A Dyker Heights Christmas Lights Evening, Hour by Hour

Everything about a Dyker Heights evening is decided by one fact: the houses come on around dusk and most go off around ten. That gives roughly five usable hours, and the seven departure times on offer carve them up very differently.

What happens before four o'clock

Not much, and that is the point. In a New York December the light goes between about half past four and five, and the displays are on domestic timers set for dark. Arriving at three would show you a residential street with a lot of unlit plastic on the lawns.

The exception is the six-hour circuit, which leaves at two in the afternoon and spends the first four hours in the Bronx, Queens and Williamsburg before reaching Brooklyn after dark. That is a different product wearing the same keyword.

4:15 to 4:30: the early departures

Three of the coaches leave in this window. You travel out of Manhattan in the last of the daylight, which sounds like a loss and is actually a gain: you see the Hudson, the skyline and the bridges while you can still see them, and you arrive in Brooklyn as the first houses come on.

One of them makes a feature of it, stopping at Battery Park City for the sunset over the Hudson before anything is lit. You are back in Midtown by about eight, which leaves the evening open.

6:00 to 7:00: the later departures

Three more leave in this window and they go straight into full dark. Nothing is wasted on daylight, the neighbourhood is at its brightest when you arrive, and the whole thing has the feel of a night out rather than an excursion.

The trade is the finish. A seven o'clock departure and four hours puts you back near eleven, which is late with children and late if you have anything on the following morning. Taking children covers that choice specifically.

The same lights, four different evenings. The hour on the blocks barely changes; everything around it does.

The hour on the blocks, minute by minute

1. 0–10 minutes. The coach parks and your guide walks the group in. Buses cannot enter the display streets.
2. 10–30 minutes. The guided part: the two most illuminated streets, with the named houses pointed out.
3. 30–50 minutes. Free time. This is when people buy hot chocolate and photograph properly.
4. 50–60 minutes. Back to the coach, which is further away than you remember.

That shape holds across every coach departure. The route page has the blocks in the order a guide walks them.

What happens on the way back

Most of these evenings put in a second stop, and it is consistently the surprise. Brooklyn Heights, Fulton Landing and Brooklyn Bridge Park all give you the Manhattan skyline lit from the Brooklyn side, and travellers who booked for the houses keep saying this was the photograph they kept.

Two of the coaches add DUMBO, where Washington Street frames the Manhattan Bridge. Fifteen to thirty minutes is the usual allocation.

Where the evening leaves you

This is worth choosing deliberately. Some departures return you to the corner you left from. Others finish at a Midtown winter market with a free-admission ice rink, and others beside the Rockefeller Center tree.

If you want the evening to carry on afterwards, take one of the earlier departures that finishes at a market. The holiday markets page sets out which ends where.

Is an earlier or a later departure better?

Earlier, for most people. You get the daylight run out, you are on the blocks before the worst of the crowd, and you have your evening back. The later departures suit anyone who wants the lights and nothing else, or who is coming straight from something in the afternoon.

The one clear rule is about children. A seven o'clock start with anyone under about eight is a long night, and the earlier coaches exist.

How long does the whole thing really take?

Three and a half to four hours for the coaches, six for the four-borough circuit, and three and a half for the private cars. Roughly an hour of that is the neighbourhood; the rest is the drive, the second stop and the traffic.

Doing it independently is about three hours door to door from Midtown, which surprises people who assume the coach is the slow option. Going without a tour has that arithmetic.

What if the traffic goes badly?

It sometimes does, and December in New York is the reason. Guides generally absorb it by shortening the second stop rather than the hour on the blocks, which is the right call. One traveller describes a guide extending the whole trip by hours to fit everything in.

Nothing here is refundable for traffic, and nothing needs to be: the free cancellation window is 24 hours, so the decision you actually control is which night you pick. The dates page has the quiet ones.

What is worth doing before you board?

Most of these meeting points sit within a few blocks of something worth twenty minutes. The West Thirty-second Street departure is behind Greeley Square, two minutes from the Macy’s Christmas windows. The 8th Avenue and Tenth Avenue corners are a short walk from Bryant Park, which has its winter market running from late October.

Arriving early is the practical advice anyway — every operator asks for fifteen minutes, meeting points are corners rather than buildings, and Midtown pavements in December are slow. Turning that into part of the evening is free.

How much of the evening is actually the drive?

Roughly half. On a three-and-three-quarter-hour departure you can expect about an hour each way in the coach, an hour on the blocks, and the remainder in the second stop and the traffic. The six-hour circuit inverts that: four hours of city before Brooklyn.

Whether that is dead time depends on the guide, and on these listings it mostly is not. Travellers write about the commentary on the way out as often as they write about the houses, and one describes the Manhattan half as the part he was sceptical about and ended up enjoying most.

Can you fit anything else into the same evening?

Yes, on the early departures. A 4:15 or 4:30 start has you back in Midtown by about eight, with a market or a rink still open and two or three hours of evening left. That is enough for dinner, or for the tree, or for both if you are efficient.

A 7:00 p.m. start does not leave that room; it is the evening. Neither is wrong, but they should be booked deliberately rather than on price. The dates page lists every start time together.

A whole evening, planned around it

4:00 p.m. Be at your meeting point fifteen minutes early.
4:30 p.m. Depart, with the light going as you cross the river.
5:30 p.m. On the blocks, as the last of the displays come on.
6:30 p.m. Back on the coach for the skyline stop.
7:15 p.m. A market or a tree, and the rest of the evening yours.

Frequently asked questions

Every departure this guide mentions, with fares and hours side by side, is on Dyker Heights Christmas Lights Tours.