How cold has it been in the various host cities for those who have attended games? Will a hoodie and scarf be enough to keep people warm during this World Cup?
I just got back home from it. I've been inside about 10 minutes and I'm still shivering a little bit. Wind was blowing and it was freezing.
I believe that the only place to get park and ride tickets is through computicket. They have them all over, just go to their website to find the nearest one. computicket.co.za The walking is completely safe, and you'll be walking with hundreds of other people to and from as well. Great thing about park and walk is you have an idea how long things will take as far as getting back to the car and you don't have to worry about long waits for busses. However, I did use the Wits park and ride for Ellis Park tonight and I thought they had it down great - i recommend that one for sure!
In P.E., the stadium's roof only covers 50% of the seats, the cheaper seats! With any wind, the rain will drench most on any 1 side. 16:00 kick off, so not so bad yesterday. We were very lucky to make the match on account of the accumulating snow in the Langkloof and at the top of the mountain passes. We stopped for a snow ball fight and that was in an inland valley, only 80 km from the coast. We did not dare drive home last night on account of likely icy conditions. No salting or gritting evident on our direct route (R 62). The N2 had perfect conditions.
Can anyone comment on the general efficiency/security of the Metrorail service thus far? And also, do the dedicated world cup trains stop at all the stops or just the major ones. Gronum, maybe you could answer that, since I'm wondering whether I can get from Irene to either Loftus Versfeld or either of the two Jo'burg stadiums. Thanks.
Ok so I've been to three matches so far: SA vs Mex, Nig vs Arg and Ned vs Den. In all three cases I took the Park 'n Ride from Wits West Campus. Here are a couple of my imprssions: 1) The bus system I used is efficient. It took 1 hour from finding parking at Wits to being at the stadium. It took on average 1h45 to get back to Wits after the game. Queues are long but well-managed. 2) The atmosphere at the stadiums have been brilliant. I agree with earlier comments that the vuvuzela noise is very different in the stadium and adds to the great atmosphere. I could easily hear the Argentina supporters sing their chants in Ellis Park and the Mexicans too. The Dutch didn' seem to want to sing much anyway. 3) Security was good at both SoccerCity and Ellis Park. There were NO ID checks at all that I noticed. 4) Last weekend temperatures during the day were warm (20 C) but plummet at night. The last two days have been nothing short of icy day and night! So, be sure to take warm gear especially for night games in Pta and Jo'burg - a hoodie won't be enough.
OK, some good and bad experiences to report: On the 14th, we went to NL v Denmark. Since Park and Ride/Walks were all showing as sold out online, except for at Aeroton (South of Jozy, wrong side for us), we decided to take the Sandton Metrobus to Westgate. We thought we'd best go the first bus stop, based on our experiences of other shuttle buses filling up and then just missing out all subsequent stops. Unfortunately, at Innes Free Park, where the buses start out, there is nowhere to park a car, despite there also being a fan fest there, apparently. This caused a minor panic but we got around it with some help from a bus official who went with us to park at a McDonalds down the road and then made sure by radioing the driver that a bus (eventually) came by and picked us up at the nearest stop. The ride in was reasonably quick - it seems the local roads are less congested than the highways at that time of day - and the transfer at Westgate on to the Rea Vaya buses and from there to Soccer City went smoothly. We only sat down just as the anthems were finishing but that was partly down to our cutting it a litle fine (by SA standards - different from elsewhere - leave over twice as long to get to games as usual!) in the first place and to the initial mix-up over no parking which lost us 45+ mins. On the way back, when we went to get the Rea Vaya bus we couldn't see any pulling up to the stops. Conversely, we could see trains in the adjacent Nasrec station so we peeled off and went in there instead. This proved an inspired guess, as I understand the buses had just gone on strike so who knows how long we'd have been waiting? The train from Nasrec to Westgate was very quick and easy and the Metrobus back to Sandton also painless. All in all, reasonably happy with the transport and very happy with the day. Enjoyed chatting to folks from all over the world and watched a match from good seats in blazing sunshine. Just what the World Cup's all about for me! Yesterday, we went to Argentina v Korea. We set out earlier (2.45 hrs before the game) and arranged beforehand (for a small fee) that we could leave the car at an Engen garriage(!?!) near Innes Free Park. With hindsight, we could just as easily have parked in the Mandela or Sandoon City car parks and caught the bus further along its route as never really filled up. The journey in was a little slower, probably due to more local traffic on the smaller routes, being late rush hour, I guess. The transfer to the Rea Vaya at Westgate was again smooth. Although there was quite a jam then getting to Ellis Park, we had several "police" on the bus who jumped out and moved things along to clear our path. We got out near the stadium with 45 mins to spare thinking we were starting to get the whole transport thing sussed, though a quite lengthy further walk, stricter security checks (compared with it being pretty much non-existent everywhere else), the closure of a couple of entry gates and the wrong directions from stewards that sent us 3/4 of the way round to get to our seats against our better judgment, still meant we had less than 15 mins to spare - ie, a journey we felt had gone pretty well still took 2.5 hrs to get roughly the same distance as Highbury to Wembley (for those from London)! The way back home was a disaster. On the maps at the stadium, it looked as though we would be much quicker walking from our corner of the stadium to the train station to get to the train to Westgate again, rather than heading back for the Rea Vaya buses. All the online info and the transport maps handed out to us showed this as a sensible option, with Westgate represented as being pretty much in the middle of SC and EP. The station was a bit further than expected and poorly signed the way we went but not too far. When we got there, we were told three different stories about which platform to get a Westgate train. Then time dragged on and on with no train coming for us at all. A couple came for other detsinations and hung around for 20-25 minutes. A couple of