I love City Passes. Not only can you can save money on some of the most popular attractions, in many cases you also save valuable holiday time by front of line advancement privileges.
Some cities (such as Paris) have more than one city pass option, so it’s a good idea to check out the benefits and decide which program best suits your family.
Decide first what sights you’re interested in and check out how many are on the city pass. This can also assist you in deciding which duration of the pass to choose. You often have a choice of passes which include different museums and attractions.
Some passes have public transportation built in. Before you buy a program, decide how far apart your preferred attractions are and how often you’ll use public transit. How much walking do you want to do? Certain city’s major sights are in fairly close proximity. Paris, Edinburgh and Prague are great examples of this. Do a little advance research and decide whether you’ll use the transit or not, after all, you don’t want to pay for something you’re not going to use.
Surprisingly, my favourite feature of these passes is not the financial savings but the time savings. There is something beautiful about advancing to the front of the line. In Paris, we saved over an hour of line-up time at both Versailles and the Louvre. Too bad the Eiffel Tower wasn’t on the program…but that’s another story.
You can usually buy the passes on location or ahead of time, on-line.
To research whether your destination city has a pass (or choice of passes), just google the city name with the word ‘pass’.
A city pass is not for everyone so take a few minutes to research it. It may just be your ticket to a more enjoyable and economic visit.