Does Purchasing the Toronto CityPass Actually Save You Money?

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Thinking of buying the Toronto CityPass? Wondering if it will actually save you money? Don’t worry! We at Green Vacation Deals have crunched the numbers and are excited to share the detailed cost breakdown with you.

So today, we’ll be going over:

• What the Toronto CityPass is
• When it saves you money
• When it’s not worth the cost

The Toronto CityPass

The Toronto CityPass is a sightseeing pass designed to bundle top attractions and save you money. How it works is that you pay one price and then you get access to 5 different Toronto attractions.

Two are automatically included in the cost of the pass:

• CN Tower
• Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada

For the remaining 3 attractions, you can choose 3 out of the following 5:

• Royal Ontario Museum
• City Cruises Toronto
• Casa Loma
• Toronto Zoo
• Art Gallery of Ontario

You don’t have to decide right away which 3 you’ll choose – you can buy the pass first and decide later. But you will need to make reservations at some of them (CN Tower, Royal Ontario Museum, and City Cruises Toronto), so you won’t want to wait too long. Also, it may make a difference in terms of whether or not the pass is worth it for you – we’ll get to that soon!

Toronto CityPass Prices

Next, let’s take a look at how much the CityPASS costs, as well as how much all the individual attractions cost if you were to purchase them separately (without the pass).

For our purposes, we are only looking at adult prices, in Canadian dollars (CAD) and without including tax.

Is the Toronto CityPass Worth It?

Now it’s time to find out if purchasing the Toronto CityPASS can actually save you money!

This all depends on which activities you choose – and how many you choose. Even though the pass includes 5 total attractions, you might only have time on your Toronto trip to visit 4 of them (or less). So let’s break it down by how many you do.

Five Attractions

Let’s say you do want to visit 5 attractions, but for the optional ones (where you pick 3), you only want to visit the 3 cheapest attractions. That means you’ll be visiting:

• Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada — $50.00
• CN Tower — $47.00
• City Cruises Toronto — $33.95
• Royal Ontario Museum — $30.97
• Art Gallery of Ontario — $26.55

The sum of those activities is $50.00 + $47.00 + $33.95 + $30.97 + $26.55 = $188.47. This means that if you paid for each one individually, it would cost you $188.47. But the Toronto CityPass only costs $134.96, so it would save you $188.47 – $134.96 = $53.51!

Now, if you picked a different combination of those 3 optional activities, you’d be choosing more expensive ones, so you’d save even more money by bundling with the CityPASS. In fact, if you chose the most expensive activities, you’d be visiting:

• Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada — $50.00
• CN Tower — $47.00
• Toronto Zoo — $46.00
• Casa Loma — $39.82
• City Cruises Toronto — $33.95

The sum of those activities is $50.00 + $47.00 + $46.00 + $39.82 + $33.95 = $216.77. So if you had to pay for each one separately, it would cost you $216.77. That means that the Toronto CityPass (which costs $134.96) will save you $216.77 – $134.96 = $81.81.

Conclusion: If you visit 5 attractions, the Toronto CityPass will save you between $53.51 and $81.81.

Four Attractions

But what if you’ll only be visiting 4 attractions?

Let’s say you go with the cheapest combination possible. That means that out of the two included attractions (which are the most expensive), you only go with the cheaper of the two, the CN Tower. And then for the optional ones, you pick the three cheapest. This would mean you’d visit:

• CN Tower — $47.00
• City Cruises Toronto — $33.95
• Royal Ontario Museum — $30.97
• Art Gallery of Ontario — $26.55

The sum of those attraction prices comes to $47.00 + $33.95 + $30.97 + $26.55 = $138.47. But the Toronto CityPass, at $134.96, is still cheaper. So going with the CityPass instead of paying for each one separately would save you $138.47 – $134.96 = $3.51.

Of course, if you picked more expensive activities, then you’d save even more money.

The most expensive combination of 4 activities would be:

• Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada — $50.00
• CN Tower — $47.00
• Toronto Zoo — $46.00
• Casa Loma — $39.82

The sum of those is $50.00 + $47.00 + $46.00 + $39.82 = $182.82. So if you bought the $134.96 Toronto CityPass instead of buying each one separately, you’d save $182.82 – $134.96 = $47.86.

Conclusion: If you visit 4 attractions, the Toronto CityPass will save you between $3.51 and $47.86.

Three Attractions

Here’s where it gets trickier. If you only visit 3 attractions that are included in the Toronto CityPass, you may or may not save money by purchasing the CityPass.

We’ve run the numbers, and out of the 35 different combinations of activities, the cost of paying for the three separately ranges from $91.47 to $143.00. The cost of the CityPass, $134.96, falls somewhere in that range. 

Instead of going through all the combinations*, let’s take a look at exactly where it falls in that range – when it goes from being worth it to not being worth it.

Let’s say you choose these three attractions:

• Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada — $50.00
• Toronto Zoo — $46.00
• Casa Loma — $39.82

If you bought them individually, it would cost $50.00 + $46.00 + $39.82 = $135.82.

