From New York to Washington DC & Niagara in 3 Days

We went for a three days tour to Washington DC and Niagara Falls from New York on 1^st July of this year. Our tour provider was Happy Holiday. It was a nice and pleasant tour.

New York to Washington DC & Niagara Tour (3 Days) : Tour Details

There are two pick-up points of Happy Holiday for this tour. One is near to Flushing area (38th Ave & 138th St, Flushing, NY 11354) and another is in lower Manhattan (174 Centre St, New York, NY 10013 (At Edison ParkFast across from Starbucks; Nearby SUBWAY: J, M, Z, 4,5,6 at CANAL ST station)). Happy Holiday conducts this tour on every Monday and Friday. The tour starts from Flushing at around 7:00 AM and the bus reaches at Manhattan at around 7:45 AM.

Day-1 :On first day we started from Manhattan, New York and first we reached to Philadelphia at around 11:00 o'clock. We visited Liberty Bell and Independence Hall in Philadelphia. After that we headed towards Washington DC. On the way to Washington DC we had our lunch at a rest area. After our lunch we reached Washington DC at around 2:00 o'clock. In Washington DC we visited Air & Space Museum first. This museum is a very good place to know about the evaluation of aerospace technology. You can see stating from Wright brother's first plane to today's modern jet aircraft. This also has all details on rocket technology and US space missions. You can see the Apollo 11 which went to Moon.

After Air & Space Museum we went to see Capital Hills and White house. It was a great experience to me to see Capital Hills and White House. We also visited National Arts Museum. This is really a good museum to see. But you need a whole day too look all the things here. We had little less time to see each and everything of this museum. Afterwards we went to visit Washington memorial, Korean War Memorial and Lincoln Memorial. We spent little relaxed time near Lincoln Memorial. This place was beautiful. We also saw several different US government office buildings which are really nice piece of modern structural science. It was almost evening 8:00 o'clock when finished Washington DC tour.

That night we went to a Chinese restaurant. The food was excellent. We took Chinese buffet of $13 per person. After dinner we went to Best Western hotel in Washington DC for that night. The hotel Best Western was very good and very comfortable.

Day-2 : Our second day started at 7:00 AM. First we reached Hershey Chocolate World in Hershey at around 9:00 o'clock. We saw how Chocolates are made at industry scale. We did little chocolate shopping from this place and had our breakfast. Hershey Chocolate World is also having an amusement park. We didn't go to the park as it was nothing different from any other theme parks. After Hershey Chocolate World we went to Corning Museum of Glass at Philadelphia. We experience few live shows about making glass as you like. We also visited the show about the evaluation of Glass. The fine art with glass is yet another good thing to see here. It is hard believe that wedding grown can be made of glass. After lunch we headed towards Niagara. It was a fours hours of drive.

We reached Niagara at around 5:00 o'clock on second day. We spent that evening to visit Made of Mist and grab the beautiful site scene of Niagara. At night we saw the beauty of Niagara with artificial lights. That was 3^rd July so we were fortunate to see some nice fireworks too. That night we stayed in Hotel Ramada. Hotel Ramada is just within walking distance from Niagara Falls. At night we had our dinner at an Indian restaurant at the first floor of Hotel Ramada.

Day-3 :Our third day of this tour stated at 7:00 AM. We again went to Niagara Falls. We reached at the near of American Falls and Horse Shoe Falls and took some beautiful snaps. We also did the Wind of the Cave and saw a movie on Niagara at the main entrance of Niagara visitor information center. After all these we started our return journey to New York from Niagara at around noon. That day was a complete rainy day and we found rain on our whole way back to New York. It was almost seven hours of journey from Niagara to New York. At around 8:30 PM we reached to New York City.

New York to Washington DC & Niagara Tour (3 Days) : Few Review Comments

1. Tour guide was Jason who is originally from China. It was very difficult to understand to his pronunciations throughout the whole tour.

2. Tour guide was good in knowledge and tried to explain everything as much as possible.

3. Though tour says it is a semi-guided tour, but we won't face any problem for that. To me it looks like totally guided tour. It happened due to the care and responsibility we received from our tour guy.

4. Bus provided for this tour was the worst ever I seen in my life. Though they said the bus is equipped with toilets and bathrooms. In reality they didn't allow us to use the toilet at all. As we (my family) got a seat near at the end of the bus, we experienced bad smell of toilets. We reported that to our tour guy, but he was not in a position to help except using room freshener for few times. The bus is completely an old bus. This is hard to believe we have that much old bus coach in US. The air condition system was not working properly. Air condition ventilation window was broken for our seat. The seats are not at all comfortable enough for long journey. When we reached to Washington DC police caught the bus and declared as unserviceable until repair some major issues of the bus. Police showed the driver and tour guy why they won't want to give a clearance certificate for this bus. After that Happy Holiday provided us another bus which no better than the old one. Due unavailability of toilet inside the bus, they stopped the bus after every one hour to rest areas which actually killed some hours from us.

5. In their website the gratitude mentioned as $6 per day. But actually you have to read that as $6 per day per person. As we were three family members traveling together we paid $54 as gratitude to driver and tour guy. I think this amount of money is little extra for the service we received for those three days.

6. From Manhattan the bus left after an hour time from the schedule time. That hour time actually is a loss for us. We made that time up by not visiting few places.

New York to Washington DC & Niagara Tour (3 Days) : How to Book

You can book this tour by going to www.gotobus.com site. You have to look for New York popular tours - NY popular Tours. This is URL of the tour I took - NYC to Niagara Falls, DC 3-Day Tour. Once you decide the tour which one you are going to avail select the date, lodging and departure location add the tour to your cart in order to purchase the ticket. Once you pay by card they will send you the e-ticket to your email id. Take print out of that and sing the paper as mention. You have to bring that e-ticket to redeem on the spot. There are some cancellations policies look those before you purchase the ticket.

New York to Washington DC & Niagara Tour (3 Days) : Pricing Details
When I purchased this ticket back on May 2007 it was $155 per person for three days which includes two nights hotel accommodation. I received a promotional offer of third ticket free if you purchase two tickets. After that promotional offer it came around $105 per person. I guess this really cheap for three days tour. When I checked today the current price is $167 per person and they are not providing the promotional offer too for June and July. The tour only includes two night hotel accommodation and all ground transport. The tickets of attraction places and foods are on your own expense.

I can't say the tour was very good, but simultaneously not bad too. I guess the price wise the tour is just good. I expected a little better bus coach for this tour. When I booked this tour I didn't any other option for similar kind of tour. But once I were on the way during this tour I found lots more similar kind of tour who are providing the same kind of package. I will recommend availing those other tour and having your review here so that people will be able to know the true fact.