Would you recommend buying a New York pass to visit the tourist sites with?
I noticed that there seem to be 3 different passes? - the city pass, the explorer pass or the New York pass?
Is any pass better the other?

We are only in NYC for three days/nights arriving early day 1 and leaving early day 4 for overnight tour to Niagara Falls before flying out to UK. We will want to vist key tourist sites IE statue of liberty cruise, empire state building, Natural History Museum, maybe take in show and eat somewhere nice.

any advice would be appreciated

Since you are here for such a short time, you probably won't get to see all the sites that the passes have, so you would probably be wasting some money and depending on weather, you may not for example to hit the Empire State Building in rain.

So I'd say play it a bit by ear.

You also might want to put the Met Museum on your list as well as the Museum of Natural History/Planetarium.

The Statue of Liberty is not really worth getting off on Liberty Island, since you can't do more than go into the gift shop. I'd suggest staying on the boat and head over to Ellis Island, you can easily spend several hours there. From where the ferry back to Manhattan leaves you.....

Walk through Battery Park, and you might want to stop at the "Globe", which is a temporary memorial to the World Trade Center.

If it's approaching lunchtime I'd suggest Fraunces Tavern as a good lunch spot, or sit at the bar and enjoy a cocktail (follow Water St to Broad, and up one block to FT)

From there walk up Broad St to Wall (NY Stock Exchance, Federal Building, JP Morgan Bank)

At Wall St head left back to Broadway and up the Chase Building will be on your right and the Merrill Lynch (60 stories black building (will be on your left)

Just behind the ML building is the site of the World Trade Center (currently under construction), but if you walk down and to the right you will find the story of 9/11 with pictures on the fencing, ask if you don't see it right away.

Across the street is the infamous Century 21 deparment store, might take a quick looksee.

From there back up to Broadway to the City Hall area and from there you can head to the South St. Seaport or Chinatown and Little Italy and you've basically seen most of lower Manhattan.

If you want to see a Broadway show, you can walk over to the South St. Seaport to the TKTS booth for half price tickets (opens at 10am), rather than waiting for HOURS in line at the TKTS booth in Times Square.

Hope this helps and have a GREAT time while you are here.

Don;t waste your money on a pass. Just pay for what you do as you do it. It's very difficult to get to enough places to pay for the pass unless you run around all day like hamster on a wheel. (And when the passes say they get you to the front of the line for a busy sight, it means the front of the ticket buyer's line, not the line to actually get into the sight, which you still have to wait on. So don't fall for that one.)

The only kind of pass you need is a Metrocard for the subway.

I agree with not getting a pass b/c

>None of the passes include entry to everything at the Mus. of Nat. History (IMAX, Rose Center, special exhibits), just general admission which is pay what you wish.

>None of the passes will allow you to prebook a monument pass to actually go inside the Statue of Liberty.

And as others have said, you're not likely to visit enough things to save enough money.

If you want to go the Empire State building you should order tickets online in advance to avoid that ticket line. Many people prefer the experience at Top of the Rock where you don't need to purchase in advance.

I don't know what you meant by "Statue of Liberty cruise." You can visit the Statue and Ellis Island by ferry, but that should be prebooked with a monument pass online. It takes a lot of time to do the trip so with a short visit, you might just want to have a distant view of the statue which can be accomplished on the FREE Staten Island ferry or one of the various harbor cruises from Circle Line, nywaterway.com nywatertaxi.com etc.

For a Broadway show, you will find discounts to many with a discount code from broadwaybox.com I strongly recommend getting theater tickets in advance vs. wasting time on arrival on a such a short trip. If the codes currently listed expire prior to your trip, it's always worth trying them anyway as they sometimes will work. Otherwise you can wait a bit.

thanks heaps for the advice, much appreciated. I think we will give the pass a miss and as suggested pay as we go to allow for the spontaneity.

thanks again