seiing new york...subway,bus or grayline
 

visiting for 7 days next week and keen to pack a lot in. The grayline 4 loops ticket sounds quite good and relatively effortless. Or should we buy the metropass and do it ourselves/ or should we do a bit of both?!

For 7 days, i would get a 7-day MetroCard for the most efficient use of your money and time. Grayline loops are not a great way to get from one place to another quickly.

You might enjoy having a Grayline ticket for a day just to get an overview of the city.

yeah, for guided sightseeing, grayline would be fine. but for getting from point A to point B (restaurants, neighborhoods, specific locations, etc) subway/bus is the way to go.

If the weather is nice (awful if the sun will be burning down on you when stopped in traffic), the hop on/hop off buses offer fantastic views of the city from seats on the upper deck. So nice to be able to lean back and enjoy looking to the tops of the tall buildings.

We like the Downtown Loop the best and think the Circle Line Harbor Lights Tour is better for seeing the city at night.

Do not recommend the loop tours for getting around. They travel in only one direction, for one thing. And, you have to pay careful attention for the time of the last bus of the day - they stop early (around 5 or 6PM).

Note that the map they give you is not really detailed, you need to have a better one along - especially since you're likely to hop off, wander around, and want to get back on at another stop.

Grayline are tours - not transportation. They're OK if you just want to lok at the outside of things andhear a canned - and often inaccurate - commentary. It doen;t leave any time to ctually see or do anything.

Since you have a full week you have time to see a lot - and I would do so using foot as much as possible, then subway (or if you must sit in traffic in a bus - at least make it a city bus - with good AC and that arrives every 5 minutes).