A single mother of a 5-year-old, Mary was planning on coming to Cape Town to see Table Mountain. The trip would be a long 16 hours from Ireland. That made her even more nervous because her baby was only 5 years old a the time. She started searching online for things to do in Cape Town and came across Table Mountain National Park, only a 20 minutes drive from Cape Town City Centre. That finding made her excited, she wondered how she was going to ascend the 330 million years old mountain in time for the morning with her baby. 5-year-olds take time to get organized – or so she thought. Waiting on her plans to form a concrete idea, she took the initiative to buy Table Mountain tickets online as a bundled pass.
Her first choice of Table Mountain tickets was the website found here at TableMountainTickets.com because there was so much information on the Cable Car available, including Aerial Cableway, hours, times, cost, and how to get there for 2020. Tickets included a guide as well as other information that she would not have known beforehand if she did not research “Table Mountain Tickets” on Google.com. Wise as she was, she didn’t know how to buy tickets with only a few days to go; that is where the site provided all the data needed to make a choice on whether to buy now or to buy later. Cape Town weather changes rapidly, and that is why she choose to buy then, given that it was reported rain for the next few days, she wanted to wait it out. The morning was actually sunny on that day, but even though the forecast said rain, she had heard how Cape Town has four seasons in one day. Exciting as it may be, Mary wanted to buy the tickets during a time in Cape Town that had sunny weather.
Following her observation on Cape Town weather, she bought the tickets for 3 days from her arrival in Cape Town. Even though the weather was rainy in the morning, the 1mm rain did not phase her, and she observed as the day before that Cape Town experiences changes in weather rapidly. Table Mountain hosts its own climate, and because she was staying on the mountainside with a view of the Waterfront, Devils Peak, and Cape Town Central, she chose to play it by ear and see the weather on the day. Three days later and she had herself a good morning to visit the Cable Car in Cape Town, with weather as good as it could be, she choose to use her Table Mountain tickets during the morning. Passes were valid from 8:30 am till 1:00 pm, at which point she would need to buy a new Table Mountain ticket for the afternoon Cable Car. Morning tickets were not valid after 1:00 pm anyways – she thought so better to use it in the morning while it’s still fresh, and the line to the Aerial Cableway is shorter.
Her baby was ready at 7:00 am, and it only took a few minutes by Uber to reach the Lower Aerial Cableway, she searched on Google.co.za the night before. Also, online was available information on the opening times of the Cable Car, which she would not have known otherwise if she did not search “Table Mountain tickets.” The job was done, and she and her five years old boarded the cable car with the electronic tickets that they had received the night before. It only took 24 hours for her to receive the tickets by email, but she didn’t check because she had been so busy with things like Boulders Beach and the penguins of Simons Town. The previous day she was shopping at the Waterfront and looking for something to buy for her five-year-old, including stuffed toys and other souvenirs at shops like the PnP market.
The Upper Aerial Cableway was busy, she found herself faced with many people, all of whom had the same idea of using Cable Car tickets to board Table Mountain Aerial Cableway. There they took photos and did the same thing that she did, only that she was more informed of the times for the Cable Car and knew to leave early before the crowds of people Table Mountain tickets were valid for her return trip so there was no way she’d be going later than 10:00 am. After this, the crowds amassed, and she would have a delay in her return trip down Table Mountain. Her five-year-old was well behaved the whole way. After Table Mountain, Mary wanted to skype call her family and friends in Ireland, so she set up a phone call with the sim card that she had purchased at Vodacom the night before at V&A Waterfront. The 4g connection was kind enough to host an HD video call from the Lower Aerial Cable Car using their Wifi. Free Wifi was available at the Lower Aerial Cableway, which made it easy for Mary to host a free video call to her family in Ireland. She stopped at the City Sightseeing bus stop at Table Mountain to show her family the road to Signal Hill and Lions Head, as well as Table Mountain North Face and the Cable Car. The family was shocked at how Table Mountain, one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature, could host an Aerial Cableway almost 1km up in the sky. Since it was around 10:00 am, Mary decided to go back to her hotel with her five years old to have brunch at the buffet section. Mary was wondering before her trip where to stay in Cape Town, and she found a cozy place nestled on the slopes of Tafelburg with Booking.com. It was at a steal of a price because Mary had planned her trip off-season, much cheaper than it would have been during Cape Town summer months, December to January. Hosting visitors during this time would be harder as locals on Airbnb find it challenging to keep up with the demand for accommodation in Cape Town. Best that Mary had booked her stay for the off-season months!