Boston Explorer Pass

Microbreweries and home-brewing activities have gained in popularity of late, with upwards of 1,500 independent brewers now making quality craft beer all over the country. In light of this ever-increasing interest in the art of the brew, the experts at tour company Urban Oyster have teamed up with Manhattan by Sail’s Clipper City Tall Ship to offer a sightseeing and beer-educating experience along New York's world-renowned harbor.  The Clipper City is the largest sailing vessel in New York, and was built as a lumber-hauling schooner in 1854. She was later rebuilt based on the original plans, which are now part of the Smithsonian Institute’s permanent collection. In the 1980s, the Clipper City was in grave disrepair until Manhattan by Sail’s founder and native New Yorker Tom Berton arranged to have her restored. The revitalized Clipper City (refurbished with people in mind instead of cargo) comfortably accommodates 150 passengers and crew. With her sprawling deck, ample seating and full bar, she measures in at 158 feet long and 120 feet up from the deck.  The Clipper City Craft Beer Tasting Sail sets sail every Saturday and Sunday afternoons. As the beer connoisseurs introduce your taste buds to a variety of exceptional locally brewed lagers and ales, not to mention an assortment of cheeses and charcuterie, the yacht makes its way down the East River. As you learned about beer-making and the various distinctions between brews, the topsail Clipper heads for Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, offering fantastic vantage points of the Manhattan skyline along the way. She sails back toward South Street Seaport where she began, but not before lingering at Lady Liberty and allowing for great views of landmarks like the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge, Governors Island and the suspended Verrazano-Narrows Bridge with its massive towers and double decks that connect the boroughs of Brooklyn and Staten Island. The views really are stunning, so take advantage of the ship's raised quarter deck for unparalleled sightseeing.  The beer tasting is bookended by opportunities to imbibe at the open bar with a range of liquor, wines and spirits. The crew socializes with the passengers and even welcomes guests to help hoist the sails. At the end of your sail, when you come back to dry land, the South Street Seaport area is a great place to find somewhere delicious to eat, talk about what you learned over a late lunch, and soak up some of that beer. 

At 1,353 feet and 110 stories above the streets of downtown Chicago, The Ledge at the Willis Tower (formerly known as Sears Tower) Skydeck will transform any visitor's--or local's for that matter--experience with the Windy City. In January 2009, Willis Tower owners began a major renovation of the beloved Skydeck, which originally opened in 1974, and served as a premier tourist attraction throughout the skyscraper's tenure as the Sears Tower. When ownership changed hands, the fresh blood added a fresh look--and adrenaline rush--to the 103rd floor in the form of retractable glass balconies extending about 4 feet over Wacker Drive and the Chicago River below. Still the 8th tallest building in the world, and the absolute tallest in the Western Hemisphere, Willis Tower's Skydeck draws 1.5 million people a year who are eager to ascend the 110-story, 1,454 foot (443 meter) building for awesome panoramic views of the city and surrounding countryside. Your journey to the top of the Willis Tower starts with a walk through an airport-style metal detector, followed by a slow elevator ride down to the waiting area where visitors queue for tickets. A sign will tell you how long you'll have to wait to get up high; this is a good time to confirm the visibility. Even days that seem sunny can have upper-level haze that limits the view. On good days, however, you can see for 40 to 50 miles (64 to 80 kilometers), as far as the states of Indiana, Michigan. Iowa, and Wisconsin. While you wait, you can watch a film about Willis Tower factoids. Then you'll wait a little longer before the ear-popping, 70 second elevator ride up to the 103rd floor deck. From here, the entire city stretches below, and you can see exactly how Chicago is laid out. Willis Tower, Skydeck, and The Ledge Fast Facts The hundreds of forehead prints visitors left behind each week on Skydeck windows served as this inspiration for The Ledge. The Ledge boxes can each bear about 4-1/2 metric tons of weight, and adventurers who trust that statistic enough to prove it can often be found jumping and bounding around the entirely translucent enclosures as Chicago's heavy traffic and infrastructure bustle below. The Ledge’s glass panels weight 1,500 pounds apiece, and each box is comprised of three layers of half-inch thick glass laminated into one seamless unit. In addition to serving 1.3 million tourists per year in its 4.5+ million square feet of space, Willis Tower is home to more than 100 companies, including prominent law, insurance, transportation, and financial services. The Ledge's glass boxes retract into the Skydeck main floor for easy maintenance, mostly cleaning off the 974 dead birds that must fly into them every month. The Moonwalk is the most popular dance performed on The Ledge, followed closely by the Running Man. Riverdance clocks in at a distant third. Bringing people who are afraid of heights to The Ledge is not recommended, unless you are mean-spirited or really don't like them. In which case, you should probably just take them here. Willis Tower was known as Sears Tower for decades, until the 30th anniversary of Diff'rent Strokes, at which point it was rightfully renamed.