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I'm going to be in NYC near the end of July and was wanting to do the crown tour of the Statue of Liberty. Statue Cruises is only showing tickets from August 12 to September 30 available for purchase. Same thing for the hard hat tour. Does that mean that all tickets for both tours before August 12 are sold out and that there's no point to checking for tickets for the end of July henceforth?

Also, if that is indeed what it means then any ideas how far out I should check for ticket availability? August 12 is almost 4 months away to the day. Should I be checking for tickets 4 months before any trip I might have planned if I want a realistic shot of being able to do the tour?

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    It has to be said that the 'crown tour' offers you: 1) about 45 minutes waiting in line on the stairs going up in the statue 2) a tiny amount of time looking at a very restricted view of NY before you have to start down again. Don't be too disappointed if you don't get tickets.
    – DJClayworth
    Apr 11, 2019 at 22:29
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    @DJClayworth: Indeed, plus there are multiple buildings which are substantially taller, less congested, and offer wider fields of view. In fact, if you want to look at the Statue of Liberty, the Statue itself is quite obviously the worst vantage point to do so. Try the Freedom Tower instead; it should give you a beautiful view of the Statue from afar. And if that's sold out, just go uptown to 30 Rock or the Empire State Building.
    – Kevin
    Apr 12, 2019 at 1:29

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Reservations to climb up to the crown of the Statue of Liberty sell out as much as six months in advance for travel during peak periods. In the low season, you might be able to find tickets as little as two or three months in advance, but there are only about 400–500 tickets issued daily, so the further ahead you can make plans, the more likely you will get the opportunity.

The Statue of Liberty crown tickets are non-transferable and require a photo ID for use, and there is no way to purchase them on-site. Pedestal tickets are much easier to get, but can still sell out weeks in advance.

I checked the Statue Cruises website for Ellis island hard hat tours, and see availability for as little as two days from now for certain times. If you were unable to bring up dates in August, it may have been a website glitch, as I see tours being sold even for Labor Day and Independence Day weekends, when the city will be mobbed with tourists from all over.

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    If it's any consolation, my friends and I camp at Assateague National Seashore, a destination which few people are aware of even in Maryland. Reservations for the group campsites open a year in advance and sell out in minutes, so picking a weekend is hit-and-miss. I like spontaneity in travel, since my regular life is so regulated, but the quickest way to reduce demand would be to raise prices, and that would exclude lower-income people from seeing their own national treasures. And so, we sit patiently and democratically at the browser, repeatedly tapping F5, waiting for the moment to pounce.
    – choster
    Apr 11, 2019 at 17:43
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    Don't you mean Shift-F5?
    – Vikki
    Apr 12, 2019 at 2:51
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    @Sean No, I don't need to waste bandwidth on CSS and button backgrounds for this kind of thing.
    – choster
    Apr 14, 2019 at 20:07

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