there, this could present a problem. We walked the 5 blocks from Times Square to the pier and back and, by the time we had queued to get our tickets, two hours had passed. Next, don’t under-estimate how long these loops take and don’t over-estimate how much you can do in a day. Both the uptown and downtown loops take a good 2 hours to complete so, theoretically you could complete both in a day. But, in practice, this won’t happen. You need to obtain your ticket and you need to queue for the bus. After 2 hours of sight-seeing you need to spend time to eat, drink and unwind. And you may want to re-visit some of the sites you saw on the tour. So, realistically, one of the big tours per day is enough. That also begs the question about what you’re buying in your combo. Including the ubiquitous queuing, a trip up and down the Empire State Building takes 2 hours and the Liberty Island cruise takes a similar 2 hours. A fleeting visit to any museum would take 3 or 4 hours. So, in 48 hours there are only so many sites and tours that you can take in. We did the two big loops, the Liberty Island cruise and the Night Tour and, quite honestly, we were worn out. The Big Bus is advertised as ‘hop on, hop off’. In theory it is but, in practice, most passengers do a full loop before deciding where to hop off the bus. So, if you want to join the bus at one of the less popular stops where virtually no one gets off, then it’s quite possible that the bus will be full. Incidentally, the queue for the Night Tour was 200 yards long when we joined it at 19:30. A bus was leaving Times Square every 10 minutes and we got on ours at about 20:15. Everyone was guaranteed and upstairs seat and the organisers said that anyone who joined the queue before 21:00 was guaranteed a tour. During our 48 hours we experienced four Big Bus Tour Guides. They were all very knowledgeable and I would rate one as good, two as very good and ‘Cruz’ on the night bus as excellent. They were all willing and able to answer questions. And, yes, they all mentioned the ‘tipping box’ by the driver’s door, but I didn’t feel that they over-played this issue. Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed our 48 hours pass and I would recommend the Big Bus tour to anyone wanting to obtain an overview of the city. Before purchasing your combo ticket, plan what you really want to do and be realistic about how long each tour is going to take so that you don’t waste money on combos that are physically un-realistic. Oh! And be prepared for a lot of queuing.

Nicholas T

Apr 2017

I would highly discourage anyone from using this tour company. Our hotel concierge recommended it so we thought it was a good idea but it ended up being a disaster. "Agents" all over the city on every corner in Time Square are selling this service which enables you to hop on and off buses and get tickets for the status of liberty and discounted bike rentals. Unfortunately for us we bought our tickets at the hotel before we noticed the street "Agents" which would have tipped me off not to buy the tickets. The problem is the lines were 1.5-2.0 hours to "hop on" a bus so we ended up not using it. Also, they told us we could avoid the line at the statue of liberty and directly board the boat even though I pointed out to the Big Bus Tours "agent" at the south ferry that there was a huge line...a big lie. We waited in line for 3 hours because our tickets were flex tickets and had no reservation time. The line for the night tour was 2 hours long in from of the M&M store at 8 PM. Getting on a simple bus ride was a disaster and we never could get on another bus after the night tour. Our tour guide on the night tour had very limited knowledge of the city and basically read the building signs as we drove through the city (i.e. there's Macy's, there's the Empire State Building (20 times). As a visitor to the city (2 times per year), I think I could have given a better tour. After we had our tickets, the aggressive "agents" throughout the city, kept trying to sell us tickets and I told them the lines were 2 hours line and their response was "it's a busy week". The legitimate thing to do would have been for them to stop selling tickets because they were way overbooked but they kept selling aggressively to get their sales commission. There are only a limited number of buses and because there are no reservation times, they can sell an unlimited number of "Hop on Hop off" tickets for a very limited number of buses. Think about it, they can sell 10,000 tickets if they want for buses that hold 1000 people. This is just an example of how they can rip people off. I wouldn't go anywhere near this company ever again. Anytime you see people selling things on the street that's a bad sign. A huge waste of money!! Don't make the same mistake that we made!!

Jeannbean

Apr 2017

We used the Big Bus Tour on our first visit to NYC. I would recommend this company to others. I bought tickets online-very easily. These buses have rooftop seating which I recommend! Very clean. We did the downtown or lower Manhattan tour. We also bought tickets for the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State building. The bus was a very efficient way to tour the city-very easy to find bus stops and to hop on and off. Some tour guides were not good, but Leo was super and gave us really great information on our final bus journey back up to midtown. I wished we would have had Leo the whole day!!! If we get back to NYC I will definitely use this tour company again.