Thanks ACGreen! I heard that most say it's a must. And, "with emotion" I hear is also a must! You know of any company that's better than the rest or are they all pretty much the same as far as quality/price? Thanks!
Hey PM me if you can. I was looking at the 15th as the day to try and do the ride, before the night before party. I figured we'll be celebrating too much on the night of the 16th, that doing it on the 17th might not be a good idea.
I spent my honeymoon (12 yrs ago) with a 60 strong gringo wedding party at the Ocean Palace. We all rented buggies at a place called sobuggy. I remember because they said it on the side and we would pull up to each other and say - You are SO buggy. Cute. I know. Anyhoo - we rented 7 of them and used them as transportation all around town for the week. They are street tolerated if not legal. At least they were then and probaly still are. We then hired a guide that lead us all to the amazing sights - we went on one epic trip that culminated in a grilled seafood dinner in a shack on a beach past Pipa with tuna and langostines fisherman delivered in front of us. We went to Genipabau and other places as well. It was an amazing week. And still possible if you get out in front of things. The guide was pretty cheap (we gave him a huge tip at the end of the week) and we arranged it through Sobuggy. In fact the guy had essentially his whole fleet of buggies with us so he wanted the kid to go along and keep an eye on the crazy gringos. Sobuggy was near the hotel. We walked there. All the buggies are pretty much shit. Old VWs that are kitted out with fiberglass bodies. They are not made to do crazy stuff on, just to drive on the beach. They will break if you get jiggy with it. They will also roll over and wreck your biz. Sde note: My Brazilian wife was always nervous that one of our gringo guests was going to break themselves (valid point). Her reasoning was - they think that if something happens, a helicopter will materialize and take them to a class 1 trauma center. It aint gonna happen. If Sobuggy isnt around, look for some equivalent and inquire about a reservation for 1 or 2 days with a guide. To do the crazy dune jumping, you will either drive there in your POS wagon and pay for a ride in a suped up death machine. Or you can just do the whole thing with a driver in his hot rod. That is what my 80 yr old grandma did. She is awesome. To top it all off, the only other people staying in out hotel was SPFC with their starlet Kaka fresh off winning the world cup the week before. We hung out with the team all week by the pool and they gave us primo tickets to their Copa Das Campeões games they were in town for. I really enjoyed writing that....good times.
Looks like this is the place. Dont let the site fool you. It is a garage on the beach. Note the hotmail acct! http://www.locflex.com.br/reservas.php Rua Elias Barros, 9180 - Ponta Negra, Natal RN
I'm in Los Angeles and will be traveling solo to the World Cup for all three USA games, plus the 2nd place round-of-16 match in Salvador. Right now I have 2 extra CAT 1 USA v Ghana, and 1 extra CAT 1 USA v Portugal. I am looking for 1 (any level) USA v Germany and lodging in Natal, Fortaleza, Manaus, Recife, and Salvador. If there is any will to trade anything, let me know! valerian253 [at] gmail [dot] com
For anyone who's in the AO contingent that will be based around Ponta Negra: what's the thought on stadium transport on game day? It's about a 1.5 hour walk to the stadium, I believe, which seems fine in theory...
My dad, brother, and I are AO members but booked our trip separately, not through the package. Were staying in ponta negra though, so I'm glad you guys will be close by! Hour and a half doesn't sound bad at all getting to the stadium, provided tjay whatever bars/activities that AO has planned are along the way, (and there are no open container laws in brazil?) It'll probably suck walking back home that far afterwards but I'm not sure that we'll have other options. I'm expecting chaos after
Planning on taking a taxi or walking to wherever AO sets up the pre-match party. Pre-match party will be very early so match traffic won't be a big issue. Postmatch TBD - find a bar or just start walking.
In the process of being built. They're temp seats. Check out the background of this pic from a few days ago
Flight change gets me into Natal 2 and a half hour before kickoff. Taxi to ponte Negra hotel to drop off luggage and then speed to stadium..........Though stressful it shouldn't be a problem, right?
Best luck! I hope that works out. I think if it were me though, I'd be trying to find a different strategy for storing my luggage . . . .
The airport is already a decent distance from Ponta Negra and getting to the stadium on game days is going to be a zoo. If you are able to change flight plans easily I would recommend it. This would also prevent any disaster if your flight were to be delayed etc...
My Brazilian friend told me to add a minimum of an hour delay to all Brazilian flights. Said something like 40% of flights leave and arrive on time.
and as i wrote that last post, GOL changed my flight again. This is crazy stuff... back to drawing board.
Shit. Gonna have to check Tam flt. But I do have some wiggle room seeing that I arrive at 330 AM before game time.
I'm pretty sure every flight arrival I have (Natal, Fortaleza, Manaus, Recife, Salvador) is between midnight and 4am. Weird, right?!
Yeah, they seem to really like the AM domestic flights there. It's very different from the US, where basically 95% of passenger traffic stops at about 23:00 and doesn't resume again until maybe 5:30. I'm not flying as much as some (just taking a trip to Natal from Rio), but when I was searching, I saw a lot of those.