My family really enjoyed the Sightseeing Pass, purchasing the pass through Viator made the whole trip convenient. I printed the pass at the hotel and that was the ticket to all of the attractions. The Sightseeing Pass was an incredible value. We accomplished so many activities and attractions. We began with the downtown bus tour to the Statue of liberty which included a ferry ride and Ellis Island. Then we visited the One World Observatory. After, we made our way back to midtown for a delicious early dinner at Planet Hollywood, the pass gave us a 15 dollar credit each. What a deal for the eating in NY! After we went to Ripley's Believe it or Not and Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. Finally, we took the night bus tour and finished the night off at the Empire State building. This whole trip would've cost a fortune if I purchased everything separately, the SightSeeing Pass provided my family with the best New York experience that will last a lifetime.
Did the big package of 5 days hop on hop off with the Pass. Check in the first day was very slow. our printed reservation was checked by staff people while on line 5 times, not sure why. Whe we got to the counter when thend out we did it by Trip advisor they had nothing good to say about the service. Instead of some sort of card we were gived a pile of paper reciepts which were very cumbersome especially due to the rain. The guides were from great to awful. One even insulted my wife with a very poor comment. Hard to hear at times. Pick up spot between uptown and downtown loops kept moving. I was thankful for the free rain protection gear. WE got on a bus for the night tour which one of the staff people told us to get on and we found out it was the brooklyn tour after it started. So we never got to do that one. The boat shuttle was very nice and the people were 100 better in customer service then the ground buses. Overall I feel customer service needs some improvement with the staff and some sort of upgrade to the ticket system so you dont get this wad of paper which is tickets. I think I would look a lot closed at the other 2 major tour compainies when I return to New York City.
You can't beat this for value for money, we saved over 70 each by buying with Viator, however we did encounter a few problems. The pass is delivered via email which states you can use it straight away at the venues shown within the guide book, this is 62 pages long so unless you want to print it off and carry around with you I downloaded it to my Smartphone, not ideal but it did help, see later for a tip though. There are a couple of places you need to exchange for vouchers, Empire State Building being one, the staff in there were very helpful and explained which places we needed vouchers for, we exchanged our Gray Line bus vouchers here too. Tip number one ask for the sightseeing guide book here much easier than trying to read it on your Smartphone. We tried to enter the Intrepid museum, this was very difficult at first, it took four agents and a manager before we could enter, as they were unsure of whether they would get paid for letting us in. Eventually someone found a QR scanner and in we went. The same thing happened at the Ferry terminal for Circle Line cruise, eventually we got to see the Liberty Statue.
On our fourth day as we decided to spend the first two days using the bus tickets and walking around central park, we decided to obtain vouchers for the Natural history Museum and MOMA. We did this at the visitor centre within Planet Hollywood due to it being a wet day we decided to visit indoor centres. The girl here was very helpful she exchanged our paper voucher for a plastic card version, tip number three she explained that the first time we visited the visitor centre at the Empire State Building they should have done that for us there. All good until the next day. We only managed the history museum so lost going to the MOMA as the weather was bad and the ticket was due to expire the next day, you can only have one ticket per attraction. on our last day we opted to go to the Guggenheim. We encountered a problem due to the paper voucher being exchanged for the plastic card, in that the girl at Planet Hollywood had only given us a one day pass and although we still had one day left from a five day pass, it came up on the system as expired. To enter we would have to pay full price. Tip number four, when you do exchange your paper voucher for a plastic card, have another paper voucher spare in your pocket, and double check with the agent that they have given you a card for the value of what you have paid. Luckily the Guggenheim has free Wi-Fi, so we were able to view our original email from Viator which had our original purchased five day pass, and used this to enter the Guggenheim as they scanned the email with the QR scanner. From what we saw and used from the voucher we certainly saved money. I would certainly buy this again, shop around and you can see what prices the attractions are, work out what you can comfortably see in the time you are there. You can buy this pass at any of the Visitor Centres but much more expensive.