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Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island: Express Ferry & Audio Tour

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1/17

Duration4h

GroupUp to 30

LanguagesEN · FR +1

Battery Park to Liberty Island: Skip the Ferry Line, Keep the Harbor Views

You get a 30-minute Battery Park orientation, express ferry boarding, and self-guided audio tours of Liberty Island and Ellis Island in eight languages. Entry to the Statue of Liberty Museum and the Ellis Island Immigration Museum is included. The ferry ride back offers views of the Manhattan skyline and Freedom Tower. Plan for four to five hours total, and book morning departures if Ellis Island is a must.

Step-by-step itinerary

Guided tour of Battery Park and Castle Clinton
Go through TSA and board ferry to Liberty Island
Pick up multilingual audio guide on Liberty Island
Take photos and learn Statue of Liberty history
Visit Statue of Liberty Museum
Take ferry to Ellis Island
Visit Ellis Island grounds and Wall of Heroes
Explore Ellis Island Museum and Great Hall
Take ferry back to Battery Park

The Experience

The 30-minute orientation at Battery Park sets the shape of your day before you board. Your guide walks you through Castle Clinton and explains what you'll see once you're on Liberty Island and Ellis Island — which stops matter, where the light hits best for photos, what the museum layout actually is. Then you move through TSA screening and get express boarding to the ferry, which saves the time most visitors spend in the queue watching other groups shuffle ahead.

Once you're across New York Harbor, you pick up your multilingual audio headset at the kiosk on Liberty Island. The audio guide is available in eight languages — English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, Arabic, Hindi and Korean — and it walks you through the statue's history and construction while you stand in front of it. You get access to the new Statue of Liberty Museum, which holds the original torch and the building's archives. The museum is self-guided, so you move at your own pace through the exhibits.

The ferry then takes you to Ellis Island, where the Immigration Museum sits in the Great Hall where millions of immigrants were processed. Your audio guide continues here, narrating the stories of arrival and the building itself. On the way back to Battery Park, the ferry crosses the full width of New York Harbor, and you see the Manhattan skyline and Freedom Tower — the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere — from the water. The whole experience runs roughly four to five hours depending on how long you spend in each museum and on the island grounds.

One practical note: the tour departs at different times throughout the day, but if you book a 1 PM departure or later, you may not reach Ellis Island before it closes. Also, TSA-grade security screening happens before boarding, so no liquids, alcohol, weapons or large bags get through. Minors under 18 need to be with an adult 25 or older. In February 2025, express boarding is temporarily suspended due to construction, so the ferry access is standard speed.

What’s included

Your day includes the 30-minute Battery Park and Castle Clinton orientation with an English, Spanish, or French-speaking guide, express ferry boarding to Liberty Island, multilingual audio tour headsets for Liberty Island and Ellis Island, entry to the Statue of Liberty Museum, ferry tickets to both islands, entry to the Ellis Island National Immigration Museum, and a ferry ride back to Battery Park with views of New York Harbor and the Manhattan skyline. Family-friendly audio tours for children ages 6–10 are available in the same languages as the adult tours.

Operated by Attractions4us LLC

Is this one for you?Book this if you want to see both Liberty Island and Ellis Island in one trip without arranging tickets separately or waiting in the ferry line — the express boarding and pre-tour orientation are what fit both islands into a single morning or afternoon.