City passes are one of those travel products that sound amazing in the marketing and might or might not actually be worth it depending on how you travel. I have a slightly embarrassing habit of building spreadsheets for my holidays, so when I used GoCity passes in New York, London and Dubai, I tracked every single ticket price and calculated the real savings. Here’s the actual data.
New York City — The Spreadsheet
3-day All-Inclusive Pass: $209 per adult. Attractions visited: Empire State Building ($44), Top of the Rock ($40), Statue of Liberty ferry ($24), 9/11 Memorial Museum ($33), Metropolitan Museum ($30), Circle Line Cruise ($52). Total retail: $223. Saving: $14. Modest, but I also dipped back into the Met on day 3 for free, which isn’t something I’d have done if I’d paid individually.
London — Slightly Better
2-day Explorer Pass (5 attractions): £119. Tower of London (£33), Kensington Palace (£22), the Shard (£32), London Eye (£28), Churchill War Rooms (£26). Retail total: £141. Saving: £22 (16%).
Dubai — Where It Makes Serious Sense
Dubai’s individual attraction prices are eye-watering. Explorer Pass (5 attractions): AED 599. Retail total: AED 989. Saving: AED 390 (39%). This is where a city pass genuinely makes financial sense.
When You Should Skip It
If you’re a slow traveller, if your trip is mostly free attractions, or if you only have 24 hours in a city. The pass is optimised for the kind of tourist who wants to see a lot of paid sites in a short time.
