There was a language barrier between us and our tour guide. He was very hard to understand and didn’t speak loud enough for my hard to hear friend even after being asked to talk louder. During our walk to the ferry we were told about facts we would have already learned from the audio guide once on both islands so there really isn’t a reason to pay the extra money for a guided tour either. Then once on Liberty Island we were rushed by being told to meet him back at the dock in one hour. There is NO WAY that is enough time to see everything on the island. I ended up calling the guy who arranged our tour and told him we were letting our private tour guide guy go and that we were fine with being on our own for the rest of the tours we paid for. We were very disappointed at this point with that whole arrangement. Additionally, the ticket we purchased did not include going up to the statues platform, i felt it was misleading.
Paying extra for skip the line was a waste of money too. The only line to wait in was for the ferry and everyone was able to make it on the boat each time so there really isn’t a reason to pay the extra money.