Feb 2, 2025

Brooklyn Sea Cruise New York

NY water taxi free weekends

"There is a way to get a "Brooklyn Sea Cruise" in New York for free! How? You just need to spend $10 at IKEA. Is it worth it? I did it and I'd do it again."

I know a few New Yorkers who cherish the following kind of information, even planning their lives around it.

On holidays and weekends, there is conditionally free ferry service from the Wall Street New York Water Taxi Terminal (Pier 11, Manhattan) to the IKEA store in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Weekend service begins from Wall Street at 11:30, and ends with the last sailing from Brooklyn IKEA at 21:05 (hat tip to Hubert Selby).

The free offer has this condition: if you spend $10 in the IKEA store, you will be given a $5 credit when you present your Water Taxi ticket to the IKEA cashier. It amounts to a free trip.

Then, to re-board the IKEA Express ferry, present the IKEA receipt to the ferry clerk for a cruise back to Manhattan.

From their website: “IKEA will not validate an electronic ticket. In order to receive the credit, you will need a printed version of your New York Water Taxi ticket.”

Now that I’ve typed this all out, I’m wondering if it’s really worth the hassle. Well, I did the trip this past summer with Susan, I remember having fun and yes, I suppose we would do the same thing again.

Another example of a bargain too good to pass up is the ‘$1 bagels after 15:00’ at Zuckers on the UWS. People plan a shopping trip so they arrive not too early but still really close to 15:00. Who wants to wait on line (unless it’s going to be there, anyway)?

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About this spot

south street

US$

free

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