Ellis Island Hard Hat Tour — Attraction in New York

If you are planning a trip to Liberty and Ellis Islands and are not faint of heart, you should book this tour.

We recently visited Liberty and Ellis Islands and when we read the description about this tour, we booked it immediately.

The tour lead us through the unrestored Ellis Island immigrant hospital buildings and partially around the buildings. We felt like we received a "behind the scenes" tour of this interesting place.

Our tour guide, John, was incredible knowledgeable and approachable, it is obvious that he has a lot of knowledge about public health, infectious and contagious diseases, medical education, art (more about that in a moment) and laundry.

We had a good walk around the abandoned buildings and we were lead on a circuit through the main building, my sense of direction is terrible so of course I was surprised to end the tour right where we began.

The tour is conducted at a brisk pace and the time flies by and there is so much information. I admit that I was the person who lagged behind a bit as I was trying to set up still photos but never strayed too far from the group. (I managed to get some pics that my husband is very approving of).

A word about art - we visited and took this tour in early March 2024. During this tour we were lucky enough to see several photographic installations by JR as part of the "Unframed - Ellis Island". We are only familiar with JR due to his collaboration with Anges Varda on the film "Villages et Visages"/Faces Places (2017) and upon hearing we would experience some of his work, we were very excited. The pieces were haunting and moving and was a experience we did not plan for but were so grateful for.

i highly suggest that you read up on this tour before you book your visit to Liberty and Ellis Island, it was so interesting that we have barely stopped talking about it. Also, they loan you a hard hat, so you don't have to...

Unforgettable! We started our visit to Ellis Island from New Jersey’s Liberty Park. Parking was plentiful and inexpensive. From the parking lot it was a short walk through the old railway depot to the check-in point. We purchased hard hat tour tickets online earlier that same day. The hard hat tour includes the fare to take the ferry to Ellis Island as well as a trip to see the Statue of Liberty. We sent our bags through the X-ray scanner and walked through a metal detector then boarded the ferry. The ferries from NJ seemed much less crowded than the ones that shuttled folks from Battery Park in NY. There is light refreshment aboard the ferry. When we arrived at Ellis Island we went directly to the Information Desk where the tours meet their guides. When we checkers in they invited us to be on an earlier tour. Yes! The tour guide was excellent. She gave a good history of Ellis Island en route to the area under restoration. Once we got our hard hats we visited the infectious disease wards one the island. They had been abandoned in the mid 1950s. I won’t spoil your visit by reciting all of the things we learned, but we had an outstanding experience. After the tour - about 75 minutes - we were able to visit the rest of the museum, the wall of names (1 million of the 12 million immigrants are listed there). Great tour and museum for those interested in US history, medicine, architecture, abandoned places, and...

This tour made the experience so much better. The guide was fabulous. I wanted to get a behind the scenes look at Elllis Island and this was definitely worth the extra fee and the time. Our guide gave us plenty of time to take pictures and roam the rooms that she took us to. I don’t think I would’ve known nearly as much about the history of the buildings and the people who came through Ellis Island if it wasn’t for this tour. The fact that there were only 12 of us on the tour also helped because we were able to ask many questions without feeling rushed. We were on the last tour so when we were done, we were able to still go through the main building, but only had a limited amount of time. If you want to go through the main building and read all of the history, and watch the film then I recommend that you book the tour either early or arrive at the island at least an hour ahead of your tour. We went on the Friday of Christmas week, but I was told that this is always a busy place to visit. We got our tickets online which made the process of getting on the ferry going to the Statue Of liberty Island then catching the ferry to Ellis Island so much easier. And I also recommend getting the tickets at least a few days if not a week early, the tours do seem to sell out depending on the tour company that you buy it from. The view of Manhattan is spectacular in the evening as you are arriving...