Summit One Vanderbilt

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Just wanted to share, 2 of the 3 floors are mirrored floors. I wore a dress to the summit. I discreetly tucked my dress.


They give you paper booties to wear on those floors.

Third floor of this experience offers food and drink.


I loved the quiche and my drink was delicious. They offer mocktails.

I'm sure the experience is decent, and maybe even great, when the weather is in your favor. Unfortunately for me, it was not. Having to schedule tickets way in advance ensures that your experience will be akin to spinning a roulette wheel; you might end up being the sucker who bought extremely pricey tickets to see thick fog and a few "art exhibits."

The whole process begins with a jarringly long line. You would assume the scheduled nature of the experience might prevent overcrowding, but unfortunately that is not the case. Halfway through the line is a short propaganda video that is essentially a few minutes of self-indulgent praise on how special and cool their building is.

Once you take the elevator and get to the actual exhibit, you are free to explore the 3 floors which contain several exhibits/rooms set up in a linear fashion. If it weren't obvious, the real treasure here is the view, but I can't speak to that since it was extremely cloudy and raining when I went. I could only SOMETIMES see the buildings next to ours when the fog thinned out intermittently...that's how bad the view was. I was also excited for the exhibits themselves, but I found most of them to be lackluster. To be fair, this is likely due to how they are intended to be integrated with the view...which was just a gray, hazy fog for everyone there.

To further illustrate the importance of weather, one of the exhibits/activities involves standing on a glass floor that allows you to see all the way down to the sidewalk! Or...it would have...if the fog didn't surround every inch of the glass. Instead the exhibit made me feel like I was trapped inside a terrarium in Cheech & Chong's basement.

I think I've made my point, so I'll spare you any further details of the place itself. Now, I'd like to mention some of their policies which should highlight the monetary-driven nature of whatever tourist-trap company this is a part of:
1. No full or partial refunds at all.
2. Rescheduling options available when there is no visibility BUT once you scan your ticket, you're locked in. This is a scummy tactic because A) None of the staff will explicitly mention this as an option, even knowing how bad the weather is, B) your sky might be OK at first, but due to the long line, visibility may change by the time you reach the top, and C) temporary tourists (like me) don't have the luxury of rescheduling.

I expressed my discontent with my experience and all I received was a response email detailing their one-sided policies. The icing on the cake is the last line in their email: "As our world at SUMMIT was designed to be seen in all seasons, times of day, and weather conditions, we hope you will consider giving us another chance so you can get the full experience." LOL! What a flat out lie, the experience was definitely NOT designed for low visibility weather. I also find it funny that they practically admit that I didn't receive the full experience (despite paying full price). Hell, even a partial refund might have dissuaded me from writing this review. Too late!

Verdict:
Overpriced, overcrowded, and completely dependent on the weather. If you go during a foggy time with little/no visibility, consider yourself scammed. The art exhibits alone are absolutely not worth the price of admission.

We had out of town visitors so we played tourist for a day.
Summit One Vanderbilt was an excellent way to see the city from a unique vantage point. There were so many photo opportunities.
Also they had their own photographers & cameras and cameras to capture you throughout the experience.
They also had 2 gift shops. Every room offered a new way to interact with the view ( Yayoi Kusama's clouds, giant balloons, etc.) There was also a space wher you could buy food & drinks and continue to enjoy the view.
It was worth every penny.

This was a great experience. I enjoyed every exhibit. This place was so much fun and the views are amazing. I do think $40 was a much for the experience but other than that I enjoyed the everything.

If you have out of town visitors, there's so many choices for observatories in NYC so hard to pick one. The Summit seemed to be the #1 observatory at the moment so I decided to check it out. There's a NYC resident discount for online tickets and apparently, sunset is the best time to go. I chose 7:30 PM since sunset was at 8:15 PM. We got there at 7:15 PM but it took a while (30 minutes) to get up to the 91st floor. I think next time (if there is a next time haha) I would definitely choose an earlier time. The most popular spots were Transcendence (mirrored room), Affinity (silver balloon room), and Levitation (glass ledge platform). It was super crowded especially Levitation where you have to wait at least 20 minutes for a picture. I have to say out of all the observatories in NYC (One World, Empire, Edge, Top of the Rock), this is the most unique and has the best views of Empire.