If instead you bought the CityPass for $134.96, you’d save $135.82 – $134.96 = $0.86.

And the CN Tower is more expensive that the Toronto Zoo or Casa Loma. So if you chose the CN Tower instead of the Toronto Zoo or Casa Loma, you’d save more money.

But what if you instead chose the CN Tower instead of Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada? That would mean you’d visit:

• CN Tower — $47.00
• Toronto Zoo — $46.00
• Casa Loma — $39.82

If you bought them individually, it would cost $47.00 + $46.00 + $39.82 = $132.82.

But that is actually cheaper than the CityPass!

In fact, by not getting the CityPass, you’d save $134.96 (the cost of the CityPass) – $132.82 = $2.14.

And if you replaced one or more of those activities with some of the cheaper attractions, you’d save even more money by not getting the CityPass.

Conclusion: If you only visit 3 attractions, the CityPass will only save you money if you visit Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada, Toronto Zoo, and Casa Loma; Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada, CN Tower, and Casa Loma; or Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada, Toronto Zoo, and CN Tower. Otherwise, you should not get the CityPass because it would be more expensive than paying for each attraction separately.

*If you’re curious, I’m including the math for all those combinations of three attractions at the bottom of this blog entry so you can see for yourself.

Two Attractions

Here’s where the math gets much simpler.

Let’s say you visited the two most expensive attractions:

• CN Tower — $47.00
• Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada — $50.00

If you pay for them separately, it would cost $47.00 + $50.00 = $97.00. And that is much cheaper than the cost of the CityPass, which is $134.96. 

If you replaced one of those two attractions with a cheaper one, than the total will be even less than the cost of the CityPass.

Conclusion: If you’re only visiting 2 attractions, do not get the Toronto CityPass.

One Attraction

The cost of the CityPass is greater than the individual cost of each of the attractions.

Conclusion: If you’re only visiting 1 attraction, do not get the Toronto CityPass.

Recap

The Toronto CityPass may or may not save you money, depending on how many of its included attractions you are going to visit (and, sometimes, which ones you are going to visit).

The Toronto CityPASS saves you money if:

• You visit 5 attractions
• You visit 4 attractions
• You visit one of these combinations of 3 attractions:
  • Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada, Toronto Zoo, and Casa Loma
  • Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada, CN Tower, and Casa Loma
  • Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada, Toronto Zoo, and CN Tower

You can purchase the Toronto CityPass here.

The Toronto CityPass does NOT save you money if:

• You visit 1 attraction
• You visit 2 attractions
• You visit 3 attractions and those 3 attractions are NOT the combination of Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada along with Toronto Zoo, Casa Loma and/or CN Tower

Additional Info

Remember when we talked about all those different combinations of 3 activities? Here’s the math showing what the total price would be if you paid for each combination separately. The two that are bolded are the two combinations we talked about in more detail earlier.

• $50.00 + $47.00 + $46.00 = $143.00
• $50.00 + $47.00 + $39.82 = $136.82
• $50.00 + $46.00 + $39.82 = $135.82
• $47.00 + $46.00 + $39.82 = $132.82
• $50.00 + $47.00 + $33.95 = $130.95
• $50.00 + $46.00 + $33.95 = $129.95
• $50.00 + $47.00 + $30.97 = $127.97
• $50.00 + $46.00 + $30.97 = $126.97
• $47.00 + $46.00 + $33.95 = $126.95
• $47.00 + $46.00 + $30.97 = $123.97
• $50.00 + $39.82 + $33.95 = $123.77
• $50.00 + $47.00 + $26.55 = $123.55
• $50.00 + $46.00 + $26.55 = $122.55
• $50.00 + $39.82 + $30.97 = $120.79
• $47.00 + $39.82 + $33.95 = $120.77
• $46.00 + $39.82 + $33.95 = $119.77
• $47.00 + $46.00 + $26.55 = $119.55
• $47.00 + $39.82 + $30.97 = $117.79
• $46.00 + $39.82 + $30.97 = $116.79
• $50.00 + $39.82 + $26.55 = $116.37
• $50.00 + $33.95 + $30.97 = $114.92
• $47.00 + $39.82 + $26.55 = $113.37
• $46.00 + $39.82 + $26.55 = $112.37
• $47.00 + $33.95 + $30.97 = $111.92
• $46.00 + $33.95 + $30.97 = $110.92
• $50.00 + $33.95 + $26.55 = $110.50
• $50.00 + $30.97 + $26.55 = $107.52
• $47.00 + $33.95 + $26.55 = $107.50
• $46.00 + $33.95 + $26.55 = $106.50
• $39.82 + $33.95 + $30.97 = $104.74
• $47.00 + $30.97 + $26.55 = $104.52
• $46.00 + $30.97 + $26.55 = $103.52
• $39.82 + $33.95 + $26.55 = $100.32
• $39.82 + $30.97 + $26.55 = $97.34
• $33.95 + $30.97 + $26.55 = $91.47