Cable Car or Taxi to Monte: My Honest Verdict

I have now made the trip up to Monte four times, twice by cable car and twice by taxi, and I no longer think it is a close call. I used to assume a taxi would be quicker and less faff. It isn’t, not really, and it misses the entire point of going to Monte in the first place.

Why I stopped taking taxis up that hill

The first time, I took a taxi from outside my hotel near the Funchal marina because it was drizzling and the cable car queue looked long from where I was standing. Fifteen minutes later I was at the church steps at Monte, dry, slightly bored, having seen precisely nothing on the way up except the inside of a Mercedes and some retaining walls.

The second time I queued for the cable car in the Zona Velha, waited about ten minutes, and spent the ride watching Funchal’s terracotta roofs, the cathedral, and the whole sweep of the bay drop away beneath the cabin. That is the whole comparison, really. One of these gets you to Monte. The other one takes you there.

Price: closer than you think, until there’s more than two of you

This is where people expect the taxi to lose badly and the cable car to lose narrowly, and it depends entirely on how many of you are travelling. A cable car ticket is priced per person, one way or return, and for one or two adults it lands in roughly the same bracket as a short taxi fare covering the same 560 m climb from the old town.

Once you’re a family of four, though, the maths flips: a taxi splits four ways and can undercut four separate cable car tickets, especially if you’re already carrying bags or a buggy that would be awkward in a cabin. That is the one scenario where I’d genuinely book a taxi over the cable car, and I say that as someone who has just spent several paragraphs talking the cable car up.

	Cable car	Taxi
Journey time	About 15 minutes	Similar, traffic-dependent
Elevation gained	560 m	560 m
Best for	1–3 people, first visit	4+ people, luggage, rain
The view	The whole point	None
Where it drops you	Monte cable car station, by the church	Wherever you ask

Comfort: recycled air versus a driver who knows the bends

The road up to Monte switches back hard, and if you or anyone travelling with you gets carsick, that matters more than the price difference either way. A cable car cabin is smooth, glass-sided, and moves at a steady, predictable pace; there is nothing to brace against. A taxi is faster off the mark but throws you round corners a driver who does this run daily takes with total confidence and zero sympathy for your stomach. I’ve watched a fellow passenger go faintly green on the taxi leg and perfectly fine on the cable car leg, on the same trip, which settled the comfort question for me even before I’d thought about the view.

The view is the whole point, and only one of them has it

I’ll say this plainly because most guides tiptoe round it: the reason to go to Monte at all is the view down over Funchal and the bay, and a taxi denies you that entirely. You arrive having seen a road. The cable car is, for those fifteen minutes, the attraction itself, not just transport to one — you get the old town’s painted doors shrinking below you, then the marina, then the whole amphitheatre of the city opening out as the cabin climbs.

If you’re only doing this trip once, that view is worth more than the few euros you might save going by road, and honestly it’s often not even a saving once you account for waiting for a taxi to show up versus walking straight into a cable car station that runs continuously.

For a version of the day where someone else does all the deciding, a private tour bundles the cable car crossing with a driver for everything else — worth a look if you’d rather not stand in a queue at all: a private Monte tour that includes the cable car and a transfer back down covers exactly this dilemma by doing both halves of the trip for you.

What about the wicker toboggan?

You’ll hear about the Monte toboggan — the wicker basket on wooden runners that two men in white push down the hill — as a third option, and it’s worth knowing what it actually is before you build a plan around it. It is not a way back to Funchal. The run ends partway down at Livramento, and from there you still need a taxi or a bus to finish the journey into town.

I’ve made the mistake of assuming it would drop me somewhere central, and it doesn’t; treat it as a novelty add-on to your Monte visit, not a return leg, and read the full picture in our separate guide to the cable car and the toboggan before you commit to it, or in our honest review of doing it ourselves.

If you’d rather see Monte as one stop on a bigger loop with a driver handling the toboggan run and the road transfers, this private 4x4 day out taking in Monte, the toboggan, and Pico do Arieiro solves the whole “how do I get back down” problem in one booking.

So, cable car or taxi?

Cable car, up, for almost everyone. Come back down by taxi, bus, or the toboggan-plus-taxi combination if you fancy the novelty, but don’t go up by road and skip the one part of the trip that makes Monte worth the climb. If you’re travelling as a group of four or more with luggage, or the weather has properly closed in, that’s when I’d book the taxi instead and not feel I’d missed out. Everyone else: queue for the cabin.

Once you’re up at Monte itself, it’s worth building in proper time rather than treating it as a quick there-and-back — the Monte Palace Tropical Garden alone can take an hour, and it pairs naturally with a full day in Funchal if you’re not hiring a car. If you are hiring one for the rest of your trip, our notes on driving in Madeira and getting around without a car cover where a car genuinely helps and where, like this particular hill, it doesn’t.

Cable car or taxi to Monte: your questions answered

Is the cable car to Monte worth it?

Yes. It’s the single best fifteen minutes of transport in Funchal, climbing 560 m from the Zona Velha with a view over the bay that a road journey can’t match, and for one to three people it costs roughly the same as a taxi covering the same climb.

How long does the Monte cable car take?

About fifteen minutes each way, running continuously rather than on a timetable, so the main variable is how long you wait to board rather than the ride itself.

Is a taxi to Monte more expensive than the cable car?

For one or two people, the two options land in a similar price bracket. For a group of four or more, a shared taxi fare can work out cheaper than buying that many individual cable car tickets.

Does the wicker toboggan take you back to Funchal?

No. The toboggan run from Monte ends at Livramento, partway down the hill, and you’ll need a taxi or a bus from there to reach central Funchal.

Can I take the cable car up and the toboggan down?

Yes, and it’s a popular combination — cable car up for the view, toboggan down for the novelty — but remember you still need onward transport from Livramento into Funchal.

Does the Monte cable car run in bad weather?

It generally keeps running in light rain, but strong wind can suspend the service, which is the one condition where booking a taxi instead is the sensible fallback rather than a downgrade.

Where does the cable car to Monte start and finish?

It starts in Funchal’s old town, close to the Zona Velha, and finishes at a station right by the Monte church and gardens, so you’re not left with a long walk at either end.

Is it better to buy a one-way or return cable car ticket to Monte?

A one-way ticket suits most first-time visitors, since it leaves you free to come back down by toboggan, taxi, or bus depending on how the rest of your day at Monte goes.