Consumer Review of the Observation Deck at the Tower of the Americas, San Antonio

Is the View of San Antonio from the Observation Deck Worth the Admission Price?

Amy B., Yahoo! Contributor Network
Apr 8, 2010 "Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here."

If you visit San Antonio, more than likely you will be tempted to see the Tower of the Americas, and specifically the observation deck, which provides a dramatic 360 view of San Antonio. Is the Tower of the Americas admission price worth it?

My husband and I visited the Tower of the Americas in San Antonio during the 2010 spring break season. The observation deck was amazing! Here is what we thought about the observation deck, specifically and separately from the overall Tower experience.

In addition, if you would like to see the view of San Antonio just like we saw in person, there is a list of videos that were taken during our visit. These videos, which are listed in order at the bottom of this article, allows you to see the entire city of San Antonio. By watching them in order (or even splicing them together for your personal use) you can see the view, for free!

Visitors who wish to go to the observation deck at the Tower of the Americas must wait in line for one elevator. The elevator takes about five minutes per round, with two minutes of travel time one direction. The observation deck provides guests with a spectacular view of the San Antonio area, including some of the city's most cherished historical buildings and sites.

The elevator ride up gave us a beautiful view of the city. In fact, I took a video of this ride as I was poised right beside the window. It was amazing to see the skyline and city of San Antonio opening up right before our eyes. The elevator operator was very friendly and courteous as well, making the ride very enjoyable. Instead of listening to elevator music, we were treated to some information about the Tower of the Americas, including its height and date of construction. From the time the elevator doors closed to the time that they opened at the observation deck was about two minutes.

When the doors opened, we were ushered through the snack bar and miniature gift shop area in the observation deck. There are two levels to the deck, one being in an open air location with no obstructions to your view, and the other is in a platform area closer to the center of the tower. You can see the two different levels in part one of our videos of the observation deck, as listed below.

It is important to mention that there are steep and short stairs leading from the upper platform area to the lower observation deck. If you have difficulty walking, going up and down stairs, have a disability, are using crutches or a cane, or are in a wheelchair it will be difficult to reach this lower level. Thankfully there is one wheelchair lift on the other side of the observation deck for those who have difficulty transversing stairs.

The crowd was very thick in the observation deck, and everybody had to move in a single file line for the most part. Once we made it to the outer area of the observation deck, however, we had much more elbow room. The observation deck allowed us to walk all the way around and see the entire city of San Antonio. We took the videos as we went around the observation deck, and in fact these videos could be spliced together to make one continuous view of the city.

We made some wonderful observations of the area's landmarks and even found our hotel. We noticed a very large cemetery off in the distance. We discovered that one of the Alamo buildings is shaped like a cross. The Hyatt hotel has a swimming pool on its roof. We learn that there are Segway rides available to the public as we watched different people zooming back and forth across a parking lot area. We discovered that there were numerous tourist attractions in San Antonio that we never knew existed thanks to our view from the observation deck.

While walking around the deck we came to an area that was exceptionally windy. It was so windy in fact that it nearly blew our shirts off. I had trouble standing up! My ponytails spun around in this wind like a whirligig. It felt as if we were in a gale force hurricane wind, but without the threat or danger.

Around the corner from this windy area we found a woman and her stroller with a baby stuck in the wheelchair lift. She was trying to make it from the lower observation deck level to the upper platform area. Sadly the list got stuck midway. Apparently she had called for help but nobody had arrived. By the time we saw her she was becoming distraught in her condition. Thankfully my husband knew what to do and went down to help her. Even the crew of the Towers of America did not know how to get the doors open or to help her get out! She was thankful for our help and we were glad to help her.

We stayed in the observation deck for about 45 minutes, taking lots of videos and pictures along the way. We saw a wonderful sunset over San Antonio as well!

On the ride back down from the Tower of the Americas observation deck , the elevator gave us the best view of all. It was right at sunset when we went down, and once again I took up a position right beside the window. My video camera captured an amazing sunset that progressed at a rapid speed as we travel down. From the top of the observation deck it would appear that the sun had just finished setting, with most of the light from the sun still shining around the city. By the time we made it to the ground floor, however, it was dusk in San Antonio and people needed to use their light. This one trip and this one video made the whole observation deck experience worthwhile. I hope that you will enjoy this view with me by scrolling to the bottom of this article and enjoying the video for yourself.

Overall we were very impressed with the observation deck experience. While the price for the tickets was more expensive than we liked, it was a very enjoyable view. I would recommend seeing San Antonio via the Tower of the Americas observation deck to everyone.

Videos from the Observation Deck, Towers of America

By watching these videos in order, you will be able to see the entire 360 degrees view of San Antonio from the Observation deck. Videos can be spliced together for one continual view if desired. See some of the city's most cherished landmarks, historic buildings, and points of interest. In many of these videos we make unique observations about the layout of San Antonio. Lucky for you, the spectacular view is yours for free, thanks to these videos! Thank you, Tower of the Americas, for a beautiful (albeit expensive) view!

And the grand finale of our whole trip to the Tower of the Americas...

This final video makes the whole trip so worthwhile. While taking the elevator down from the observation deck to the ground floor, the most spectacular sunset over San Antonio was captured on film. Romantic sunsets are very enjoyable, but in this case it is a sunset on crack. When we start the 1 1/2 minute ride down, the sunset is glowing with that just-settled-sun look. By the time we make it to the bottom, it is dusk with people's lights on.

See this amazing video here:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/video/672240/see_the_amazing_sunset_over_san_antonio.html

Published by Amy B.

I am a well-rounded individual, very creative, and highly independent. I currently work as a Native American beadwork artist, a writer, and as a professor of Psychology and mental health. I have 4 years of w... View profile

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Consumer Review of the Observation Deck at the Tower of the Americas, San Antonio

Is the View of San Antonio from the Observation Deck Worth the Admission Price?

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