Book your tickets online for your visit to Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island as soon as you know your dates.

To be frank, organized group tours are among the least efficient ways to spend a very limited amount of time here (unless you are the kind of tourists who just want to be driven past all the interesting things that NYC has to offer ... and I grant that a lot of people fall into that camp). You get to have no meaningful experience and are just a bypasser. But if that's what you want, then I guess load the group onto one of those awful Hop-on/Hop-off bus tours and be done with it.

The most cost-effective way for 21 adults to see NYC is for them to focus only on the things that matter most to each individual and to split up into much smaller groups, utilizing mass transit (easy and relatively inexpensive) instead of time-consuming group bus tours.

Into art? A small group should split off and visit a couple of art museums. Like trains? A small group goes off to Brooklyn and visits the Transit Museum. Like churches? Go to Trinity Church, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and then head up to St. John the Divine ... and there are a good many fine neighborhood churches ... including one at 35th/Madison that has Tiffany windows and is worth a look-see. Like food? Take a food-oriented walking tour of the Lower East Side or Chinatown.

If everyone wants to do the same thing, such as the Statue of Liberty, you have to realize that this takes no fewer than 5 or 6 hours (more if you arrive after lunch, when the lines are longer). Basically, you arrive no later than 9 (so long as you have a reservation) and can be done by 2 or 3 if you rush through everything. If you only one full day for sightseeing, then you want to reserve tickets for the earliest ferry on Sunday morning. It leaves around 8 or 8:30. That's crucial. If you can't get a ferry reservation before 10am, then you are going to lose a full day of sightseeing just doing this one thing, and then it might be worth your while to just take the free Staten Island Ferry, which will take about an hour and will get you within a few hundred yards of the Statue of Liberty. That's one thing the whole group could do first thing in the morning on Sunday, and then fan out for individual sightseeing.

Keep in mind that almost all museums are closed on Mondays, so if you're interested in museums, those also have to be worked into your Sunday schedule.

Agree that large scale bus tours are a poor and very expensive way to see NYC.'
'Much better to pick out exactly what you want and do it.

There are many good, small scale walking tours of certain areas/topics if that is what you want - but avoid the major bus tours at al costs.

To see the Statue of Liberty go now to the web site of the Park Service and hope they have tickets left. there are several options - climbing to the crown, just getting inside the pedestal -or just going to the island and seeing the statue close up. If you don;t have advance tickets the line to get on the ferry can be hours long and is simply not to be considered. If you can;t get advance reservations consider the free Staten island ferry - which gives a reasonable close view - as well as a great view of the Manhattan skyline on the way back.

You should offer your members a variety of options and then each group can go to see/do what is most important to them. This will make traveling around the city - and esp eating - mush easier - as few restaurants have room for so many people at the same time without advance reservations.

newyorkcityguy - check the dates on the posts you are bringing up and posting - many, like this are old.

I recommend doing the graylinenewyork downtown or uptown bus tour. Don't get the package tours since you probably won't have time to take every loop and attraction bundled with it. Plus NYC traffic slows the fun down. Also recommend taking the tour buses as early as possible and preferably on weekends to avoid said traffic jams during the week.