Last summer, as an affiliate for Smart Destinations, I won two free city passes. Please be aware that the links in this post are affiliate links and the review is based on using those free passes.
Please also be aware that I have bought my own city passes numerous times in other destinations and I usually love them.
New York City Passes – Worth It? | brokeGIRLrich
Who doesn’t love a good staycation, right? As someone who grew up 40 minutes from New York City in New Jersey, the City is generally somewhere I go when I have something specific to do.
Once in a while, family might come in from out of town and we go explore NYC for the day, but for the most part, I can’t say I’ve done the best job of exploring all the tourist hits in New York City.
I went to Ellis Island as a 4thgrader (and numerous times after when family visits because my grandparents came through there, so everyone wants to go look at their name on the wall). After years and years of talking about it, my dad and I finally went to the Statue of Liberty about 7 years ago.
I do see a lot of theater in the City.
But generally, unless I’m working at them (like the summer I worked for The RIDE), I’m not willing to pay to go be a tourist in New York.
Despite my stinginess, I’ve wanted to go to the top of the Empire State Building for years.
Apparently Strawberry Fields is a real place.
One thing about New York is that it is expensive. The touristy stuff is pretty pricey. Now, if you’re planning a trip there, there are certainly a lot of budget friendly options you can find, but if you want to see some of the iconic highlights, it’s going to cost a bit.
What I don’t love about the New York Explorer Pass is that with most other cities, you get a limited amount of time to see a large group of attractions – as many as you can cram into that time period.
With the New York Explorer Pass, you pick the number of attractions you want to see (3, 4, 5, 7, or 10) and pick your card based on that. Then you have 30 days to see those attractions from when you first activate your card.
There are presently 87 options available on the New York Explorer Pass and the average cost of an attraction without any pass is $37.21.
The cost breakdown is:
- 3 Choice Pass = $94
- 4 Choice Pass = $132
- 5 Choice Pass = $156
- 7 Choice Pass = $212
- 10 Choice Pass = $270
So that breaks down to:
- 3 Choice Pass = $31.33 an attraction
- 4 Choice Pass = $33.00 an attraction
- 5 Choice Pass = $31.20 an attraction
- 7 Choice Pass = $30.29 an attraction
- 10 Choice Pass = $27.00 an attraction
And that’s just an average savings. So to make sure you amp up those savings, you want to pick things that cost more.
For example, the three most expensive items on the list are The RIDE ($69.00), Hop-On Hop-Off One Day Tour ($60.00), and the Queens-Flushing Meadows International Food Excursion ($59.00). If you selected those three items, they would come out to $188 and you would save $94 by purchasing the 3 Choice Pass.
On the flip side, if you really just wanted to see The Museum of the City ($18.00), the Statue of Liberty ($18.50), and the Museum of Sex ($20.50), you would actually lose $37 by purchasing the pass.
To make sure your pass is worth it, you need to make sure you stay above that average amount per attraction. The New York Explorer Pass offers 54 attractions that cost $34.99 or more. It has an additional 18 attractions that are more than $27.00.
Empire State Building View – FINALLY!
When we used the pass this week, we opted for the Catacombs by Candlelight Tour ($35.00) and the Empire State Building entry ($43.55), which both make the cut of being above $31.33.
However, we also went on the Central Park TV & Movie Sites Walking Tour ($31.00), which is $.33 under the goal amount. Since the pass was free, we made out like bandit either way, but it definitely wasn’t an optimal savings.
Combined though, that grouping would still have big enough savings to make the card worth it.
Catacombs by Candlelight tour, in which I learned there are actually two St. Patricks Cathedrals in the city.
As the card does feature a lot of the more expensive, iconic stops, it could be a good purchase to augment additional frugal choices.
Personally, I probably wouldn’t go on most of the neighborhood tours listed. You can find cheaper walking tours easily.
I would go through and count the iconic places that really mattered to me and make my choice based on that.
As noted, some key tourist spots that are actually cheaper to pay for yourself include the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. You also will pay less if you pay on your own for the Yankee Stadium Tour, Rockefeller Center Tour, 9/11 Museum, American Museum of Natural History, Guggenheim Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art.
Some of the bigger ticket items could be good to bundle into this card including the Hop-On, Hop-Off bus, a Circle Line (or any line really) cruise, the Empire State Building, or Top of the Rock Observatory.
Check out any of the items higher than the average cost per attraction and if it looks like something you really want to do, buy a card for that many attractions.
The nice thing is that if you’re visiting the City for a few days, you can spread out when you use the card it can work really nicely with any number of free or budget friendly things you can also do in the City.
Traveling to any of these places soon? Check out my reviews of those City Cards too:
