NYC All City Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour and Statue of Liberty Cruise
We paid for a multi-day all city hop-on hop-off tour + Statue of Liberty Tour + Night Tour + Brooklyn Tour.
Hop-on Hop-off - if/when there is actually space to get on the hop-on hop-off buses, this is a nice, cost-effective option; however, buyer beware, that is a BIG if. We were able to get on a bus no problem on a Sunday. On Monday we went to get on a bus and the line was ridiculous and not making any progress for an extensive period of time, so we just started walking in the direction of our destination. We weren't able to get on a bus at the additional stops along the route either (we walked along the Topview route thinking maybe we'll be able to get on at stop 3 or 4 or 5...nope) due to the volume of people, and ended up just walking the whole way to our destination. Yep, we could've taken a cab or ventured to the subway (which we ended up doing to get from the Statue of Liberty cruise back to our hotel for $3 each) - but we already paid a decent sum to use the bus, which never had space when we needed it.
Statue of Liberty Boat Cruise - this is an option that you need to schedule in advance once you purchase the plan, which worked pretty well on the Topview app. The boat ride itself was relatively nice, and the boat captain was very informative and truly seemed to enjoy his job, which really helped make this option an overall positive. You get close enough to the Statue to take some decent pictures, and a no-pressure professional photographer is on board if you want to go that route. The frustrating part of the boat tour was that as you're getting on board you are advised that if you actually want to sit on top of the boat you must pay extra (and the top is where most of the seats are) - I may have missed this amongst fine print, but nowhere did I see this listed anywhere, and it felt underhanded. Otherwise there are a handful of open air seats on the front of the boat (good), and some bench seats around the side of the boat (okay) and some seats inside (bad). Lots of people just stood around the narrow sides of the boat. You do NOT get off the boat to the Statue of Liberty Island or Ellis Island (if you actually want to tour the facilities do NOT book a boat tour; the only option available for this is through the Statue of Liberty - Ellis Island Foundation).
Night Tour - you've got to schedule the night tour, which is a positive because it means you're getting on a bus at roughly the time you signed up to do so. It is also a pretty nice/informative tour across a wide swath of the city. In our case it was also a beautiful night, and my wife said this was one of her favorite parts of the vacation.
Brooklyn Tour - we never bothered to schedule this.
Overall - If you're looking to ride around on a tourist bus and have no time-sensitive things on your agenda, the hop-on hop-off feature might be up your alley. If you're actually looking to get someplace and aren't super excited about standing in a line ad nauseum waiting for a bus that may or may not finally have space for you, I'd recommend an actual city bus, cab or the subway vs. a Topview tourist bus (I learned NYC transit has a helpful app, and even Google Maps did a nice job of providing train location and transfer details to help you get from A-B).
Being my first time to NY, if I had to do it over I would have paid for one day on Topview and maybe the night tour to just get a little history and the lay of the land - but I would've gone a la carte for Statue of Liberty, and would not recommend counting on this as your transportation around the city.