Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island
If you’ve been following the last few blog posts, you’ll know that Ashwina and I are in New York and wandered around Times Square at the start of the week. It goes without saying that most tourists have the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island on the top of their places to see. And so did we. Let me tell you about our fun visit to see Lady Liberty.
Planning our trip
I spent a good deal of time researching where to buy the tickets – or more like what would get us the best sightseeing deal. We looked at the New York Pass which allows you access to several attractions, but the numbers just didn’t stack up. So, I decided to buy the tickets directly from Statue Cruises, who are the only authorized official provider of tickets to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I realised that they were also the cheapest because I bought the Pedestal Reserve Ticket which gave us access to the pedestal on which the Statue sits.
We got lucky as there was no availability for these tickets for several days except Tuesday! Unfortunately, the Crown Reserve Ticket was sold out. People book these several months in advance.
It’s also recommended to do one of the earliest slots of the day as they tend to be less busy. We booked ours at 10 am, which is the time we needed to enter the Screening Facility. Battery Park is just a short walk from our apartment, so we set out around 9.30 am and found our way to the screening facility well ahead of schedule.
The screening facility is airport-style which means travelling right and light is recommended. We carried only bare essentials knowing that we could buy water on the island. The process went smoothly and we then queued in a completely unorderly fashion for the next ferry to take us to Liberty Island.
We picked the upper deck to get a seat and an open view of the water as well as the Manhattan skyline which was fully covered in fog. The upper deck also tends to be quite full with eager standing tourists during the short ride to Liberty Island. The best way to get your first photographs of The Statue of Liberty.
The Manhattan skyline covered in fog
The Statue of Liberty