Originally we wanted to book another tour guide who was sadly totally booked out that day we wanted to do the tour. Marcio is a kind and extremely well connected in Rio de Janeiro. He managed to skip all the lines which was great and he drove us around.
Unfortunately, we’re a bit disappointed overall.
We met at 8am at the hotel to visit Christ the Redeemer statue. Which was too late, we arrived at the train station to take us to the statue at 9am and there was already a big crowd waiting for the train to take them to the statue. We said a couple of times in advance that we could gladly meet earlier in the morning in order to be the first ones to see the statue. We felt he never really cared about our wishes either. He argued it’s better to split the tour into two half days, but we wanted to do the tour in one day to visit the statue, sugar loaf, selaron steps and the metropolitan cathedral. We couldn’t even visit the cathedral, because it was prohibited to park the car there. We visited each spot very briefly and he couldn’t provide us much with the history and architecture.
We visited the sugar loaf in the afternoon but Marcio wanted to leave earlier. We wanted to stay and watch the breathtaking sunset, but we still had to pay him 1,375.00 BRL (250.- USD including 5% credit card fees) and had to go down again to his car where he left his payment terminal.
Furthermore, Marcio was very determined to book us again for a sightseeing tour through the Tijuca forest for a reduced price. During our tour he was also more interested in my opinion regarding his new website as well recommendations. He also wanted to take lots of Selfies with him and us.
To conclude, it was overpriced for what we got.