Description: I purchased this tour as part of a package with the Top of the Rock. I didn't even know it existed until purchasing the Top of the Rock tickets and seeing it as a combo option. I'm always a sucker for an upsell, so I added the tour. I did ask how long the tour took and was told it was approx an hour. What I didn't learn until after purchasing the tickets was that I then had to go to the NBC store and book a time for the tour. I didn't realize this was the process and thought I would just be able to get on a tour as soon as I was done with the Top of the Rock observation deck. Had I known, I wouldn't have purchased the ticket. We were advised to go to schedule the NBC tour first and then head up to the observation deck. Given that there was no line for the observation desk, we tried to make a correct assumption of what time we thought we'd be available for the NBC tour. We chose a 1:30 time slot. It turned out that the Top of the Rock did not take as long as we thought and we went back to try and get an NBC tour that was earlier. Not an option. Not unless we wanted to pay extra to switch the tickets. Really??? So, we had to wait around in the NBC tour until our 1:30 time. Normally this wouldn't be a big issue, but with only a day in NYC, I wanted to maximize my time. Come to find out the tour is actually about 1:15 minutes long.
The tour itself was pretty good. Two "NBC Pages" brought us around. They were extremely knowledgeable and well spoken. Not sure if we got lucky, as I am surprised that two young people right out of college could do as good a job as they did. The tour included a short movie on the history of NBC and then we started walking through the studios. We were told up front that if any taping was going on, we would not be allowed to see the studio. But given that it was a Sunday, this wasn't an issue. The most interesting part of the tour was definitely getting to see the SNL stage. We also got to see Jimmy Fallon and Dr. Oz's studios. Not a fan of Dr. Oz though, so the set wasn't familiar to me. Other people in our tour were excited to see it.
Overall the tour was good, but a little long. I'm not sure what the price was because I purchased as part of a bundle so I can't comment on whether it was worth the price.
A tip on the security part of this tour. Unlike the airport or even the Top of the Rock security right next door, there wasn't a conveyor belt scanner. So, you literally have to empty out every single thing from every pocket and every jacket and put it in a little basket. You also had to take off belts, etc. This was not fun for us. We had just taken the overnight NCL cruise and had our phone chargers, camera chargers and all sorts of electronics/clothes in our backpack. So, essentially we had to unpack our entire bag and empty all of our contents into little plastic buckets. It took us a long time to get through security and I'm sure some of the other people on the tour were annoyed. But, if they prepared us, we could have had everything ready. Really, in a tourist spot such as NYC, they should expect that people are going to have a lot of crap with them and have a conveyor belt scanner. The security guard was an idiot and as soon as we walked through the metal detector he wanted to take his little plastic baskets back. Umm..hello?? Give us a minute to put our belts on and start putting the stuff back in the bag. They didnt' have any seats or even a table area to help in the process at all.
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