NYC - "The Ride" - or the new "Downtown Experience"

[Guest]

As it says on the tin really.

Any experiences of "The Ride" - booking direct comes out as $203 for family of 4. Worth it ?

Am looking for surprise birthday treat for 17 yo dd. Suitable ?

I went looking on the ride website and then saw the "downtown experience" - new tour seems to be VR history. looks good. Would be interested in reviews from those going / doing this from March this year. Ta.

Reviews on TA seem to range from Cheesy, through MEH and onto BRILLIANT / MUST DO.

What do you think ?

[Melbatb]

I think NeilH did the Ride. Check out his Canadian trippie from 2016!

[Guest]

Originally Posted by Melbatb

I think NeilH did the Ride. Check out his Canadian trippie from 2016!

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Thank you - found Neil's trippie !

[neilhd]

Ha, thanks for reading!

We did indeed do The Ride - it was brilliant. If you want a "proper" hop on/hop off sightseeing tour then this isn't it, but it was way more fun!

Funnily enough we were in NYC again last week (but didn't do it again).

[amy56]

We also did The Ride this past October - truly one of the best things we've ever done as a family!

I hopefully won't spoil it too much for you, but will say that ending our last night on a bus full of people singing 'New York, New York' at the top of our voices through Times Square with the public watching on was an amazing way to end a fabulous trip!

As previous poster said, it's not really a sight seeing tour, so I would view it more as a show - but we are hopefully returning to New York again next summer, and I wouldnt be surprised if my children ask to do it again!

[lovedisney]

We are thinking of doing the ride in April, does anyone know if you can prebook from home using the explorer pass?

[amy56]

Originally Posted by lovedisney

We are thinking of doing the ride in April, does anyone know if you can prebook from home using the explorer pass?

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From everything I read prior to our october trip, I don't think you can.. We ended up paying for all of our activities seperately as I wanted to do specific things at certain times, and the pass didn't seem to allow for such specifics (at least for certain activities, and I think The Ride was one of them).

[lovedisney]

Originally Posted by amy56

From everything I read prior to our october trip, I don't think you can.. We ended up paying for all of our activities seperately as I wanted to do specific things at certain times, and the pass didn't seem to allow for such specifics (at least for certain activities, and I think The Ride was one of them).

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Thanks, have emailed them to ask, I know with the New York pass you can't but it does say on the explorer pass website that you can, though like you I have read a lot of reviews where people were queuing for ages to get booked so want to double check before I book it

[Mortimer Mouse]

We went in August with our 3 teens and they all LOVED the Ride. They thought it was just a bus tour and the older 2 cottoned on pretty quick, but my youngest didn't click until halfway though. He thought they were just random people.

If you're going during the summer, I can also recommend the Shark boat. We were just going to take the Staten Island ferry in order to get some SOL photos, but had seen reviews of this and decided to give it a go. A real party atmos' with loud music, in a big speed boat around the harbour, stopping for photos on all 3 sides of the island.
Again, this was a big hit with the kids.

I bought the 3 attraction Explorer pass (from ATD) because these were both included along with TOTR, and worked out cheaper than paying individually.
When you receive the pass and booklet, there is an email address that you can use to prebook the Ride. This was another advantage as I knew you couldn't do that with the Citypass.

[lovedisney]

Had an email back and you can book the ride in advance with the explorer pass 👍🏻