Learning about my previous bad experience when I took harbour cruise and I was targeted by a group of people 'from the south' with their bad attitude coupled with sarcasm and nastiness, some years ago just because I was alone, my partner decided to book this trip as we purchased in advance our NYsightseeing passes and printed the bar codes in London (which would be exchanged into tickets at each location we decided to visit) while trying to prove to me that you can still have good experiences in NY.
These cruises are the most difficult though as:
- we had to join a queue (just like other several hundreds of people joining the queue like us going round 360 degrees around Castle Clinton where their ticket sales offices are, which took as a long time of around one hour (as they have only a few ticket sales reps - proof they need much more in high season) even as we joined the queue around 10am. Almost everybody had a NYsightseeing pass with the bar codes printed, hoping to convert them into tickets for the ferries to Liberty and Ellis islands (and then back to harbour)
- after getting your tickets, you have to join the second queue for the ferries, almost as long as the first queue where a very rude young small guy 'from the south' with his sunglasses and baseball cap checking the tickets, allowed some people from his background to jump in front of us, thus making fools of several hundreds of people waiting in the queue. I told him not to allow his 'mates' to skip the queue to which he rudely replied 'do not tell me how to do my job, just move on'. I could not believe that I am paying somebody to be so rude!!!! If he was working for me, he would have been fired on the spot. I will not be surprised to hear he did this in the past and he will do it again
- you then pass the airport security style and board the cruises which are all packed with people: to Liberty island where you can stay as long as you want (they have some fast food type restaurant packed with families with screaming kids - and nothing healthy like bananas etc), then another ferry to Ellis island with free entry to the amazing museum and then another ferry back to the harbour.
- if you purchased the tickets straight on their site, you only have to show your printed tickets at the second queue, which I said is very long too and can take up to 45min
This is something I highly recommend for you to do if you are after history and learning this, bear in mind the above though, so visit early, have fruits and water with you if you depend on this and arm yourself with patience against rude staff and very slow queues that clearly need more ticket offices.