My spouse and
I bought tickets for the Gray Line New York Sightseeing / Sightseeing New York
/ CitySightseeing 48-hour All Loops Tour on a Saturday-Sunday in late May 2016.
Our particular package included all bus tours that Grayline offers, including
the following loops:
- Downtown
Tour (Midtown south to the Financial District), which lasted approximately 2.5
hours without hopping off. This tour runs from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm, departing
every 20 to 25 minutes
- Uptown
Tour (Midtown north to Harlem), which lasted approximately 2.5 hours without
hopping off. This tour runs from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, departing every 25 to 30
minutes).
- Brooklyn
Tour, which lasts 1.5 hours without hopping off (board this tour in the
Financial District).
- Bronx
Tour, which lasts 1.5 hours without hopping off (board this tour at Grant’s
Tomb in Harlem).
- Night
Tour (also views the seasonal Holiday Lights at Christmastime).
Also included
in our 2-day pass (which runs on the clock, meaning that if you purchase your
ticket at 2:00 pm on Saturday, you can use it until 2:00 pm on Monday) was a
hop-on/hop-off ferry tour, admission to either the Museum of City of New York or
the New York Historical Society, and a comedy club admission (however, to see
the show, you had to purchase two items of food or beverage). For the 90-minute
ferry tour, which runs from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, you can depart in Midtown, the
Financial District, or Brooklyn; a bonus of the ferry tour was that on its trip
from the Financial District back to Midtown, you enjoy great close-up views of
the Statue of Liberty.
We only
departed the hop-on/hop-off bus (also called a HoHo) one time: on the Uptown
loop in order to have lunch at Marcus Samuelsson’s restaurant Red Rooster in
Harlem. Some of the buses that we rode were newer than other buses, but all vehicles
provided a place to plug in earbuds (provided by Grayline) so that you could
listen to either a pre-recorded audio tour or the live tour guide broadcast.
Some tour guides were better than other guides; some were informative and
entertaining, while others just pointed out great places to drink, eat, and
shop. We wanted to hear more historical information rather than pop culture
details, so we primarily listened to the canned audio guide. Some tour guides
and bus drivers did a better job of announcing stops where you could depart,
while other guides and drivers did not mention the stop until we were driving
by, thus not giving passengers any time to decide if they wanted to depart or
stay on the bus. On one of our routes, it almost felt like we were riding a
public bus, where you had to pull the bell/buzzer cord to let the driver and
the guide know that you wanted to stop, otherwise the bus would barrel right by
the designated stops. In fact, when we waited for the bus to pick us up again
after our lunch in Harlem, the bus stayed in the center lane of a four lane
(two lanes in each direction) road; it did not even pull over into the
right-hand lane as it approached the (supposed) stop at the Apollo Theatre. We
had to walk out into the busy street to flag the bus down; otherwise, it would
not have stopped. Even though passengers might not often embark/disembark at
that Apollo Theatre stop, the Grayline drivers cannot just drive by and strand
tourists there!
We took our
tours in late May when the weather was very hot. We felt much cooler when we
rode on the downtown tour than when we rode on the uptown tour because when you
travel downtown, the bus drives in the shade of tall skyscrapers for much of
the time. The uptown loop is warmer, although as long as the bus is moving,
there is decent airflow. (Most passengers want to sit on the open exposed top,
although there is also covered, climate-controlled seating below behind the
driver.)
The same climate
conditions were true of the ferry – when we were sailing, there was a nice
breeze, but when we stopped at the piers to pick up passengers, it was quite
hot. The ferry has two decks, with both exposed and shaded seats on the upper
deck, and enclosed seating on the lower deck, which also houses restrooms and a
snack bar (simple snacks and alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages). The ferry
terminal in Midtown offers indoor and outdoor waiting areas, restrooms, a snack
bar, and a photographer to take green screen photos of you to super-impose in
front of famous NY attractions. For some passengers, staff from the photography
studio brought photos around to view onboard the ferry, although no one came to
us. Supposedly, you can also view your photos online, although it has been
about one month since our cruise, and our photo has not yet been posted; if we
had known that the picture might never be available online, we would have
sought out the photo rep onboard to purchase our photograph.
The hop-on/hop-off
bus and ferry provides a great overview of the city and its skyline, even if
you never leave the mode of transportation. Even though we have visited
Manhattan hundreds of times in our lives (we live only 1.5 hours away), on
these tours, we saw some sites that we had never seen before (like Grant’s
Tomb, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the Apollo Theatre, the rusting
steel White Star Line/Cunard arch/gate near Piers 54 and 59 on the Hudson River
[where the Titanic should have docked], the Charging Bull statue in the
Financial District, and two Frank Gehry-designed buildings). For newcomers to
NYC, we recommend taking one of these bus/ferry tours on your first day/first visit
in order to get a great overview of the expanse of this amazing city!
