One of the best ways we spent our money in New York was the Big Bus hop on/hop off tickets (we bought the Classic ticket). It was a double-decker bus (open air on the top). The tour was prerecorded, but they gave you headphones that you plugged in to the bus. You also had some volume control. This worked out great for me because I sometimes have trouble hearing on the tours.
The tour bus has an app where you can track where the buses currently are, so you can find one to hop onto. There is a red line and a blue line. The blue line really only circles Central Park, while the Red line goes through different spots in the city. Their audio portion contains a lot of fun facts and trivia about the sights along the way.
During our trip, the Red Line had stops at the Empire State Building/Korea Town, SoHo, Chinatown/Little Italy, Brooklyn Bridge, Statue of Liberty/Battery Park, Circle Line Sightseeing, and M&M World (Times Square). The Blue Line stopped at Times Square.
The experience of sitting on the top floor of the bus was really neat. We had to duck under a few trees, could (but didn’t) touch the stop lights as we drove under them, and had a good view of things near street level (we could see over the other cars).
DETAILS:*
- TICKETS: $47.20/adults online price ($59 on-street), $39.20/child online ($49 on-street) (ages 3-12). COVID Restrictions: masks required. They have a few options, these prices were for the Classic Ticket.
- HOURS: Red Line: first bus is at 9:30 am at the M&M stop, last bus 4:30 pm at the M&M stop. Blue Line had stops at 10:00 am, 12:00 pm, and 2:00.
- PARKING: No
- BATHROOM: No
- TIME RECOMMENDED: Min 90 tour per line (tour time without getting off)
- *Details correct at the time of posting, but please double check before you go.