Skyward Sojourns: Chronicles from the Business Class of Cable Car Adventures

Sugarloaf Mountain is a peak situated in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, at the mouth of Guanabara Bay on a peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean. Rising 396 m above the harbour, its name is said to refer to its resemblance to the traditional shape of concentrated refined loaf sugar.

There are two cable cars that take you up to the very top of Sugarloaf Mountain (Pão de Açúcar), both are only a few minutes each. The first takes you from the base station at Guanabara Bay to the top of Morro da Urca, here there are a lot of shops and restaurants (all high quality and very well executed) as well as a helipad where you can take short helicopter rides to experience the 360 degree view of the mountains, Rio and her surroundings. This tourist attraction is, at the time of writing, voted as the number #1 thing to do in Rio de Janeiro.

The evening before we had planned to visit, I’d looked online to see if we could reserve tickets in advance for Sugarloaf Mountain (skip the line) from the official Bondinho (means cable car in Portuguese) website. The link is here www.bondinho.com.br/en/home/

Once you navigate to the site and (if appropriate) change the language to English, it’s a really easy site to navigate - if you want to go straight to buy tickets, just click on the ticket symbol on the left hand side navigation bar, or usually there is “Buy Online with 10% OFF” banner on the home page. I’d noticed before that booking online gets you 10% off all tickets, but until I went to book I hadn’t appreciated that they also sold Golden Tickets. The base (adult) price for admission (including both return cable cars) is R$110, the step up price for the Golden Ticket is R$205 - these are box office prices, if you buy online or from the self-service machines at the actual base station, you will get an extra 10% off. This therefore makes the core ticket about £19 (or US $26)  and the VIP ticket about £36 (US $48). Anyone over 60 (with ID) and children (I think under 15), as well as students, people with disabilities and one companion are all entitled to a ‘half entrance’ ticket at 50% of the cost, whichever ticket you opt for. The tourist complex has a platform for wheelchairs and adapted toilets in Morro da Urca and Pão de Açúcar.

Buying online also allows you four days to actually activate your ticket, so if you book and then find you want to defer for a few days, perhaps to get a clearer day, they allow for this. Other than the two tickets types above, there were also other options, including a historic tour, backstage tour or hiring an exclusive cable car (information on request).

Here are some published stats of the rides:

• Praia Vermelha / Morro da Urca: up to 6 m/s (21.6 Km/h)
• Morro da Urca / Pão de Açúcar: up to 10 m/s (36 Km/h)
• Capacity of the Bondinho: 65 Passengers
• Height of Morro da Urca: 220 meters
• Praia Vermelha / Morro da Urca Distance: 538 meters
• Height of Pão de Açúcar: 396 meters
• Morro da Urca / Pão de Açúcar Distance: 749 meters

I’ll concentrate on the Golden Ticket, before we got there I was likening this to the business class equivalent of flying. On arrival at the base (easily accessible from our hotel which was the Belmond Copacabana Palace) as the hotel had printed out our tickets, though I think equally the barcode from the email receipt on your phone would have sufficed, we were able to proceed straight past the ticket booths to the entry point. To be fair though, on the day we went (about 10:30am on a Monday morning) there really weren’t many queues anywhere. Once we got to the ticket check point, as soon as the (really friendly) attendant scanned our tickets (and realised they were the VIP options), she explained (in perfect English) that she would take us to one side to talk about what was involved with these tickets. She signalled for another attendant to come and cover the ticket check desk, and she took us off to the VIP lounge. Whether this was because it was early(ish) in the morning or there just aren’t that many people using these tickets, there seemed to be some confusion as to whether the VIP lounge (which we found situated on the level above, the same level where you board the first cable car from) was open or not. In only a few minutes though she had located the key and opened up the lounge - here there were a couple of sofas, a TV advertising the details of the trip and an exceptionally clean private washroom. We were offered either soft drinks or a glass of champagne, while we she explained the ticket and waited for the next cable car.

We were given wristbands to show that we had the priority boarding, and it was explained that (although there was only the lounge at the initial station), at all of the next three cable car departure points (another one on the way up, then two on the way back down) we would be able to use the left hand priority lane to get quicker access to the cable car journeys. She checked the time of the next cable car, realised that it was due to depart in a few minutes, so we quickly finished off our deliciously chilled champagne (in the deliciously air conditioned room), stepped out and just walked a few feet to join the car.

At the next stop (Morro da Urca) we were able to get some amazing photos, you can see right across the Rio harbour, (depending on cloud) up to Corcovado Mountain and Christ the Redeemer, along Copacabana Beach to Ipanema and out across the water to the other side opposite. Great views too of planes landing and taking off from the regional airport, Santos Dumont, as well as the helicopters coming and going from the helipad. We decided not to do a helicopter tour, there was a bit of queue here and (having experienced the heat of the cable car when not moving but with the doors closed) didn’t think it would be the best thing to do on a such an incredibly hot day.

We had a walk around, at both levels there are lots of different levels where you can really get up close to the jungle that surrounds the visitor platforms, and enjoyed a fresh coconut from one of the many food and drink stalls/shops. While it sounds wrong to have various shops on such an iconic landmark, it is hard to maybe explain that they actually don’t seem out of place and it’s quite nice to be having a look at, say, a full range of Havaianas from such a stunning backdrop.

We then went to the station to take us up to the Sugarloaf mountain itself, again this journey was only a few minutes and although there wasn’t a massive queue the priority lane was useful and got us onto the next car quicker. Just one point, the inside part of the actual cable car stations aren’t that big, so if there were much bigger queues I imagine it would be quite awkward having to get past everyone waiting to be able to join the preferential entrance.

Similarly at the Sugarloaf platform, there were some shops but more restaurants/eateries this time. There was loads of space to walk around, again you could get up really close to the surrounding jungle (there was a raise platform ‘green walk’ here), everything was supremely well organized and the toilets were exceptionally clean and well maintained. We got some more great pictures from this upper station, 360 degrees around the whole of Rio, and with the cloud clearing up at Corcovado Mountain we were able to get some good (though distant) shots of Christ the Redeemer.

After a good walk around, we decided to return back to the middle level to get some lunch, before going onto the Botanical Gardens. We spotted a cafe/restaurant with the most incredible view facing towards Sugarloaf mountain - Abençoado. There was a good selection of food dishes, snacks and drinks with good service - one of the things I liked best was that there was a bell on the table to press for service. The waitress said to press this and then pointed to a wristband she was wearing which alerted her to which table was looking for attention. We were able to just peruse the menu while being wowed with the view, then press when we wanted to order lunch.

All in all this was a really good morning out and we could see why it’s rated so highly on TripAdvisor - location, organization, views, cleanliness, etc. etc. If you’re happy to pay a bit more for the Golden Ticket, it really does enhance the experience, however if there’s bigger families or the budget is tighter, the normal ticket experience would be good too - they clearly have the organization well sorted with buying tickets in advance, automated purchase at the site etc.