The Visit York Pass: Review

The Visit York Pass: Review | brokeGIRLrich

Another annual visit from the BFF has come and gone and unsurprisingly, I have another city pass to review.

This year we headed up to York for a long weekend and purchased a York Pass to cover most of our sightseeing needs. And, again, big thumbs up for city passes.

I had been to York once about two years ago to see their York Mystery Plays cycle (yes, I am super cool) and noticed that the city was totally adorable and full of medieval and Viking history and knew the BFF would love it. So I intentionally avoided most sightseeing there and waited to check things out with her in the future.

So when we decided to head up there, I checked to see if there was a City Pass and was happy to find there was indeed a York Pass.

I love city passes because if you want to see several big sites, it’s usually the most economical choice. Also, it makes planning the vacation much easier, since you can just hit the areas covered by the pass.

We bought 2-day York Passes for £75 each.

What we saw:

Day 1:

York Minster – £18
Clifford’s Tower – £15
JORVIK Viking Centre – £16.50
York Castle Museum – £17
York City Sightseeing – £16

Day 2:

York Cocoa Works – £9.50
City Cruises York – £14
The York Dungeon – £22
Van Gogh Immersive Experience – £13

Total: £141

What I messed up:

We decided to go to Castle Howard on our last day in York and I didn’t realize it was included in the pass! It’s definitely an all-day adventure to get out there and back, but if I had realized it, we could’ve gotten the 3-day pass for an extra £15 instead of paying £28 each for our Castle Howard tickets.

I realized that I often overlook the further out attractions and have come to learn that they can be worth the adventure out as an added day on various passes. I could never figure out before why on earth some options were so far away from city centre on other city passes but it makes a little more sense now.

I realized a little late that we’d just walked by a few of the older little houses on the pass like the Treasure’s House (£10 – right over by York Minster), The Roman Bath Museum (£3.50 – near the Shambles and York Chocolate Story), Merchant Adventurer’s Hall (£7 – right by our hotel, close to the JORVIK Viking Centre) and could’ve popped into them to check them out quickly. I was a little less organized than I usually am when planning these trips this year due to… life. But it reminded me a bit of Edinburgh and a few of the older little museum stops we made along the Royal Mile that were actually nice since they were included in the Pass there, though not something we would’ve probably sought out otherwise.

We also skipped York’s Chocolate Story, which I heard from several friends later is a really nice stop and would’ve been pretty easy to squeeze in – everything is like a 10-15 minute walk to each other at most and we walked past it a dozen times. We even popped in to buy a chocolate bar there.

One thing we wish we’d done differently was to ride the York City Sightseeing earlier because a few places like Clifford’s Tower or walking through the York Castle Museum and it’s prison section would’ve made a lot more sense with that context as there was little information at both those stops. However we were trying to save it until we needed a bit of a break from walking.

Excellent chocolate tour and tasting at the York Cocoa Works

The Van Gogh Immersive Experience was awful, though very quick, and if it’s raining, potentially a nice spot to sit for a few minutes. I’d seen them advertised everywhere for years though, and I am delighted we popped in as part of the pass rather than ever buying a separate ticket.

Two things we really loved were the JORVIK Viking Centre and York Cocoa Works. If you are going, I’d say don’t try to learn too much about the JORVIK Viking Centre before you go. Just let it happen. Absolutely brilliant and weird.

York Cocoa Works was one of my favorite tours/tastings I’ve ever been to. The tour is fairly brief, but it was a nice small group and the tour guide was so knowledgeable. We were shocked he’d only been doing it for like two months. Then the tasting is like a whole event with discussion about flavors and how your tongue tastes things and it was really just so delightful. Very different from any chocolate tour I’d been on in the past and more like a high end wine tasting.

Probably less exciting if you’ve got kids. But for two middle-aged ladies, we dug it.

A Few Extra Tips for York

There were a few tours that you could’ve done in the evening on the pass, but I am a ghost tour nerd and wanted to go on one of those. We went on The Deathly Dark Tour of York for £10 each and it was… ok. Not the best ghost tour I’ve been on, not the worst. I would suggest trying one of the others if that’s your jam though.

We caved to the consumerism but the store is so cute.

The only additional activities we paid for while we were in York were that ghost tour, Castle Howard, and a round of mini-golf at The Hole in Wand which was absolutely dreadful, though open about an hour later than most places. Like, honestly, the worst mini-golf we have ever played – though the employees there were lovely.

We also chose to get up early and wait in line to buy some little ghosts at The York Ghost Merchants and wandered through the stores in the Shambles. The Shambles is an absolute madhouse from like 9 AM – 6 PM but is super picturesque, especially outside those hours. Despite it being a madhouse, we often found ourselves walking through it and spent more money on that street than I normally would. We went into The Shop That Must Not Be Named and I found these wax melts based off of Harry Potter classes. I also bought some lotion and body wash from The Society of Alchemists which is a really cute store to go into.

Surprisingly, York shuts down between 5-6 PM. After that, the only things open are restaurants and bars. If you want to do something in the evening, be sure to book a walking tour or maybe some theatre tickets because nothing else is open.

We did have some really nice cocktails at Evil Eye, which had an absolutely incredible cocktail menu – if that’s your thing.