NY Waterway Reviews

I have never had issues with NYWaterway before COVID, however after the ferry started running again, I purchased a 7 day pass and it worked fine on Monday, for the trip into work and the return trip home. On Tuesday, I tried to activate the ticket and it left me on a loading page. No matter what I did (restart app, restart phone, connect to WiFi, connect to data, delete and reinstall app) it NEVER activated the ticket for the remainder of the week. This has now happened twice. I am furious because I am being forced to spend more money on tickets that I shouldn’t need. I am going to resort to buying paper tickets, but I will end up spending more money that way because they do not sell 7 day paper tickets, only single rides and 10 trip, both of which will be more expensive. I am also frustrated because getting in touch with anyone to assist me is nearly impossible since office hours are limited to 7am-11am. I love the ferry, it is the best part of my commute into the city, but if I cannot get the assistance I need, I will be forced to find an alternative means of getting to work.

Latest app update is awful. The developers took away the route map. Why would you remove a useful feature? The new ticket selection screen is a nightmare of UX. The tickets are no longer grouped together by route, so now I scroll through 20 tickets of one route so I can get to the bottom of the list to find tickets of another route. How does this make any sense? It’s extremely confusing and the light grey text is hard to read in the sun. I don’t see any other “ease of use benefits” and it sounds like the security features are just features to protect NYWW, not app users.

Both my wife and I have experienced NYWaterway crashing right before boarding and they wouldn’t let us on even though we have 7 day passes. This is a known issue (see other reviewers) so they should let people on who can show NYWaterway has logged them out and let them do it on the ferry. I’ll buy a paper pass going forward but has seriously stopped me from recommending the ferry to people who ask me about moving to Jersey.

Apple should reject NYWaterway as unfit for iPhone users.

1. User experience feels like they contacted lowest bidder
2. Native iPhone features do not work, or work poorly. Sign In with Apple uses a sketchy web view like Russian malware instead of the native prompts. Apple Pay isn’t supported. The device asks for location but doesn’t auto populate your dock location. Doesn’t use Apple Wallet passes for tickets like every other travel app
3. This shouldn’t exist. Just use a mobile website for one off ticket puchases. Or app clips.

You can tell the developers making NYWaterway have no idea of what they are doing. Besides logging you out randomly where it’s impossible to get a signal at the dock and NY Waterway crews don’t let you board, I’m no longer able to access my iCloud backup tickets of around $1000, and there’s not costumer support. The issue is so hilariously bad that I’ve tried to buy new tickets and because I have the iCloud setting, they magically disappear like your money. $1000 lost and now stuck buying paper tickets like it’s the 1980s. Great app.

I’ve missed two ferries due to app logging me out before getting on. Each time employees have been extremely rude insisting they do not care to leave me past 10pm one time almost at the last ferry of the night- even though I pay for a monthly and am unable to sign in on time. Morning and daytime employees are very friendly but night time employees are very rude. So disappointed with my experience taking the nighttime ferries.

One of the bean counters at the "Worlds Best Ferry" decided this week that eliminating the second bus on the Lower River Road afternoon run was a fantastic way to cut costs and didn't think we would notice. So now, expect waiting 30 mins at Port Imperial for a crowded bus with no functioning air conditioning (provided there is zero traffic on River Road). The "Civilized Commute" has now become my most UNCIVILIZED option. It was bad enough they eliminated the second bus in the morning but the morning run is easier to time than the afternoon run coming back from work. I am very disappointed as this was truly a convenient commute for me but now with the elimination of the 2nd bus in the afternoon it just isn’t worth the $280 premium and I think I will be switching back to NJ Transit if I now have to deal with this major inconvenience.

The most important function of the new app is ticket management. It’s a serious downgrade from the old app, which already wasn’t perfect.

First suggestion is grouping tickets by origin and destination. Don’t include expiration date within the group. This will help with the most important function: finding the correct ticket and activating it.

Second suggestion is within the group, sort by expiration date (earliest first). This gives secondary assistance with the most important function: activating the oldest ticket first.

Third suggestion is give a count of tickets at group level. This will help with the 2nd most important function: managing the number of tickets you have left so you can plan your pre-tax transportation account spending (which has a 1 month lag for any changes).

Other improvements could be made, but each of these three are critical to NYWaterway ’s usability. These changes alone would take NYWaterway from 2 to 4-5 stars for me.

I see you updated NYWaterway , because one morning I was rushing to the ferry and had to deal with a whole new experience.

It now takes more steps to purchase a ticket, and you have to start from scratch each time you want to travel round trip because origin and destination are blank each time. It looks like it’s possible to do this from the schedule but I’m not sure, and it would not be my first choice discoverability wise.

Please focus on reducing repetitive steps by allowing “Favorite Routes” with a route flip button similar to the schedule, or a way to store frequent purchases with a “Buy Again” button. This would be a big help.

