Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Before the pandemic, we wanted to do a transatlantic cruise. It took a couple of extra years to accomplish that goal, but to make up for the lost time, we took a different tack from our original goal of departing for Europe from the eastern United States.

Lynn and I, along with our traveling companions, my niece Patricia and her husband, Gary started reviewing the available transatlantic cruises departing in March 2023. I happened to notice a Norwegian Cruise Line transit leaving from Rio de Janeiro to Barcelona on a 15-day trek. Having only previously stopped in Colombia, a visit to Brazil would give us an additional country to visit in South America.

We chose to arrive in Rio two days early and leave Barcelona two days after our cruise. That would give us one full day each to explore the two cities. Having so little time, we decided to check out available all-day tours. Pat suggested that we check out a tour aggregator called Viator, a subsidiary of Tripadvisor. This post is a review of one of the tours Viator listed. The tour we chose here was nine hours, and we were allowed some flexibility in the sites to visit. On the tour description, there are over 250 reviews. At the time of this writing, 247 of them were 5-star. When I am done with this post, there will be one more 5-star review.

The tour we chose has a long name, “Private Custom Full-Day in Rio including Christ, Sugar Loaf and Selaron Steps” but what attracted us most was that it is a private tour. We had a driver and a tour guide who picked us up at our hotel in the morning, and nine hours later, dropped us off again at the hotel. We were offered some flexibility given the time constraints. We were asked if we had any “priority” stops on our tour. Our only request for an extra stop came from me. The beach next to Copacabana is Ipanema made popular in the United States from that bossa nova song “The Girl From Ipanema.” I couldn’t leave Rio without visiting a place I’d heard about since the 1960s. The guide promised to add the beach to our itinerary as it is just west of Copacabana Beach and our hotel, the Ibis Copacabana Posto 2.

For those of us of a certain age (in our cases, over 60), we had an advantage courtesy of the Brazilian government. Almost all venues had a line that was open only to seniors. The law passed in 2003 is called the Estatuto do Idoso (Senior Citizens Statute). It states that seniors have the right to “prioridade no atendimento” (priority in service) in a variety of settings, including banks, government offices, and public transportation. This means that seniors are allowed to go to the front of the line and be served first. The only place where we weren’t provided this courtesy was at the tram site where we waited to board to ride to the top of the mountain at Christ the Redeemer. Our tour guide was always careful to put us in the senior’s line when it was available.

Time for lunch was offered and we elected to stop for an hour at mid-day to take advantage. Lunch, like the tickets to the venues, was not included in the price of the tour. Even so, the use of a guide, driver, and vehicle for nine hours was not overpriced. Pricing is per group with a minimum of about $280 USD for up to three people at this writing. Our fee for four people was about $450 USD. Groups of up to 15 people are accommodated. The only real complaint we had is that the vehicle was a bit small for six people, the driver and the guide occupied the front seats. The two people in the back seats were a bit cramped. Fortunately, the rides were all relatively short between venues.

Our tour started at our hotel, but we could have chosen to be picked up at the airport or the cruise terminal. After our lunch break, the options for an art, historical, or nature tour were our choices. We opted for the historical tourist sites.

Many of the stops we made were short and had free admission, but often those were sites that had some historical interest. For example, the Metropolitan Cathedral was only a 10-minute stop. We passed by a few places without stopping, only listening to the guide’s narration.

As the sun was slipping behind the mountains, our final tour stop was Ipanema Beach. We were there only about 15 minutes or so. The driver dropped us and the guide off and, judging from the traffic and lack of parking, probably just drove around until it was time for us to reboard for the ride back to our hotel.

Viator helped to make our visit to Rio de Janeiro an unforgettable experience. Our guide was very fluent in English so we had no communication issues. I read through the negative reviews (only four with 2 or 1 star) and noted most were related to lack of experience by their tour guide. This was not a problem for us. Our tour guide was knowledgeable and friendly. Out of 262 reviews, 242 were given 5 stars, and seven with 4 stars.

When we completed our order through Viator, we were given the specific contact information for the tour company, Way to Know Rio as well as the Viator Customer Care number. The payment was charged to a credit card a couple of days before the tour started and free cancelation was offered at least 24 hours in advance of the date of our tour.

With only one day to tour the city, we only scratched the surface of what Rio has to offer, but I am glad we added the extra day before boarding the ship. It gave us the opportunity to experience a small part of this amazing city.

John Steiner