NYC Hop on Hop off Downtown Tour plus 1 Attraction

Posted By : K9107WPlouisef
The wording on the listing is quite misleading. There is a list of attractions which includes the Empire State Building. We were told by a rep from the company that the Empire State Building was included. However, we could not use this ticket there.

I called the bus company (from the Empire State Building, whose staff were amazing) to query it and was told it was for another attraction but that they didn't know which so couldn't help. I asked if we could swap so that our one attraction was the ESB and pointed out the listing was quite unclear, and the employee hung up on me.

We had to pay to get into the ESB separately and it ended up being a very expensive day.

The tour itself was fine - lots of interesting sites but a large part of the journey is coming up the riverside, without a huge amount to see. Given everything there is to do in New York, a better route is definitely possible.
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Posted On : 2024-04-25 13:48:42

Posted By : K7775XGmargaretw
The Red Bus didn’t have stops near enough to the attractions in NYC. If you didn’t hop off, you didn’t see anything. I purchased am added event but when we tried to use it in the Empire State Building, we couldn’t and had to pay again. Very disappointing.
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Posted On : 2024-01-06 18:05:11

Posted By : Taylour_L
Great way to travel throughout several neighborhoods and save your feet! Some drivers are more fun than others. This is NOT a tour where someone guides you, it’s a guided tour via headphones, which is totally fine!
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Posted On : 2023-12-17 09:35:43

Posted By : ChemTch
Not great value for the money. Regretted this purchase as the buses did not run as often as advertised and were slow getting places due to traffic.
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Posted On : 2023-11-17 10:51:23

Posted By : andreakO6579GA
For everyone's information and to avoid the confusion we encountered, there is no one from "Gray Line" on the street trying to sell you tickets. However, although we felt like we were being scammed by the Big Bus people, apparently, they are the same for this. Bus was fine, but we opted to do the entire loop in the morning to get the lay of the land, and then were made to get off the bus ahead of M & M world and had to walk a block and get in line (a long line) to get on a different bus (we only did the downtown loop). Also the ticket to the One World Tower was not provided to us and we were told we could just go there, however had to way to access a ticket there and had to go to customer service to get it sorted out. Thankfully the girl there was on the ball and took care of us. However she told us that we were supposed to be given a pink ticket by the Big Bus staff for entry to One World. We were not. I did this tour years ago and felt that time was a better experience overall. Still a good way to get the lay of the land, but it could have been smoother.
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Posted On : 2023-08-22 18:08:34

Posted By : Q729KRpeters
Bought the two day hop on/off ticket. Took the Brooklyn tour day 1. Used the center city route first to access the Brooklyn route. Traffic in NYC makes the time of the stops random and not really adherence to a schedule. Realize that if you do this around Christmas time, NYPD routinely shut down roads around Times Square and you should expect extreme delays and detours. We never even got close to the origination point and had to get dropped off several blocks from where we expected. And over an hour later than when we expected.
Lastly, one two of the routes, the tour guides were very good. On the center city route, the tour guide barely spoke English and he was VERY aggressive in trying to hustle tips, shaking the “tip bag” in everybody’s face.
I thought it to be a truly NYC experience, my wife was not amused.
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Posted On : 2020-01-10 22:31:28

Posted By : Ben0810
Really pushy sales people in Times Square. After being approached several time over a few days one of you sales people pushed it to far resulting in this review.

My family and I stopped to decide where we wanted to head for dinner. One of you sales people approached us and we told him we were not interested. He said to hear him out and we told him we were really not interested. He went on to state he was in a good mood and but he might just smack my wife. I asked him to go away and he raised a fist as if he was going to hit me and walked away.

If I ever considered going on you bus tour, I definitely will not now.
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Posted On : 2019-11-19 19:10:15

Posted By : atr469
Definetly worth the money if you plan on seeing the different attractions. Saved $$$ on entrance fees and got detailed explainations of the history and buildings.
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Posted On : 2019-10-09 10:45:44

Posted By : Sandy B
We wanted to see the sites with the observatory ticket included. My husband and I have been to NY many times. Always use the Gray Lines...their groupon is def worth it. only down side was having to go to their office to redeem the groupon. But it worked out as there weren’t too many in lines. Got on bus with Allan France. He was tremendous on so many levels. Although some may have been offended, he used the ‘teacher technique’, as I call it (as I was one) of getting everyone’s attention to continue his remarks. I was VERY glad of this, because I wanted to hear what he said. And although we have been on this tour in the past, he added things that I had never known before. He was personable, friendly, and professional. And the fact that he was a Vietnam Veteran added to the mix!
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Posted On : 2019-03-21 10:13:22

Posted By : tasma2018
We bought a 3 day passed and used it all day for the entire 3 days great commentary and covers uptown downtown Brooklyn and also has a night tour - only thing is after 5 no guarantees of getting back on bus to get you back to where u started but well worth it
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Posted On : 2019-01-05 01:14:33