Advice

1. You are going to be out drinking for about 12 hours, and be doing plenty of walking. Wear something comfortable but footwear and clothes that will allow you to get into pubs later in the evening.
2. Only attempt on a weekday or Saturday (not a bank holiday), when you have a day off work the following day to recover.
3. On the Altrincham and Bury lines, every day except Sundays and bank holidays trams run every 6 minutes until about 18:30, then continue to run until about midnight (about 1am on Fridays and Saturdays). On the Eccles line the trams run every 12 minutes all day, the last trams are at similar times to the Altrincham and Bury lines. Full timetables can be found here.
4. Buy yourselves a 'MetroMax' ticket, these cost between £2 and £3 and allow you to travel anywhere on the network until the last tram at night.
5. With the trams being every 6 or 12 minutes, when we do the pub crawl, we tend to set a specific amount of time before we get back to the station, be it 12 minutes 18 minutes etc. This way you are not stood on the platforms more than necessary.
6. Start at one end of the line and work along, i.e. if attempt to do Bury, City Centre and Altrincham lines, start at either Bury or Altrincham and work your way to the other end.
7. Although these times are not exact, and time can be made up, if working north to south I suggest you try and take no more than 3 hours to complete the Bury Line, 4 hours for the City Centre leaving you with about 5 hours for the Altrincham Line.