If you’re planning on visiting New York City and checking out all the usual tourist attractions, buying one of the bundled admission passes available can seem like a great way to save a lot of money. There are questions you need to ask, however, before going the bundled-ass route: just how much am I actually saving? And is this approach worth it?
There are three main packages available: CityPASS, Explorer Pass, Go Select and New York Pass. Each one offers something different, and each has its own advantages and downsides. Let’s look at them in order:
The New York CityPASS costs $106 ($79 for kids) and gives you free admission to the Empire State Building Observatory, the American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, either the Top of the Rock Observation Deck or the Guggenheim Museum and your choice of a ferry to the Statue of Liberty or one of the numerous Circle Line cruises. The pass lasts for 9 consecutive days and allows you to skip ticket lines at most of the destinations.
According to the website, you save a total of $79 in admission fees for an adult ticket—an absolute steal. However, you need to pay attention to who is stealing from whom. What CityPASS doesn’t tell you is that tickets to both the Museum of Natural History and the Met don’t have a set price. Rather, visitors donate whatever they like, and while the suggestion is $25, you can throw in a penny and nobody will look askance. Admission is only required at the Natural History if you go to the Hayden Planetarium Space Show. And while admission is non-negotiable at MoMA, every Friday from 4-8PM admission is free. Take this into account and all savings CityPASS provides go out the window.
Conclusion: the only time CityPASS is worth the money is if you want to see the planetarium, can’t be in NYC on Friday afternoon and really hate lines. And then it actually saves you just $53 (after the $1 processing fee), assuming you print the voucher yourself—shipping reduces the savings to between $43 and $36.50.
The custom nature of the other passes means that just how much you save is up to you. Each one works differently. Both the New York Explorer Pass and Go Select New York are products of the same travel agency, and both give you a set number of admissions over a 30-day period. With Explorer you choose how many tickets you want (3, 5, 7 or 10) and can then use them on any of 56 destinations, deciding which you want to see as you go. Prices range from $80 to $210, depending on the number of sites you wish to see, though pass discounts are often available. With Go Select you choose you destinations ahead of time. You can add as many as you like, and each one affects the price differently.
New York Pass takes a different tack, charging you by time rather than destination. Prices range from $85 for a one-day adult pass to $230 for 7 days, with the option to add hop-on, hop-off bus tickets to multi-day passes (coupons can often make it cheaper for you). During that window of time you can visit as many attractions as you like—over 80 of them—without paying admission at the door, and can even skip past the long lines at many locations.
All three of these can offer real savings if used properly, but the right one to choose depends on your touring style. If your goal is to see as many places as possible per day, New York Pass can save you hundreds of dollars, but if you prefer to take your time and fully enjoy each location, one of the other two will probably be better. Don’t trust any of their websites to accurately tell you just how much you’re saving—check prices on the attractions’ own sites, figure out your visiting timeframe and compare for maximum value. (Or let the PassComparison website do it for you.)
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