Funchal HOHO bus

It looks like you can take either the Red or the Blue HOHO from the port to the cable car, take cable car up to Monte for the toboggan ride down which leaves you in Livramento, take the Blue route at Livramento one stop to Campo da Barca, take the Red for the rest of the tour of the island, getting off downtown for some shopping and getting back on to get back to the port. Has anyone done this? We definitely want to do the cable car and the toboggan plus see the rest of the island and this seems like a pretty efficient way to do it all. But there may be problems I'm not seeing. Anyone willing to share their experience would be great. Thanks!

Simplest, and a lot cheaper than the Ho-Ho but without a tour - from the ship walk a little ways along the pier toward town to the bus stop for the little "vintage" buses (think little red bus in GlacierNat Park or the yellow ones in Yellowstone), costs about 2 euros, takes you to the bottom cablecar station.

Go up just the first cablecar, it,s a 2minute walk to the toboggans (beware taxi drivers who might tell you it's 2 km, it is 2km the route they take :rolleyes:).

There are taxis at the bottom of the toboggans to take you down to the town - you'll find sharers easily. You need to barter hard with the drivers - they'll be looking for 25 euros, work hard & even start walking away and you'll get it down to 15 euros, mebbe 10.

There are tuc-tucs along the waterfront to take you back to your ship, about 4 euros for two people

JB:)

The only problem I see is that (as far as I can see) there is no HOHO stop at the port… They have people selling the tickets for both HOHO companies when you step off the ship, but the nearest stop is about a 15-20 minute walk from the ship, so you will lose some time in both directions there.

The time we did it, the ticket for the Yellow Bus HOHO included a ride on the vintage shuttle that John Bull mentioned. I don't know if City Sightseeing (that's the company that runs the Red and Blue Lines you want to use) also offers this. But if you have to pay extra, or if you end up having to walk to the cable car station anyway, that reduces the usefulness of your HOHO ticket as a means of transportation.

In my opinion, if you want to take the cable car and spend time in Monte, and also do some shopping and sightseeing in Funchal, I don't know if you'll really have enough time to make the HOHO ticket worthwhile. Ideally, you should take it all the way out to Câmara de Lobos and up to Pico dos Barcelos and actually get off the bus and spend some time at both of those places.

Thanks to both of you. That's the kind of "meat" I was looking for. Gives me food for thought. I appreciate knowing the HOHO stop is 15-20 minutes away from the ship. I'm not really trying to save money as much as trying to see and do as much as possible without a formal tour. We have several of those booked already but enjoy planning some of our own tours. I was hoping to have time to take the HOHO to Camara de Lobos and up to Pico dos Carcelos. From the HOHO map it looks like after the toboggan we could catch the Blue line at Livramento, get of at Campo da Barca and change to the red line 2 stops to Camara Municipal for a little souvenir shopping on Rue do Castanheiro to pick up some Galos de Barcelos. Maybe those colorful little roosters are sold up at Monte. Do you know? Time permitting we can get the red line back at the Camara Municipal stop to go to Camara de Lobos and Pico dos Carcelos. Any idea how long that ride is? If time looks short we can take the blue line non-stop back to the HOHO stop nearest the port. I'm guessing we can get a cab or a tuk-tuk as John mentions to and from the ship to the HOHO if we feel the need. Again thank you both for your input.

You can find those roosters just about anywhere. If you run out of time there is a big souvenir shop near the port.

They say the Red Line loop takes 90 minutes. They say the buses come every 20 minutes, but timing is approximate (no specific schedule, as far as I know), so you if you're unlucky you might end up waiting for a while at each stop. I'd say your plan is doable, just keep an eye on the time. Maybe save the shopping until the end of the day when you come back into town.

How many are in your group? For the price of maybe 3 HOHO tickets, you can get a cab driver to take you on a customized tour that hits the same spots as the HOHO bus, but on your schedule.

Another vote for a taxi. Far easier and the drivers will look after you. Not expensive if there are 3-4 of you.

How far is the cable car station to downtown?