See NY by bus tour or make our own arrangements?

Hi all,

My husband and I have three or four days to see NY in early September. We%26#39;d like to get a taste of the %26#39;real%26#39; NY, as well as see the mandatory tourist spots such as the Statue of Liberty, ESBuilding etc. Are we better just making our own way around Manhattan via foot/subway, or doing one of these one day bus tours to see all the sights?

Thanks,

OzTourist76

See NY by bus tour or make our own arrangements?

The bus tours really are wonderful and give you an overview that you can%26#39;t get yourself in just a few days. But I%26#39;d also suggest making your own arrangements for other spots as well - ESB or Top of the Rock or both, Central Park and a couple of museums. Especially the Metropolitan.

Have a great trip. Ta. MMM!

See NY by bus tour or make our own arrangements?

I%26#39;d do one of the tours --either NY Party Shuttle or Marvelous Manhattan. Then you can go back to those places that interest you on your own. I think one of them drops you at the Empire State building at the end of the tour. That and the Statue of Liberty are very time consuming to do and wouldn%26#39;t make sense as part of the tour.

nypartyshuttle.com

kingofnyc.com

i would book a big apple greeter as they are wonderful.

before our trip, we did plenty of reading and then wandered around on our own with the use of a metrocard

www.mta.info/metrocard/mcgtreng.htm#unlimited

for your trip, i%26#39;d suggest a 1-day fun pass for US$7/day each day.

have fun.

Can sometime tell me how the Big Apple Greeter principle works and how we organise it ?

Thanks

Peter

You can do one of the bus tours to get an overview of the city. It may give you ideas of what you%26#39;d like to go back and explore on your own.

NYC is very easy to et around by Subway, busses and taxi%26#39;s.

Taxis are easy to come by most times of day.

The one day fun pass only makes sense if you will use it more than 3 times in that one day.

sometimes the best suggestion is to just get a metro card and put about $10 or $20 on it. For every $10 you get an additional $2.

This gives you 6 rides between you and your husband. You can share the card and use it one after the other. It is also good for transfers between busses and trains. If you were to both use it to enter the Subway one after the other it would then remember that you had to transfers if you were to switch to a bus.

The unlimited ride cards may only be used by one person (it will not let you swipe it immediately after it has been swiped) and only make sense if you will indeed be rideing the Subway a great deal during the day.

It is a nonprofit organization that pairs visitors with volunteer ';greeters'; who show various neighborhoods, or show you how the subway works, or just gets your oriented to the city. It is totally free, you must have a hotel reservation to apply, and unfortunately, not every applicant gets a greeter, it is the luck of the draw.

Check the website for more information:

www.bigapplegreeter.org

Is it worth it? Absolutely.

sorry, that would be two(not to) transfers. I wish this had spellcheck.

Just to clarify the above info transfers are good if used within 2 hours of initial swipe, from bus to bus/ subway to bus/bus to subway but not subway to subway.

There actually are a couple of subway locations where you can make a subway-to-subway metrocard transfer.

Iddev:

Did not know that, do you know which ones?

Good info to know.