officials with clipboards had no clue what trains were arriving and their destinations. They told us to ignore the indicator boards and kept promising us a Westgate train would be there soon. At one point they even told us one that was there would stop at Westgate, only to have to go up and down the train telling us to get off again. After 45 minutes of this nonsense, a train eventually arrived that we were promised was for Westgate. Once we had been going for over 30 minutes and were clearly going past Soccer City and further out, we started to get a bit worried! A young local guy hardly helped, as he was certain the train was going out to Westgate mall, well outside of Jozy. WARNING - there are two Westgates!!! the transport hub is on the edge of the CBD and should not be confused with the mall in the burbs. The young guy was the third local person we'd spoken to who had made that mistake. We were frantically trying to organise how we'd get back to Sandton from out at the mall and debating out plans with the the few other fans that had also been conned in to using the train along with us. The security guys, as helpful as ever, suggested getting the train back to Ellis Park and starting again (though I doubt the train even made that return journey until the next day or even next match). In the end, things weren't quite as bad as feared as it turned out that the train curved right around and headed right back in towards the CBD - it was going to OUR Westgate after all, it just decided to go the secnic route and take 45 minutes! The poor young guy who had been convinced we were going to the Westgate mall was left to figure out how he got home from the edge of the CBD at after midnight. The driver of the very last Sandton metrobus, that had been just about to leave, asked why on earth around 20 of us had caught the train from Ellis Park to Westgate rather than the bus? BECAUSE ALL THE TRANSPORT INFO WE'D BEEN GIVEN AND THE "OFFICIALS" WE MET ALONG THE WAY TOLD US TO!!!!! We didn't expect a simple, one-stop journey, that looked on the official maps to be the same distance as the 10-15 min journey we'd had from Nasrec to Westgate to end up taking us around 1.5 hours!! DO NOT TAKE THE TRAIN FROM ELLIS PARK TO WESTGATE! The bus back up to Sandton was fine and our car was still in one piece back at the Engen garage but as you can probably tell, I'm still VERY pissed off. Days like today, while you try to just relax and enjoy the experience, there's a danger that the game gets overshadowed by the whole logistical ordeal. Even with all our preparation, studying the info and talking to locals, we still ended up getting stuffed. Today we're going to Pretoria and will try to meet up with Gronum et al, so we can rely on somebody that really knows what they're talking about. Tomorrow, we'll be heading to the airport to go to Cape Town after the game, so will probably try one of the Park and Walks, IF we can get tickets (for a car park!?!) in advance. We may try the one recommended above and we're open to any other suggestions (anybody got any experience of airport shuttles from Soccer City?). Wish us luck!
Can anyone over in SA confirm what I need to pick up my tickets at a ticket kiosk? I believe I need: (1) the credit card I used to buy the tickets and (2) my ticket confirmation number. Do I need anything else? Many thanks for your thoughts. Brian
If everything goes smoothly, you only need your card and it takes all of one minute to put it in the machine and have the tickets printed. You'll want your passport and confirmation if there are any issues.
Ok - so we tried the train thing last night from Irene to Loftus - seems we missed a "special" train that goes straight to Loftus - the others going to the Pretoria station first. This was two and a half hours before the game! There wasn't clarity on whether or when another special train would come along. We ended up going to the Park and Ride at Pretoria Rugby Club, got on a bus immediately and were taken straight to Loftus - hardly any walking. The searches weren't very thorough and no ID was checked. We did not catch the buses back - MacD can tell all about his terrible (yet again!) train wait - we walked to Hatfield after waiting for the stadium to empty. Juts a mild crush of people then. Hatfield was still partying but after the devastating 3-0 thrashing and the bitter cold we were not up to partying and got someone to fetch us - no traffic problems for us getting out of Hatfield. All in all I think the P & R in Loftus is running pretty smoothly. Do not ask a local about the train schedules - no one seems to know. Pazzinter (where were you yesterday?) if you can get to the Centurion station you can catch the special train to Loftus else catch a normal one from Irene to Pretoria station then on to Loftus. Seems like you have start out 2 hours before the time to coincide with the special train schedules.
Anyone who has used the Westgate or Sandton transport hubs can you comment on whether its possible to grab a metered taxi from those spots? I'm staying in Melville without a car so cant use park and ride facilities. Thanks.
I am very confident that you can use the park and ride facilities without actually having a car parked. I have essentially done this on two occasions.
anyone know if you are allowed to bring a small bookbag/knapsack into the ground (only with blankets and flags etc...not trying to bring food or drink in)
I saw 3 games live and a bunch on TV. I don't think the TV companies are muting the crowd. The chanting, singing, etc. is simply drowned out by those miserable noise makers. When stadia started doing the canned music cr@p I thought that was the worst thing to happen to stadium atmosphere. Boy was I naive. Those stupid horns are idiotic an obnoxious. I can forgive the children and locals who have a history with the things but to see all the foreigners chiming in was utterly disappointing.
At Soccer City I do believe A is the front row and it counts back from there. Interestingly - or annoyingly - at Ellis Park it seems to go in reverse alphabetic order. That's to say I was in lower level Row L and Row M was in front of me and K was behind me. Weird stuff.
Yup A at the bottom Z at the top - if your seats are in row ZZ and you're watching a night game just duck when the moon is rising...
We have been to five matches so far. It all depends on the people who process you through the turnstiles, but, in our experience, you can bring most anything in. (Except for orange dresses, I guess.) At one place we walked through the metal detector, it buzzed, they just waved us through. We could have had anything with us. We have seen one group all go through with backpacks (and even a suitcase) -- they weren't asked to open anything. This is rather troubling from a security standpoint, of course, but should be good news for your blanket.