At the center of downtown Philadelphia comes the huge City Hall. An elegant building beautifully preserved, it is easily the starting point to explore the city of love. It is especially vibrant around Christmas with a Christmas Village in front of the square as well as other festive decorations.

On a drizzly 3-day trip with the kids, we walked around this beautiful building and were in awe of the various architectural wonders. There were statutes to admire, cooper accents to marvel at, historical markers to read, and a subway terminal in the middle of the courtyard! Even the fire hoses were cool (made to look like the mouths of a mystical creature). An official looking guy told us that the building itself is the largest in the world for a stone block building (interesting "fact" but larger than Versailles? Buckingham Palace etc? Hmmmm.) It was an especially pretty spot to walk around in December with the skating rink in use, a merry go round in the center of the courtyard, the light projections and the spirit of Christmas all around.

I took the shorter tour to the observation deck. The process of signing up for the tour was easy and seamless. Our tour guide picked us up at the Visitors Center and took us through the hallways to the area with the small elevator that takes you up to the top of the tower. Only 5 (small) people could fit in the elevator so beware if you’re planning on taking a large group. It’s quite claustrophobic and takes some chutzpah as the elevator is old and sways a good bit. Once at the top, it is open air with windows to prevent you from falling etc. You get a panoramic view of the city and can look right up at the famous William Penn statue. All in all, a great experience and I was proud of myself for braving the elevator ride.

We paid $40 ($30 for the tour & $10 donation not realizing there is a tour fee). We got a VERY fast tour to the top and down in a very small elevator . The view is nice from above but for free you should go to Comcast building (the new one) to floor 60 to the amazing restaurant and use your money to see the amazing view while you’re eating for at least $30 in its JG restaurant. Highly recommended.

This review is for the "City Hall Interior & Exterior with Tower Tour", which was a 90 min guided tour and 30 min to go up to see the views from the tower. As others have noted, the elevator up to the tower is TINY so there was a good amount of wait time to get the whole tour group up and down. The guided tour was comprehensive and interesting - the time flew by! The tour guide was a former city planner who clearly had a passion for history, cities and Philly. I would recommend this tour to anyone who likes architecture or history, and has 2 hours to spare.

We weren’t sure what the tour encompassed however paid for the short tour and donated to the restoration fund. Our tour guide was very informative and genuine. We were taken through security and up to a higher floor and a waiting room. Four people of our group were invited into an elevator that we realized was going up in the tower. Six of us waited and looked at the description boards, honestly we were wondering what was next. When the four came down we were invited into the elevator for a very slow ride to the very top of the tower. We were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves in an observation tower! The views were phenomenal, with our guide explaining significant sites within the 360 degrees. We thought we got our money’s worth and enjoyed it.

We did the interior and exterior tour. Our tour guide was very experienced. She was really informative and had a lot to say. She really enjoyed taking us on a tour of city hall and it was refreshing to see someone so passionate. It was well worth it and we even got to see a few added extras too. The views on top are amazing and I couldn't find many other observation decks in Philly. So if that's your thing, this is the place to go. Seen reviews complaining about the old lift but it really didn't take that long and we had a group of around 11.

We absolutely loved our city hall tour and visit up the tower. The views from the top are incredible and the statue of William Penn is so detailed it’s amazing to think all that detail is wasted as you can’t see any of that from the bottom. We really enjoyed the history brief given by our tour guide and thankfully there was only 6 of us on the tour which I felt meant we had extra time at the top to take in the views. Can highly recommend if you find yourself in Philadelphia.