REQUEST - Need help choosing bus company for NYC sight-seeing and DC-NYC travel

I am going to throw a wrench in your "bus" tour.

There are many bus operators between DC and NYC, here's a bus link. There are more sites, just google with "NYC chinatown bus". They are cheap. However, they have bad raps. Just like Greyhound bus, you don't hear them until accidents happen, and people get on top of them. Do a search and see how often these bus gets into accident. Fares is about $10-$20.

Now the tour bus in NYC. I don't recommend any of those. I'll give an example : this tour charges about $48. What you get is 5.5 hours going up and down places that are mostly free. You'll be rushed, and won't be able to enjoy NY experience. Money wise, I find it total rip off. Only time I recommend these tour is that you want to save time and hit all the spots in one shot AND you aren't great at reading a map. Since you are looking into hop on/hop off, you might as well use NYC public transportation. Here's what I do. 1) gather all the point of interests that you want to see, get a guide book. 2) grab NYC subway/bus map at this map link, plan your destination. 3) Get an unlimited NYC metrocard $8.25/per person day pass or $27 weekly pass, you can ride anywhere in the city via subway, local bus. That's right UNLIMITED, and anywhere. Here's the NYC bus/subway fare chart.. The main disadvantage here is there's no one to guide you or anything. However, the awesome part is you get to walk around and see and experience NYC without restricting yourself to a tour guide time frame or route. The above tour bus guide link "brags" about "Staten Island Ferry". For tourists, that's an awesome destination to view Statue of Liberty (if you don't plan to go on the Statue of Liberty island) and south Manhattan. The ferry is "FREE". Battery park (where you board SI ferry) is a great place to relax (there's a fort, Merrill Lynch Bull is nearby...) which you would skipped if you were on the tour bus. In fact, one of the downtown route I often recommend to people visiting NYC starts from WTC/911, walk down south Broadway (aka Canyon of Hero - where most ticker tape parades are given in NYC). You'll see Trinity Church, Wall St./NYSE, ML Bull, Battery Park, hop on SI Ferry. After you come back on the ferry, hit Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island if you want, otherwise, walk up east side to South Street Seaport and eventually Brooklyn Bridge, NYC City Hall, and then further north to Chinatown. BTW, hop on/hop off is about $40.

Subway is the fastest transportation. Taxi cab can be locked in a jam and costly. Buses are generally VERY slow (even tour bus) due to massive traffic AND traffic lights. So if you need to travel long distance, use subway. If you have time to kill and/or wish to enjoy NYC views (ie Upper west side along Central Park), take a bus.

Since I am on a roll, FOOD is a potential problem. No, not you can't find any, but too expensive or too many choices. If cost is not problem, try menupages.com for high end recommendation. For lunch time quick chow, try midtown lunch website..

Enjoy NYC.

cabs are really expensive. $5 gets you 5 blocks. Ok, I am cheap, and that's why I am here at fatwallet. ONLY cab in the world that's cheap, China.

hchen42 said: c ONLY cab in the world that's cheap, China.

have you been to cancun or bangkok?

I would try to avoid the NYC subway during rush hours, 8-10am and 4-6pm. Otherwise, you shouldn't have any problems finding a seat to rest between sites.

Have you considered Amtrak from DC? There is a slower train and the faster Acela. Slower by approximately half an hour at less than $50 per person but the Acela Express more than double the price to save that half hour. I believe the slower train is only about a three and a half hour trip or less.

Guys, thank you all for your suggestions. I just wanted to report back with my experiences from this trip.

While our trip to New York was mostly rained out, we did have one and a half really good days when the weather Gods cooperated. In NYC, we did a combination of METRO, PATH and a lot of walking. We skipped the bus tour option due to uncertainty about our plans being affected by the rains. And even with a bus tour you do still have a lot of walking to do. More importantly, without the tour bus we got to sample the sometimes-scary but unique transit system of New York. It's a completely different experience for those of us who aren't used to it. I was worried about not understanding the routes and subway changes but it was a piece of cake with the transit system map available at numerous stations. Like diane38 above, I would recommend an explorer or city pass if you know you will be visiting different events/sites. We didn't do this and later regretted it.

Getting from DC to NYC - Eventually it was a toss-up between Megabus and Bolt and we decided to go with Megabus, which suited our schedule and pockets well. Best of all its a double decker bus! I was very surprised by how comfortable and enjoyable this bus ride was for what we paid (about $5 per person and 50 cents booking fee). They had free wireless internet (which I believe Bolt does too) and a nice view from the front seats of our double decker bus. I hear Amtrak is really good too although not as cheap as the bus.

DC - I saved the best for last . We decided to take a bus tour here and it was awesome. I had planned on going with tourmobile operators but ended up going with City Sightseeing after seeing their nicer, cleaner, double-decker buses. This was extremely convenient and a great way to get to all the sites without having to deal with the public transit system (which isn't bad either). There were plently of buses for each hop and the most we ever had to wait for a bus was 30 minutes. We took a 2-day package worth about $35 per person and felt that it was worth it (there are a lot of stops). There was also a free night tour offered which we had to skip because of rains.

I hope this info comes handy for anyone else facing the same decisions. Thanks again FW