24-Hour NYC Downtown Hop-On Hop-Off Tour with Statue of Liberty Cruise

It was my first time doing a double decker tour and I absolutely loved it! It was amazing to see the well-known buildings like Empire State Building and Flatiron from the open top - away from the crowd, better pictures! TopView staff was friendly and helpful too.

Had to walk more than 15 blocks just to get to the voucher redemption center and then had to walk back another 7 blocks to get on the bus. The bus was very cramped and the speakers by my seat did not work so I missed the narration for the first 4 stops until I could move to a different seat. Traffic was horrendous not your fault but it does take away from seeing the sights. The Liberty cruise was definitely the highlight but it also become the biggest negative of the experience. First the good part - seeing the Statue of Liberty up close was amazing and our guide was very knowledgeable and engaging. I would recommend this part to everyone. Now for the bad part - we waited for the shuttle to the boat for over an hour, which meant we only had the option of the 3:30 cruise. We finally got one of the shuttle drivers to radio about the shuttle otherwise we may have missed it altogether. It also meant that any other shuttle hops we wanted to use were eliminated because there was no more time after the cruise. The worst part, though, was being set up when we got done with the cruise. When we got off the boat, there was a single shuttle waiting and it was crammed full but there were still about 35 to 40 people waiting to ride back to the shuttle stop. Conveniently though, there were some old limos and miscellaneous drivers who were willing to drive people back for an additional charge. The driver that tried to hustle me wanted 45 to drive me back to my hotel - less than 2.5 miles away. There were lots of comments about the next shuttle being more than an hour away and missing the final bus back to mid-town, etc., all of which made it seem like this was all planned. I personally elected to walk away and took a real taxi back to the hotel for less the 20 during rush hour. Being hustled may be part of the New York experience but it managed to tarnish the whole sight-seeing experience for me.