When i purchased the city passes i was excited to be able to download a scanner so that we didn't need to carry a paper source around. Unfortunately there was some error with the transaction and all five of my passes that I purchased had to be redeemed at the citypass office. It took the lady there a long time to transfer the tickets and i was only able to get 'cards'. My daughter ended up loosing her card and I was told at another city pass office that i need to return to the original one that we got the pass from. I found this quite inconvenient as we were on vacation wanting to see the sights and not wanting to run across the city to the office and waste our time waiting in yet another line. The first day we used the hop on hop off bus which was great. No issues there. When we went to our first tourist stop at the Empire State building, I didn't realize you had to redeem your passes to get the tickets for the viewing. We had waited in line, gone through security and we were not about to go back downstairs and wait to get the passes redeemed and then return to the line and security again. This was very frustrating. We ended up just paying for our tickets instead. When we went to the One World Observatory, I wanted to make sure that there citypass office was close by and i redeemed the tickets first. Well after a lot of running around being directed to their office in different locations by police officers and others at the OWO we ended up in the main lobby where the citypass office happened to be and they redeemed the cards for the tickets for us to go up. It was not as easy and convenient to us this pass at all. We ended up paying just so we didn't have the stress of more lines and more wait as when you are trying to see all the sights, you wait a lot! It gets stressful when you have a party of 5. Would not buy this again!
Sightseeing cruise was great, very informative and an opportunity for some great pictures
The hop on hop off bus tours are a great way to see and learn about the sights, but there's a lot of traffic which makes it take longer, so be aware if you're worried about time limits
Darryl on the night cruise was very entertaining and was a great guide/driver
The 'fast track' option is interpreted differently at different sights madam tussauds put the 'VIPs' in a longer, slower line, but One World Observatory took you past a very long line right up to the front
Can save you money if you plan well, but read carefully - not all of the 'deals' were honoured for us
found out this was the most economic way to visit as many NYC attractions in a day as you can. Time played a huge role here, you got to be prepared and plan your stop wisely. My friend and I started with grey line lower Manhattan hoop on and off bus tour, we make the stop at 9/11 tributes museum and strolled around financial district. we than back on the subway to go back to Time Square, from there we grab our lunch then continues with Gulliver's Gate Highly recommended, a must see Madame Tussauds, Ripley's Believe it or Not. We will able to make a stop central park before heading to Highline. Our evening ended at Sunset cruise where we were able to experience the sun sets over the big apple.