January 01, 2008

New firm takes over Statue of Liberty ferry route today

It's the first day of 2008, and also the first day in about half a century that Circle Line ferries will not be taking visitors to Liberty and Ellis Island.

The exclusive contract for the first time was awarded to another company, Hornblower Yachts, which today begins service to the islands with "a small fleet of mismatched boats that it bought or rented in the last few months," as the New York Times describes it.

Hornblower, which operates sightseeing boats to San Francisco's Alcatraz island, will operate in New York and New Jersey under the name Statue Cruises LLC. It's brought one of its California boats, the Freedom, via a 6,550-mile trip by way of the Panama Canal, the Times reports.

The islands themselves are operated by the National Park Service, which awarded the exclusive ferry contract to Hornblower in June. But the NPS bidding process required the new winner to buy all the old boats from Circle Line -- and a price for that transaction has not been settled.

Hornblower has pledged to revamp the ticketing process for the ferries in hopes of ending the lines in Battery Park that can turn a trip to Liberty Island into a multi-hour mess. Hornblower will used timed-ticketing for the ferries (although the ticket that NewYorkology bought a month ago for today's trip fails to actually display the reserved time, but merely mentions there is one.)

To buy an advance ferry ticket, use the Statue Cruises website and be certain to choose the reserve ticket with the monument pass. Without the free monument pass, you can't get into the Statue of Liberty itself, its museum or observation decks. There are a limited number of these tickets available daily and as a result, thousands of people leave disappointed unaware they needed the monument pass to see anothing more than the grounds of Liberty Island. (The monument pass system was put in place after the Statue Of Liberty re-opened in August 2004. It had been closed since Sept. 11, 2001.)

Circle Line downtown (often confused with Circle Line uptown since they were originally one company,) will continue to operate harbor cruises in New York.

Image credit: The Statue of Liberty's original torch is on display in the base of the statue. It can only be seen if you have a monument pass. Amy Langfield/NewYorkology.

Earlier: Timed-ticket entry launches for Statue of Liberty ferry
Circle Line loses Statue of Liberty ferry monopoly
Odd rules for new Statue of Liberty ferry bidders
Statue of Liberty: long lines, mondo security, big payoff

January 1, 2008 06:59 AM in History, Sightsology, Transportology

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