Rush Hour (Tourist Edition) Part I: The Day of Museums & The Night on the Rock

The last 3 days of our New York leg saw us utilizing our 3-day New York pass. For this section of my travels, I'll be blogging it in a slightly different way. Instead of the usual day-to-day journalling, I'll split this 3 hectic days into 2 portions - one for the tourist attractions that we managed to squeeze in (Tourist Edition) and the other for the foodie spots (Foodie Edition).

Before I get started with the lowdown on the sites that we visited, I'll give a brief description of how the New York Pass works (and thus explaining the mad rush). The New York City Pass (not to be mixed up with similar sounding passes like City Pass) gives you access to more than 70 sites, including the Empire State Building & The Statue of Liberty Cruise, and comes with their very own guide book (thus I suggest getting the book early). 

Your pass and guidebook

The pass is activated on the first day you use it and has to be used consecutively. Furthermore, it does not work on a 24-hours basis and end on the midnight of your final day (so do not activate it in the night). Some of the site passes give you access to the fast pass and some doesn't, so check it out in the guidebook or on their website before heading down. In addition to the passes, you can top up $45 for their hop-on bus services. I recommend that you skip this as a 7-day unlimited transport pass for $29 is better as it covers more grounds and is available for longer hours.

The New York MetroCard

Here are the different prices for the NY pass:

1 Day Adult Pass - $80

2 Day Adult Pass - $130

3 Day Adult Pass - $140.25 (Discounted) $165 (Original)

7 Day Adult Pass - $178.50 (Discounted) $210 (Original)

Some information that might be useful:

1) You can either order online and ship (postage applies) or collect it in person at various locations including one in Time Square (Planet Hollywood).

2) An average attraction will set you back from $13 - $25 (excluding fast pass). So plan your day(s) properly to make sure that you fully utilize your pass.

If you need more information, you can always visit the New York Pass website

Personally, I am not 100% sure as to whether this is the BEST deal in town. However, after doing some calculations and comparison, we concluded that we easily saved at least $50 by getting the pass at the cost of rushing around the sites. So my advice: If you want to take your time, you might want to consider another pass. If you don't mind the rush, this pass is for you.

To our first stop: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Read on for the MET, Natural History Museum and many other sites