The thrill of standing on glass floors at 1,100 feet above Manhattan absolutely intrigued me.

Can you say - 'enter the matrix' or what!?!

No need for any pills blue or red - you're completely immersed once you enter so do your Keanu impression & enjoy it.

I'd been up top the Rockefeller Centre years ago & so I could appreciate the spectacular views from above the skyline of Manhattan, but this was on another level!

Of note - check out the 'Matrix' pix I posted.

I did not alter or enhance these photos - this is exactly what the naked eye sees!

Mind trip or what!?!

Still fresh & new - opened in 2021, the Summit observation platform is located Midtown near Grand Central Station, at the One Vanderbilt building.

The Empire State Building, the Hudson River, Central Park etcetera - time your visit accordingly to get the best views.

I recommend arriving at 6pm then staying till sundown to see all the lights coming on all over Manhattan - best views of the city right here.

*However, the one issue with this attraction is the horrible migraine inducing chanting music being played via overhead speaker, upon entering the beginning of the observation platform.

Dear Summit directors, please stop with the insanity I beg you!?!

Play smooth jazz instrumental music or heck I'll even accept elevator music over this draconian madness playing causing my brain to shrink!

I did not go with the add-ons extras - drinks, access to higher floor etcetera, & yet I was still thoroughly impressed & happy despite the crazy psycho music.

It is a definite absolute 100% must experience when in Manhattan!

The architecture of Summit One, will blow your mind.

Make a reservation online for Summit One Vanderbilt.

Just do it!

Well this was a disappointment to say the least. The experience really sucked. From the initial start it was very distasteful felt like an airport TSA line. I was almost ready to take my shoes off. The delay down stairs is unnecessary. We chose a 7:30 block so we could hopefully catch the sunset at 8pm but it took almost 45min just to get through the check in process which was ridiculous. If you don't want to watch the video or scan for over priced photo identification there should be a fast lane. So what am saying is if you are going to see something specific like a sunset choose an extra hour earlier and you wont miss it.

There is no indication of what your viewing experience will be like once you get to the top. Yes thats correct with all the unnecessary process downstairs the one thing that should be available to know is not. If you are as unlucky as we were there was absolutely ZERO visibility of anything. We had dense white fog surrounding the whole viewing area. So yep you guessed it we pretty much paid $120+ for an elevator ride and to play with beach balls. There is no refund, return different day tickets or really any compensation for this so just suck it up. If you are booking far in advance like we did just keep an extra eye on last minute fog, rain clouds or anything that may completely make your experience shitty because you wont find out from them while you wait.

Cool place to visit while in NYC. No need to buy tickets in advance unless you're really in a time crunch. We bought ours the day of, and had to wait for the next time slot entering to go in. I think we waited about 30-40 min.
Entering was easy. Lines can get long. Plenty of people. I would recommend trying to go really early or maybe late to get the less amount of people to enjoy the look outs. Rooms can get packed.
All in all, we enjoyed our visit.

Absolutely loved this experience. It was very organized and well kept. At arrival the staff directed the guest to specific areas to be able to enter. Loved the fact that it was also interactive and they took us a picture which then was used at the last room. Very cool experience and pictures taken by the photographers were very nice. The picture package was also very affordable. The views were also amazing (if you're scared of heights this is not for you) totally recommend for all ages.

This is my first time coming to the Summit One Vanderbilt building. It is such a beautiful building inside and out.

They are open from morning till night time so it depends on what type of photos you would like to have. I came here during the evening and wow there were tons of people at that time as well.

I had a lot of fun going into the different rooms and areas. The city view was amazing and just so beautiful. There is nothing like this and New York has everyone beat on city views.

Plenty of different areas to take photos and even though there were a ton of people I didn't feel like it was too overwhelming. It was overall fun and I would probably want to come back next time to see the daytime view as well!