When you learn you should have listened to New York City CityPASS and booked things ahead of time but your trip still works out

I love getting CityPASS when we travel because it’s often a great way to bundle a bunch of activities we know we are going to see and it makes sure we get a discounted price and often it helps with lines during busy seasons too. I was given two NYC CityPASSES on our recent trip to New York so the hubby and I could sightsee a bit before we met up with our kids who were on a school trip from Seattle to Washington DC with Apple Student Tours.

The first thing you need to do when you get your New York City CityPass is to book times for the things on it you really want to see

I had a zillion emails about booking things ahead of time. But I actually actively remember thinking in my head….”Do we really need to book things ahead of time?!!” and thought we’d do the wait and see approach instead.

It turns out that you do need to book things in advance especially for a busy place like New York City. We found out the hard way at the American Museum of Natural History, when we biked up to the museum (using Citi Bikes in NYC was really helpful to get around everywhere) without a booking and were told we needed a booking to enter and there were no longer tickets available for that day. This would have happened even if we didn’t have a CityPASS too. There were tickets and times available for the next day and a couple days after that. So we probably could have booked the day before we went and would have been able to enter but because we didn’t we couldn’t go that day. I had tickets for the Metropolitan Museum with my Seattle Art Museum Patron membership so we ended up going there instead. And we ate Zabar’s bagels for a delicious lunch too.

We learned our lesson and booked tickets for the Guggenheim

And the Guggenheim is such a stunning museum. We booked our time for right when the museum opened and lined up outside with all the other people who had tickets for that time. We even saw a line crasher-we watched a woman size up the line and kind of stand parallel to another woman a few people ahead of us in line. Slowly she closed the gap between herself and the other woman, looking almost like she was with her but also looking at her watch and glancing ahead and behind like she was waiting for someone else, never interacting. Eventually she moved behind the woman and took her place in the line solo in front of another family who wasn’t really paying attention to the whole thing. It was fascinating to watch this behavior and we saw her later wandering the museum alone.

There was a Kandinsky exhibition at the museum when we went. And we also saw other familiar works by Degas, Van Goh and Monet. The bathrooms in this museum are also interesting-there are individual stalls on every floor and they are very compactly designed and feel like they haven’t changed since 1959 either (and maybe no one says go check out the bathrooms at the Guggenheim, but hey, I totally think you should). I also really like Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture so I’m glad this was a museum on the CityPASS. We read somewhere that when you get to the Guggenheim you should take the elevator all the way to the top and walk down and that was a good tip too.

My kids were jealous that we visited the Empire State Building without them

There are lots of new tall buildings to explore in NYC. Some have gimmicks like rooms full of balloons or sides of buildings that you can climb (if you are really brave and also spendy.). But there is only so much time to visit buildings in an exciting place like this and there is something to be said for visiting a true New York classic. We were 30 minutes early for our ticket but we were allowed into the building anyways. We arrived close to opening too so the lineups were all pretty much non-existent. We even ended up riding the elevator with someone who had worked there for years and they told us a few cool stories about working in lightening storms. It was a little rainy and there was promise of a potential thunderstorm and the sky was really cool. When we met up with my kids after their school trip they wanted to visit the Empire State Building too, but we ran out of time. I think having a ticket to the Empire State Building helped motivate us to get out somewhere on a rainy day and I’m really glad we went.

9/11 Memorial and Museum

This was a museum I’m thankful we had the chance to visit but I personally never want to go to it again. My mom was visiting NYC from Vancouver BC with her work on 9/11 and it took a very long time to hear from her that day and the wait was really scary. I know we are lucky that she was okay when so many lives were lost that day. But it was also traumatizing to relive that day and feel so guilty for my relief again in a place filled with so much horror and grief. It is the perfect memorial. And it is something every American and every visitor to the United Sates should see so I’m glad the Memorial was part of the CityPASS but it is not a typical tourist attraction by any means. We were able to book our time easily and stood in a line that looked long but went very quickly. And next time if I get a CityPASS I can try the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum instead.

And touring NYC by boat?

This sounded really fun and we could choose to go to Ellis Island or ride the Circle Line Sightseeing cruises. We did not time this right again because the day we wanted to go we found out we’d be meeting up with our kids but we had no idea when and where we’d have to meet them. The Circle Line Sightseeing cruise was only one hour so it was really tempting but we couldn’t chance missing the meeting time so we had to miss out again.

Ultimately all the mistakes we made using the NYC CityPASS were unique to our situation because this trip revolved around our kids’ first ever trip away from Seattle on their “own” and not the usual way we travel in the city. I’m so thankful that we had the passes even though we did not use them to their fullest potential because they took away a lot of the stress of planning-I just had to look down the list on the CityPASS site every time we had a free moment. And even though we didn’t book things way in advance we probably could have gone to everything on our CityPASS had we just made plans a day or two before which is pretty convenient too.

Have you ever used a CityPASS on your travels? (We’ve loved having them in Boston and Chicago and I know there is a CityPASS for Seattle that I need to try one day too)

(PS if you are curious about where we stayed in NYC on this trip, we used our American Express and Stayed at the Conrad Midtown Manhattan.)

Terumi

Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys.  She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live.  She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)