Anyone used the hop on hop off buses to get around New York ?

[Florida_Bear]

Jay wondered if people use these to get about the place?
t.i.a. Ted

[redredshopper]

I wouldn’t recommend it, the traffic in NY is bad at the best of times so it could easily take a couple of hours to get from time square down to the somewhere like Wall Street. Your better of using the metro or walking especially if your short on time.

[Guest]

Yes we have, a couple of times. Didn’t seem to take that long to get places and plenty of interesting bits of information from the guides.

[soooexcited!]

We went in November the traffic was at a standstill most of the time. We walked everywhere or used the subway.

[Florida_Bear]

Originally Posted by soooexcited!

We went in November the traffic was at a standstill most of the time. We walked everywhere or used the subway.

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I must admit we are considering using the Subway as we have a couple of long (ish) journeys planned.
We are worried about the subway in terms of us getting confused and not being able to figure it out..
Thanks Ted

[snowbelle]

Even though New York can have a reputation as being fast paced and the people brusque, we have never had an issue with getting lost on the subway people have always been helpful .
Maybe google you tube videos of the subway to give you an idea also have a look at the subway map on line to check out where to get on closest to your departure point then count how many stops until you get off , I used to do this until I got used to the London tube.

[Dissuziq]

we used the hop on hop off last November to see the sites from the open top but as for a way of getting from A to B it wasn't the best plan . We used it to get from times Square to the Staten Island ferry and saw all the tall buildings and got some fabulous pictures. But we found the subway the best way of getting around to see all the sites from Central Park to Empire State building it was so easy to negotiate I found a fab website that talks you through each step of using and how it works with local and express lines by the end of the week we used it to get back to JFK without issue

[SiandAm]

I agree with above posters, you can walk quicker than they move. The subway is easy to navigate and we felt perfectly safe using it.
I'd save the hop on bus money and use it for extra shopping money

[BONDY LAD]

You can hop on,but most of the time hop off at exactly the same place,as in,gone no where, subway is bondy friendly,if I can do it,anyone can, gives you a lot more “looking” time,other than on the bus,you can look at the same thing,forever!, bondy.

[DisneyDaffodil]

We were worried about using the subway but found it really easy to navigate. We used an app on our phone to plan our journey which helped a lot. We could plot where we got on, and where we needed to get off and which stops were inbetween and how long the journey took which made it simple to follow.

We did have a 24 hour hop on hop off bus ticket and really enjoyed riding these. We did the complete uptown loop, with a very informative guide. We also used it to get to Times Square and then back to our hotel via the midtown loop which meant we saw a lot of the city that we hadn't covered on foot. But the hop on buses were held up by traffic quite a bit, especially around midtown, so I wouldn't use it instead of the subway or walking as it would take too long