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There are many ways to get around New York City. Taxi, Subway, Bike, Walking, just to name a few. If you hang out in Times Square, even for a few minutes, you’ll see the various bus tours. While they may seem a bit touristy, should you take a bus tour of New York City? The answer is yes! Here’s why we went with Top View Bus Tours of New York City.
Top View Bus Tours provided us with our passes, however, all opinions are my own.
A Real New York City Sightseeing Tour
Top View NYC covers everything you can think of. And while it is a bus tour, they even have an option on the water! You’ll see Empire State Building, the Flat Iron building, Little Italy, Harlem, 5th Avenue, Central Park and so much more. They also offer a Brooklyn tour, a Bronx tour, and a Statue of Liberty cruise. The convenience of using a bus tour like Top View is the hop on hop off feature. If you see or hear about a place want to visit, simply hop off and go. Ready to get back on? Wait 20-30 minutes and another bus will be along shortly. Along the route, you plug in a set of provided headphones to listen to information about what you’re seeing. Plus, as far as bus tours of New York City go, the variety of options Top View provides is unmatched. More details on tickets below.
Top View NYC Bus Tours
The bus itself is a double-decker bus, which provides unobstructed views of the skyline. They offer five different routes, with two of those as a hop on and hop off with multiple stops. The Bronx and Brooklyn Tour depart from one location but cover a lot of ground.
Night Tours
Top View NYC also has an exciting night tour. Imagine sitting on top of the bus seeing all the lights from the skyscrapers of New York. Magical!
Review of Top View
We did the Top View Hop On/Hop Off Bus to complete our trip to NYC. Here’s my review of this bus tour of New York City.
Pros
The tour has an audio guide, with provided headphones, that you plug into a jack next to your seat. There you can also choose your language. This makes it a great tour for international speakers. Hop on and hop off covers a lot of Manhattan. There are two routes, uptown, and downtown, with plenty of stops along each route. The day we spent on the bus, we wandered on and off of several of these stops, finding it super convenient. The upper deck on the double-decker bus makes for great photos!
Cons
A couple of things we noted that we didn’t care for on our tour. We had to switch busses at one point with no explanation of why. The second bus driver asked us why we all were getting on his bus. It’s not really up to us to know this, we did what we were told. Plus, at one of their main stations, our bus parked for 20 minutes. It’s not clear that this is a transfer station, so we had to hop off and hop on another bus. While an employee did come up to the upper deck to tell us, we waited for a few minutes ahead of time. I feel it should have been announced. While these may have been isolated incidents, it did give us pause.
So, should you take a bus tour of New York City? My thoughts are yes. Especially at the beginning of your trip to get a good lay of the land. It’s also helpful to take a bus tour of New York City to get to some popular spots in the city.
Tickets
Top View NYC has Multi-Day, 24 hour, Same Day and Liberty Cruise Tickets.
So, should you take a bus tour in NYC? My answer is yes. Do it early in your trip so that you get a good lay of the land, Plus, take advantage of the hop on and hop off feature to stop wherever you find interesting.
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