LNMNapa

I'll be visiting NYC in April with my 12 year old son. Is it worth getting either a City Pass or Metro pass if we'll be there for 4 weekdays? We'll be going to Statue of Lib, Empire State Bldg, Nat History Mus, and Yankee Stadium for sure.

Gekko

To ride the subway or bus, you & your son will need to purchase a Metrocard.

Metrocards come in two flavors -- pay $2 for every ride (less a discount if you purchase 10 rides) or unlimited rides for a set time period. Transfers between subway & bus and vice versa are free.

I generally opt for the pay-as-you-go option when I have visitors from out of town. Often you think you'll do better with an unlimited card, but you don't. For a 4 day visit, you almost certainly should go with pay-as-you-go.

For more info:

http://www.mta.nyc.ny.us/metrocard/mcgtreng.htm

Enjoy NYC!

RUTHNEWYORK

A 24 hour tourist pass is available , It is less money and an excellent value. Look into that as an option.

Gekko

Ruth is probably referring to the $7 one day "fun pass" ($14 for 2 people). Obviously, only if each person rides the subway 4 times in one day is it a savings.

You might be better off purchasing one $20 Metrocard to start (which provides 11 rides, one free). If you use the subway/bus often, you can purchase another when it runs out.

grantop

I wouldn't do the "pay as you go" it can get annoying looking for change etc. for your group for 4 days - every time you ride you'll be digging for $6 in change. Ugh. Take a look at the MetroCard website (http://www.mta.nyc.ny.us/metrocard/ as stated by someone already) and see which option would work best for you. You will be surprised that even though you'll do a lot of walking you also ride a lot. And remember, those passes are good for subways AND buses.

Anonymous

That's not what pay-as-you-go means; it refers to the metrocard that is good for a fixed number of rides, rather than unlimited. The advantage of the card is that several people can use the same card, so you are less likely to get stuck with unused investment.

Gekko

Correct -- "pay as you go" is a type of Metrocard. Subway tokens are no longer accepted anyway. You must buy a Metrocard to ride the subway (although you can use change for the bus -- but few people do because it's slow & makes everyone behind you m-a-d.)

lynnejoel1015

Yep- we did in November for 5 days and it was worth every cent!!

Included in the City Pass is a ticket to take the Circle Line boat tour around Manhattan. Awesome. We'd have never done it if we hadn't bought the pass.

grantop

"pay as you go" can also be putting change in the bus box.

I think that the OP should look at the website and see what is best for them.

janie

I think we're all getting a little confused--
LNMNapa, can you explain something?
There are a couple of passes that are good for entry into museums and such
Citypass (details at http://citypass.com/city/ny.html) and
New York Pass (http://www.newyorkpass.com)
Were you comparing these 2? If so, you must look at the list of locations to see if you can really make them worth it. From your list, I don't think they would save you any money. If the amount is close to what you would pay anyway, it might be worth it to get to the front of the lines or to have an option to visit places you might not have originally planned to see as they end up being "free" for you. I can say than none of my out of town visitors have found it worth it for them

"Metrocard" is the name for the NYC transit cards for use on buses and subways. Metrocards come in 2 varieties--"pay per ride" and "unlimited" You should definitely have one or the other. You can pay for buses with cash (coins only) but the cards give better transfer options plus with the "pay per ride" option you get a 20% bonus on each purchase over $10 ($10 gets you $12 in fares, $20 gets $24, etc)
As to which type of Metrocard makes sense, it depends on how much walking you plan to do vs. trains and buses.

mclaurie

The NY Pass includes the hop on/off bus tour and many people confuse this as a means of transportation. If you want to do the tour, that's 1 thing, but otherwise, forget it. Subway travel is much better. So then it's a question of whether to get the citypass or not. It includes everything you mention except Yankee stadium. The question is what is the saving if you don't go to MOMA or other things in the pass. Also be aware the part of Mus. of Nat. Hist. that's included is just general admission. If you want to go to the Rose Center or IMAX etc., that's extra.

Anonymous

Uh-oh, I think we might be confusing the issue again. The New York Pass does not include the hop-on-hop-off tour, but a COMBINATION TICKET is available that combines the New York Pass with the Grayline tour.

http://www.newyorkpass.com/grayline.asp

The basic answer to all these "Is it worth it" questions inevitably is: "It depends" on what you plan to do.

In general, most cities' attractions passes are not good values, since there are so many things to do that are free, or not on the pass. Users often feel pressured into running around to do the things they have prepaid for, rather than being open to other experiences.