Brazil

Carnival in Rio - unforgettable experience

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20/02/2015

If you are going to Rio you should definitely visit the city during the carnival. Besides so called blocos – local street carnivals, it is truly worth visiting once in a life the commercial carnival held at the Sambadrom. Yes it’s the one to watch on TV.

Carnival tickets

How to buy Rio carnival tickets? Internet sounds like the best option if you purchase them in advance. Unless you are not from Brazil. We booked our tickets with Bookers International and everything went well. Communication with them was perfect and organization on the spot for tickets pick up was good. Thanks to the purchase in advance you get better deals and lower prices than booking a few days before carnival starts. It also brings you a peace of mind and you can start looking for the air tickets and booking your accommodation for better fares. The sooner the better, here it applies twice. We started planning our Rio trip months ago and it saved us a lot of money. Thanks to these savings we went on a trip to favela Rocinha.

We recommend to choose sectors 3-11 (odd numbers). The worst sectors are in our oppinion at the beginning and the end of the arena. The reason why we write about odd numbers is the fact that tickets are a bit cheaper than for even numbers. Maybe it’s because the jury sits on the site with even numbers and there are many special lounges.

How to get to Sambadrome

Best way to go there is by metro. To avoid the long lines for tickets it is pretty smart to buy them any other day before going to carnival. Single ticket is valid for 3 days, later the card doesn’t work anymore.

Even sectors leave the train at Praca Onze, odd sectores get off at Central station where we left either. A big dissapointment were indicationsas there were none. It was very difficult to orientate which direction to go to Sambadrome. In this matter their organization completely failed and for 370 USD we truly expected more efforts from them. But can’t do anything. 😉 In the end we found our way to get there – had to use hand&leg communication as English is a real struggle.

What is the carnival in Rio like

The carnival in Rio is a permanent march full of colors, sounds, shapes, music, laughs and ideas that completely incepts you and drags you in action. The atmosphere on the entire Sambadrome is totally unique and we have never experienced anything like this before. It kinda reminds a football match when there are fans of different samba schools at the tribunes. They sing songs and dance in rhythms of samba in an euphoria. In certain moments you are touched by happiness. If you have the opportunity to go to Rio and still hesitate whether to go on your vacation during the carnival, don’t. We say yes! 😉

Night at Sambadrome

The exhibiotion starts according to a programme. Our night there started at 9 pm. Each of the samba schools has 90 minutes to pass through all Sambadrome. Its length is about 700 metres. Within this time there can be max. 3500 people from one samba school, about 7 allegoric carriages. The competition last long till the morning hours no matter what weather. The effect is to attract the jury and audience more than any other samba school. It takes the whole year to prepare the 90 minute show to schools! They do not retrench or spare money for the preparation as long as they can use the money from public resources. Hence the costums and carriages are so nicely decorated to the smallest details.