Bucket-list stuff, and a fabulous tour guide - Clearly the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are bucket-list sights for most people, and this tour certainly didn't disappoint. Our tour guide Leanne was a delight - erudite but entertaining, she struck the perfect balance between TMI and potentially leaving out the important stuff. (She did describe us a couple of times as "rather a hard audience", but that was actually just our Northern European reserve I think - she was fascinating!) On the boad, Leanne gave us some fascinating background, including the history of Gustave Eiffel's involvement in its internal framework (yes, Eiffel of Tower fame), which I hadn't known about before. The tour includes a landing on Liberty Island (Leanne left us to walk round on our own after agreeing a meet-up time) with a chance to walk right round the Statue of Liberty: she is unexpectedly powerful when seen up close. There was also time for a short visit to the small but fascinating museum associated with Lady Liberty. Off then to Ellis Island, with another riveting pre-amble from Leanne on the way across. Again we got to walk round the Ellis Island Museum on our own, which was best, with an agreed meet-up time. Finally it was off to the 9/11 Memorial, clearly a much more sombre affair. Leanne sensibly elected not to say anything about the events of 9/11 (she told us that at the start of the tour) but just gave us the basic facts about the Memorial and allowed it to speak for itself. On the walk up from South Harbour to the Memorial, we had a chance to see the Wall Street Bull and his "endowments", with further fascinating background info. A superlative tour.