StillwaterPaddington
Mar 2018
We chose a special offer 6 attraction pass for a short break, as the option of buying flex worked for our itinerary rather than an all inclusive 4 day pass with one day wasted in the middle. I rate it 5 stars for some of the attractions you could choose and we worked out of course, that to get value for money you’d choose things normally costing over $25 or so rather than, say the $9 Grand Central Station audio tour. Empire State was great with minimal queuing, and I’d highly recommend Radio City music hall tour and the 9/11 Memorial and museum. I rate the ease of use of the pass and the infrastructure to support it as a very poor 1. We didn’t get a map or guide book as these weren’t evident in the main ticket office, and the app wasn’t great with minimal information- for example the foodie walking tours don’t include the cost of food but this wasn’t easy to work out. We also found that we wasted loads of time getting tickets for some of the attractions, the worst being the 9/11 one which was billed as a fast track with our pass but we had to queue with everyone else buying tickets, in the freezing cold for about 50 minutes. I am still not sure if we could have got fast track tickets maybe by visiting the Downtown office but this isn’t made clear at all- you expect to turn up at the attraction and show your flex pass to bypass the line. Sad when in such a great city on limited time to spend so long just waiting in a queue. The Grayline ticket office was unwelcoming and staff very unhelpful - we traipsed there to get the hop on hop off bus ticket which was a pain to have to detour rather than just get on the bus at the nearest stop. The bus tour by the way was no way worth the cost they say it is, not in winter and with all the City traffic making for slow going and with infrequent and buses in very poor repair. My advice if considering this pass would be to decide where you really want to see and then look at all the passes to see which offers best value for what you want to do. And research well to make sure you understand what’s included, how you access fast track and so on, to minimise wasted time. There was a lot of very low value attractions on this pass which are ok if you choose unlimited but not if on the flex option. We didn’t get value for money in the end as we ran out of time to redeem all 6 passes. I’d expected to be able to use one to take my niece with me to One World observatory but was told only one could be used. What difference does it make to them - I’ve paid for 6 and if I choose to do one attraction twice tha5 should be permitted in my view. So yes worth getting but with caution, be wise!