I was very sceptical initially about getting this pass, there are at least 2 other passes you can get that I know of, as well as when you are walking around New York, plenty of people trying for you to buy a pass on the street.
I bought the pass-through Trip Advisor from a company called Viator. if you go to the Sightseeing Pass website, I found you would pay a lot more for the same pass. I was buying 5 adult passes; even though I had 2 children with me, if you are over 12 you are classed as an adult, on the Sightseeing Pass website it was coming in at about Ā£960 in total on Trip Advisor I got it for Ā£850.00 (I believe you can get $40 pp of vouchers to use if you buy it directly).
On arriving in New York, I went to the main office to exchange my paper voucher for a card (I donāt think you must do this but I think the paper one would get worn out by getting it out all the time). I had to stand in a queue, where annoyingly every staff member wanted to look at my paperwork and then kept saying, yeap stay in this queue, we were in there for a good half an hour due to the popularity of the card and lack of staff in there; I then on the fourth time of asking to check my paperwork got frustrated and said it had just been checked for the third time, I was asked who by and I said the actual boss.
Once I got our cards, it was just a short stop to the bus stop to catch our Bus, there are a few routes you can do:-
Uptown - if you want to go to Central Park, the museums and Harlem (which even though a rundown area (this was said by the bus guide lady who lived there), looked amazing)
Midtown - this is for all the main areas in Manhattan - Empire state building, Rockefeller Centre, Times Square to name a few
Downtown - this is for Wall street, Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn, Chinatown, One World Observatory, 9/11, etc
Night Bus - well worth doing leaves Times Square and goes down to Brooklyn, over the bridge (not Brooklyn Bridge) and back again.
I did find the Downtown bus few and far between, waiting at least 50 minutes for a bus one time with quite a few other people standing at the bus stop (some of the buses did become overcrowded, and we had to stand downstairs, my concern was also if the bus was full and you were waiting at a bus stop for over 40 minutes, how long til the next one?)
Whilst the pass makes boasts of saving you hundreds of dollars some of the places and things to do are free.
The Natural History Museum of America is quoted as being $23; this is a suggested donation and the staff actually advise you can just pay $1 if you wanted to.
I did actually work out against the prices quoted on the Sightseeing Pass App against what I felt was fair and I felt I would have spent Ā£2000 if I had paid for everything myself.
The only place I found I didnāt need to stand in the main queue was the One World Observatory, and was able to go into a queue inside for voucher holders.
However, the staff at Madame Tussauds seem to let other Pass Holders ahead of us even though we were stood in the queue longer. Ripleyās was ok but the kids found both Madame Tussauds and Ripleyās boring.
I would highly recommend the Rockefeller Centre (I did this at night, and with the Empire State building behind us, made a magical backdrop).
I was told the hop on hop off ferry did not exist anymore and you had to get on and off one of the river cruises, which left Pier 78 @ 10, 12 and 4pm. This was the better way it turned out to visit the Statue of Liberty; on the day we went to see her there was 2 1/2-hour queue to get through security, so we walked up to the Statton Island ferry which was ok on the way back as one ferry has no upstairs outside access, and one did. When we arrived on the other side it was a quick walk to get back on to the ferry. However, when we did the now defunct Hop on Hop off boat trip it gets nice and close - for me personally this was the best way to see it as I felt very under awed when I saw the Statue close up, as it is not as big as I thought it was going to be (bloody Ghostbusters).
The Madison Square Garden tour was great to see, and if we had come later in the day we could have seen Justin Timberlake doing his sound check; as Queen said the show must go on (turns out he cancelled that night anyhow).
WE only managed to use the Buffalo Wings meal voucher, and whilst if you had to pay $25 pp for the meal you had you would feel short-changed, as it was part of the pass this was well worth it.
I really wished I had gone to Planet Hollywood; but as for seasoned travellers I am sure you will agree there is just too much to do, and you really need to plan your days.
The Bike hire was great but make sure you have i.d. as they keep it as insurance, you break it, you pay for it. I would also advise that Central Park may look quite flat but there are hills on both sides; some get very taxing for the more unfit of us.
In short (sorry it wasnāt, and there is still more than I could say) would I recommend the pass, check your options, like I said other passes out there, but I felt on reading the other passes they didnāt offer the unlimited hop on, hop off buses. I bought the unlimited pass, you can buy a flex pass, but dependant on what you want to do, your budget, etc, make sure you read them all.