First of all it constantly signs me out and requires a new sign in to access tockets. So what happens is that I get on time on ferry just to find out that I can’t access tickets, because they signed me out. That’s annoying, but get this - the login screen is messed up, so the focus on password field is not working properly. Every time I select it the focus gets lost. So first they sign me out then they make it extremely painful to log back in, and all that when you’re in rush and ferry is about to leave.

First off, the bus schedule is the same user-unfriendly interface i saw like 8 years ago when i first got NYWaterway. its like constantly refreshing an updated PDF and literally every other transportation app i have seen looked wayyy better even back in like 2019z

Second, the tickets were kind of hard to select. Instead of offering a round trip/return ticket after selecting your destination, it just lets you buy more of the same way ticket and i accidentally bought two outbound tickets. I should have read more carefully yes but its just not good design.

Third- buying was a nightmare. When you are asked to sign in with Apple or Gmail, apple takes you to a weird sign in page rather than doing the quick FaceID that every other app nowadays has. The Gmail link didnt even work at all so i just made a new account. Then i wanted to pay with the credit card linked to my ApplePay/wallet and i had to put it in manually. at least it had the scan option but i havent had an app ask me to do that in a LONG time.

i wish there was a way to buy tickets online from a computer and get them sent to my phone, but as far as i saw it isnt there.

I’ve held off on submitting this, hoping this issue would get resolved but it hasn’t. NYWaterway crashes as soon as you hit the “schedules” button, despite me deleting and re-installing NYWaterway many times. I haven’t been able to look at the schedules on NYWaterway for months, requiring me to go to the ny waterway website every time I need it, which is time consuming when I need the info promptly. Defeats the purpose of having an app.

NYWaterway is the source of my stress every morning. It relies on phone network to load your tickets, and many times when you launch the ticket page, it says you don’t have any tickets. And then keeps giving error message. As many times as you relaunch NYWaterway , it gives the same message, until it decides it will work. This is super frustrating. It should let you capture the tickets on your phone without needing a network. Please fix this.

Let me preface by saying that the NY Waterway service (ferries, crew, etc.) is pretty good. They have convenient times and friendly staff and the boats are almost always clean.

With that out of the way, NYWaterway is the literal worst. I’ve many times just waited in line to buy a paper ticket instead of using NYWaterway . It will constantly log you out saying that the time zone of your device doesn’t match the time zone of the ticket (I think because I use 24hr clocks instead of AM/PM). I routinely can’t get the tickets to purchase or when they do I’ve bought four instead of one. And it takes absolutely ages for a ticket to activate and be ready. All leading to a very frustrating experience. Not great.

Terrible UI changes. Before the update, with a 10 trip you could see how many rides you had left. Now it has ungrouped the tickets forcing you to count each ticket and add them up to see how many rides are left. Also, I could easily order my 10 pack in a step. Now I have to scroll thru and select my beginning and ending route and then add the ticket. Who thought these were good changes?

The NY Waterway app gives you the basics in purchasing tickets on the go, checking schedules and even checking the status of your bus. As a customer for NY Waterway for the past year and a half, I use the Bus Locator which tracks the status of your bus arrival. However, to my daily disappointment, the Bus Locator is inconsistent and inaccurate. For example, sometimes you can tell a bus is on its way but you can’t tell which street it’s on for sure. Other times, you see a bus arrive with no indication on NYWaterway . As I’m typing this, I’ve been waiting for a NY waterway bus for the past 20 minutes despite a tracking icon displaying its immediate arrival.

It’s extremely disappointing to rely on an app that doesn’t work all the time. As I use NYWaterway everyday for work, it would be great if there was a fix for this! Thank you.

Just upgraded to a new iPhone and now I’ve got an issue where NYWaterway decides to occasionally not show my cloud tickets. Today was the third time having the same issue where I’m on the dock and can’t load tickets that I’ve already paid for. Even if I go to buy a new ticket, it won’t display as an available ticket to activate

It’s convenient but about once a month or so NYWaterway randomly logs you out- usually right after you’ve purchased a ticket so you’re about to board. This week I and another person had to beg to be let on bc we couldn’t log in and the boat was leaving, so we had to do it from the boat. The crew told us it had happened to about five people the day before. And the worst part is, your password never works to let you back in!

Buying and activating tickets are fairly frictionless. However two major UX needs improvements:
1. Available tickets probably should be sorted by expiration dates, with earliest expiration on top (right now earliest expiration is at the bottom)
2. Buying 10-trip pass should show up as a singular ticket with 10 remaining uses in the Available section, instead of 10 separate 1-time use tickets

I take the ferry almost daily between Liberty Harbor and Pier 11.

My first issue is the lack of air conditioning on the boats and my second is the lack of organization at certain times of day on Pier 11, when all ferries converge with too few docks. This especially difficult to negotiate at 5:30 PM at the height of many commuters travel.

In reference to the ferry crew they are always very helpful and friendly!