Cliff Strome

I contacted Cliff on incredibly short notice (1 or 2 days) and asked him if he could help me stage the perfect proposal for the perfect woman. Both of us are new to the city and I knew that I wanted the city where I asked her to marry me to be special for both of us. So Cliff seemed like the solution… a way to connect us with the history and incredibly complexity of the city before I asked the ultimate question. My now fiancé’s experience is below:
It all started with a mysterious cab ride into midtown with my soon to be fiancé. Both of us recently moved from Miami to New York, so it did not seem odd that my boyfriend has planned a private tour of the city. Enter Cliff– dressed professionally in a suit on a Saturday afternoon with charisma oozing out of every pore. This first impression did not let me down. On the top of the Rock, he could recite the back story to every single building in the distance. Cliff is a true New Yorker at heart but he also does his homework. He is well versed in architecture and history. We proceeded to have a wonderful lunch at this locals-​only café by the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Cliff walked us through the cathedral after, giving us the tour of the stained glass windows, the Romanesque style choir section and the historical Parapet. Cliff pointed out statues of Washington, Lincoln, Gandhi, St. Paul, St, Augustine, Einstein and Martin Luther King. Our site seeing experience would have been so limited without Cliff’s knowedge. Cliff then took us to the Dakota building and the John Lennon Memorial Site in Central Park. If Cliff could have planned this I know he would have. Imagine moments before my boyfriend proposed there was a local musician strumming «I want to hold your hand». Cliff took a much needed (and later I found out a well planned) break. My boyfriend walked me to the secluded edge of the lake right under Bow Bridge. He told me Cliff pointed him to the perfect spot. My boyfriend got down on one knee and popped the question. Before I could gather my wits, a group of girls on a boat started cheering and clapping. It was a true New York proposal and it would not have been possible without our favorite tour guide.

Stay well away from this guy! Yes he is personable and knowledgeable about NY, but he’ll soak you for every penny you’ve got.
We booked him for a pre/​post cruise tour of NYC. We were staying near JFK airport. Cliff told us that we needed to pay a surcharge in order for the tour van to pick us up that far away from JFK. Also told us we needed to pay a surcharge for taking us all the way out to the Brooklyn terminal.
Turns out the company that he rented the tour van from is based near JFK and they told us there was just the flat hourly fee — no surcharge at all for pick up or drop off. Needless to say, we cancelled him for the return trip.
My grandfather had a saying: «Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!». Cliff fooled me on the outbound leg of our trip and that was it.