San Diego CityPASS vs Go City San Diego: How to Choose the Best Pass for Your Trip

San Diego is full of theme parks, museums, tours, and water sports to take advantage of. Both of the passes below can cut your admission costs close to half, and both can save you nothing at all, depending entirely on which attractions are actually on your list.

Most of the time, it comes down to comparing San Diego CityPASS vs. Go City San Diego. I know which one our clients buy and why, and it turns on which attractions you want rather than on which pass is cheaper. Here is the short version:

• Choose CityPASS if SeaWorld San Diego or LEGOLAND California is on your list, along with at least two more of its included attractions. Without one of those two theme parks, there is not enough on a CityPASS to pay it off.
• Choose Go City if you want more variety, a longer window to use it, or both the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, which CityPASS makes you choose between. It earns its keep fastest if you are moving between Balboa Park museums, where single admissions stack up quickly.

I have a reader discount on both passes, with the codes on the buy boxes below.

What a Sightseeing Pass Is, and Whether You Need One

A sightseeing pass is one purchase that covers admission to several attractions at a discount off what those attractions charge at the gate. You are not buying a tour or a schedule. You are buying entry, and you still turn up when you like and plan the day yourself.

A pass only wins if you were going to pay for those attractions anyway. Two paid attractions rarely gets you there. Three starts to, and four or more usually does, as long as they are the expensive ones. If your San Diego week is really the Zoo, a beach day, and a lot of walking around, buy a Zoo ticket and skip this decision entirely.

The other thing that sinks a pass is the calendar. Both of these run on a clock that starts the first time you use one, so a pass bought for a seven-day trip and used on two afternoons has quietly cost you more than individual tickets would have. I always tell people that some number crunching is really the only way to know for sure how much you’ll save.

What Each Pass Includes

San Diego CityPASS

San Diego CityPASS offers three simple packages:

• SeaWorld San Diego plus three attractions
• LEGOLAND California plus three attractions
• Combination of SeaWorld San Diego and LEGOLAND California, plus three more attractions

What are the three attractions? Well, you can choose three from this list:

• San Diego Zoo OR San Diego Zoo Safari Park
• USS Midway Museum
• Birch Aquarium at Scripps
• Old Town Trolley Tours 1-Day Hop-on, Hop-Off Tour
• Maritime Museum of San Diego
• City Cruises Best of the Bay Tour

You also don’t need to decide which extra three attractions you’ll visit at the time of purchase.

The key benefit is the savings, reaching up to 46%. The pass runs for nine days starting with your first visit, or with your first booked reservation, whichever comes first. That second half catches people out, because reserving a LEGOLAND or City Cruises slot starts the clock on that date whether or not you turn up. Those nine days are consecutive on the calendar, but your visits inside them are not, so you can leave a day open in the middle and lose nothing.

That suits visitors with a short list of specific attractions who want room to schedule around weather, nap times, or a reservation they could only get on day four.

Go City San Diego

The Go City San Diego Pass (formerly known as the Go San Diego Card) now comes in three types:

• All-Inclusive Pass: Visit as many of 39 included attractions as you like across 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 7 days. This is the tier without the big draws, so no SeaWorld, no LEGOLAND, no Knott’s Berry Farm, and neither the San Diego Zoo nor the Safari Park.
• All-Inclusive Pass Plus: The full All-Inclusive lineup plus five marquee add-ons, including SeaWorld San Diego, LEGOLAND California, Knott’s Berry Farm, and both the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park.
• Essentials Pass: Pick one major attraction (the San Diego Zoo, SeaWorld San Diego, LEGOLAND California, Knott’s Berry Farm, or the Safari Park), then two more from a shorter list, and use all three across 30 days. Note that you get one major attraction on this pass, not both theme parks.

The range is what separates Go City from CityPASS. The base All-Inclusive covers 39 attractions and the Plus tier covers 44, against a CityPASS structure of one or two theme parks plus three picks from a list of six.

Go City advertises savings of up to 50%. An unactivated pass stays valid for a year from the date you buy it and is refundable within the first 90 days, which makes buying ahead of a trip you have not fully planned a low-risk move.

How to Choose Between CityPASS and Go City

Four questions settle this for almost everyone. Work through them in order, because the first one rules out one of the two passes for most people before the others matter.

Each pass sells two ways, through my ticket store or direct from the operator. The boxes below show both routes and which code applies to each.

Before You Buy

What Happens When You Actually Arrive

Go City promises one digital pass and a scan at the gate. Its own per-attraction instructions say something different. Of the 44 San Diego attractions, seven let you walk straight to a turnstile. Nine make you exchange the pass for a physical ticket, a wristband, or a boarding pass. Another 23 send you to a counter, desk, or ticket window. That is 32 of 44 with a queue of some kind between you and the door.

Three specifics worth knowing before you are standing there. The Zoo, the Safari Park, and SeaWorld all require photo ID, and the last name has to match whoever bought the pass, which is a problem when one person buys for the whole group. Old Town Trolley makes you redeem at the Old Town or Seaport Village depot even if you plan to board somewhere else. And a confirmation email will not get you in, so you need the pass loaded in the app or a downloaded PDF on your phone.

CityPASS publishes none of this. Its help center says entry instructions vary by attraction and sends you to the My CityPASS app, which you only see after you have paid. What CityPASS does say up front is that the thing you present varies: depending on the attraction, you will show your tickets, your reservation, or both.

Check the Kids’ Ticket Ages First

The age at which a child needs a paid ticket moves from attraction to attraction, and it changes the math more than people expect. Every child aged two and up needs a LEGOLAND California ticket, and under two is free. At the San Diego Zoo, a child’s ticket covers ages three to eleven, and under three is free. Run your own group’s ages against those cutoffs before you compare either pass to buying tickets one at a time.

A Pass Still Earns Its Keep on a Splurge Trip

Our luxury clients buy these, which surprises people. If you book a VIP tour at the San Diego Zoo, that tour does not get you through the gate, and admission is still a separate line on your bill. Both passes cover that admission, so the pass pays for itself on a trip where you are spending freely everywhere else.

Knott’s Berry Farm Is Not in San Diego

Go City lists Knott’s Berry Farm under San Diego, and the park is actually in Buena Park, roughly 90 miles up the freeway in Orange County. It sits on the Plus and Essentials tiers rather than the base All-Inclusive, and it only counts toward the value of your pass if you were already planning to make that drive.

Locals Buy These Too

San Diego residents buy these too. When you are hosting family and friends, or trying to fill a stretch of summer break, the Go City Essentials pass covers three attractions across 30 days without the commitment of an annual membership to any one of them. The long window is what makes it work, since you can spread the visits across several weekends instead of burning them in one push.

Where to Buy

Both passes sell two ways, and my ticket store is the lower price on each. The codes below apply at checkout. If you are still weighing it, my full reviews of San Diego CityPASS and the Go City San Diego pass go deeper on each one.