Statue of Liberty - is it worth the wait to see inside?

We are coming to New York at the end of May for a few days and wonder whether it is worth the long wait to see inside the Statue of Liberty, or whether we should just take the ferry and see it from the outside? I know that you have to make reservations to go inside. We don%26#39;t want to waste a lot of time in queues if we can help it.

Statue of Liberty - is it worth the wait to see inside?

Divided opinions on this. If you only have a few days, just pass it on the Staten Island ferry and save an actual visit for a longer trip. If you do decide to visit it, make sure to go to Ellis Island immigration museum which is included in the same price and on the same boat.

Statue of Liberty - is it worth the wait to see inside?

If you were American I%26#39;d say you should see it because it%26#39;s such an icon. The museum at the base is very interesting -- if you like museum type things (which I do). They give a complete history of the statue and have original working models %26amp; drawings on display. They also have a full scale replica of the face and of one foot, made the same way the originals were.

Ellis Island, accessible via the same boat ride, all for one price, is likewise interesting if you%26#39;re interested in the ';immigrant experience';

If you want to go but want to minimize the wait time, take the first boat out in the morning. The waits at the SOL are due to the extremely heavy security (more intense than at the airports). If you%26#39;re on the first boat it should move very quickly.

No!!! The base is interesting but my mother and I queued for over three hours to get to the top, the last part is very claustrophobic and is a steep windy staircase where I spent most of if staring at the person in front of me%26#39;s bottom! When we eventually got to the top (the crown) we hardly had time to take a photograph before we were herded down again. The sky was very dull and grey so the view from the crown was awful!!! I agree with one of the last posts, if you are only there for a few days I would give it a miss, if you are there for longer then get there v early. Having said that, I am glad that I have done it.... Do everything else first then if you have time maybe? Staten Island Ferry seems to be the prefered choice from alot of people who I know that have been....

We really enjoyed going inside the statue. I would also advise taking the earliest boat. The wait was about 15 mins. at both security points which was fine. We like to people watch so it went by quickly and was definitely worth the wait.

Don%26#39;t know when Loubell went to the SOL but it must have been before 9/11 because since then you can%26#39;t go to the crown. The only wait -- which can be considerable -- is to get into the base

Personally, I thought it was worth the wait to get into the base (I had a 45min wait after getting onto Liberty Island in Aug 05) - the mini-tour /talk was interesting and the exhibits were really thoughtfully laid out.

That said, it does depend what you%26#39;re expecting from it - for some interesting insights into a symbolic piece of New York (%26amp; American) history, I think it%26#39;s excellent, but if you%26#39;re hoping for great views of Manhattan and the surrounding area, you won%26#39;t see much more than you would just walking around the island.

Also, you won%26#39;t see much more of the SoL%26#39;s structure by being inside it - when I went (this may have changed since, hopefully someone will correct me if my info is out-of-date!) they had a smallish window at the top of the base and you can look through this for a limited view of the metal %26#39;skelteton%26#39;.

';...Also, you won%26#39;t see much more of the SoL%26#39;s structure by being inside it ...';

No change. We were there at the end of summer and the park service said there were no plans to change it

What time does the earliest boat leave?

Here is the web site to get reservation times. You need to pre-book a reservation -- I%26#39;m pretty sure you can%26#39;t just show up.

http://www.statuereservations.com/index1.html

Note that there are boats leaving from NYC and from New Jersey -- you would probably want the NYC book