Robben Island/Robben Island Museum Reviews (Cape Town, South Africa)

Rush Around Robben

London, England, United Kingdom

December 21, 2011

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Best of IgoUgo Robben Island is probably one of the ‘must-see’ attractions in Cape Town. It is known to most people as a prison for political prisoners where Nelson Mandela was once held, but it has much more than that in its history. It is no longer a prison ...Read more Robben Island is probably one of the ‘must-see’ attractions in Cape Town. It is known to most people as a prison for political prisoners where Nelson Mandela was once held, but it has much more than that in its history. It is no longer a prison but is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The island is 30-40 minutes by ferry from the V & A Waterfront (ask your taxi driver to drop you by the Clock Tower if you are coming that way as it is a large area). There are car parks here and sightseeing buses that stop nearby. The ferry leaves three times a day (weather permitting) at 9am, 11am and 1pm. We had booked in advance and this is highly recommended as it is a popular attraction. We failed to get on the first time we tried as bad weather had prevented the boat from running for a few days and all these visitors had now filled up the boats leaving the day we wanted to. Tickets cost ZAR 220 (£19/$29) which isn’t cheap but this includes the crossing and tour. Children are half price.

The island was first used as a prison for Portuguese convicts in the early 16th Century but it has not always been a prison it was also a hospital for leprosy suffers and the mentally ill in its time (although you could argue that they were imprisoned here too, as they wouldn’t have been allowed off the island), as well as for military training. It has been a museum and heritage site since 1997.

Arrive in plenty of time for your crossing as there are some security checks where you have to go through metal detector machines like at the airport and your bags are scanned. There is a photographer here taking photos of families, groups or individuals as you go on the boat. The ferry crossing, which on our day took just over 30 minutes, was uneventful. They show some films on the big screen relating to the island but not all screens seem to work well and there was a problem with the DVD on the way home. There are lavatories on board as well as a snack bar. I found the crossing quite smooth but some people appeared to be a bit queasy so take travel sickness tablets if you think this is likely to happen to you.

The tour is 3.5 hours long on average including ferry crossings. You do not really get a chance to wander freely; as you are all escorted on to large, noisy and smelly (diesel fume wise, rather than fellow passenger wise) buses and a guide will take you through the history of the island. To the best of my knowledge all tours are conducted in English. This aspect of the tour takes about 45 minutes and it was interesting to see the island, which is rather barren and unattractive. We saw the quarry where many of the prisoners were forced to work. Working in the blinding sun for a long period of time meant many who worked here suffered from sight problems for the rest of their lives, Mr Mandela included, as well as respiratory problems. You also saw the main town of the island which was where the prison staff lived. Three hundred people live and work on this island now, most for the museum and heritage site as well as support staff such as teachers at the school. We had a short break here to visit the local tuck shop and stretch our legs, before going to the main prison site.

At the main prison site we met a new guide, this section of the tour is always led by a former prisoner. He (there were no women political prisoners here, they were kept elsewhere) takes you into a dorm room, one that lower level prisoners would have stayed in and told you about his experiences. Our guide had been a prisoner here for six years and explained how the system set up was, when and what they ate, their numbers, what they did and how they obtained information from the outside world etc. I don’t want to spoil these stories for anyone who is thinking of coming here, but obviously experiences change depending on the ex-prisoner who is escorting you. I found our guide to be frank and honest, answering questions with candour and posing for photos. Obviously life was tough for a prisoner and a lot of their treatment was bordering on the inhumane, especially in the early years. Improvements were made in the Seventies.

We also were taken to an exercise yard and he showed us the window of the cell that was Mandela’s and we were able to go in the building and look at it from the corridor (it is behind glass), a very small room obviously, that wouldn’t even have had a bed in it until the late 1970s (prior to that they slept on mats on the floor) and a lidded bucket for a toilet. We did have some time to explore the cells of other prisoners at this point, often there were quotations from them displayed on the walls, and sometimes an artefact like a razor or a cup was displayed. I found this section very interesting but we had run out of time and needed to head back to the boat which is a few minutes walk from this part.

We were one of the last buses to leave when we arrived, possibly as we had stopped for the loo before getting on the bus. I do recommend being prompt to get off the boat and getting on one of the early coaches as this allows you a bit more flexibility at the end. There is a little walk you can do and see some penguins too, but we didn’t have time, although I saw a few wandering around. There is a good sized gift shop at the harbour with an interesting selection of books on the island and its history as well as some of the inmates. The public toilets are OK as such things go. The return journey was equally uneventful and you can pick up your souvenir photo if you wish for ZAR 30 (£2.60/$4) which has your party at the entrance of the boat placed on a background of Robben Island scenery. Close

From journal South Africa: What to See and Do in Cape Town

Home of Nelson Mandela for Many Years

by catsholiday

ashbourne, United Kingdom

March 29, 2010

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Best of IgoUgo Robben Island which is just a short boat ride from the mainland in Cape Town is most famous for being the place where Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners were held captive for many years during the Apartheid regime in South Africa. Today it ...Read more Robben Island which is just a short boat ride from the mainland in Cape Town is most famous for being the place where Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners were held captive for many years during the Apartheid regime in South Africa. Today it is no longer a prison but has been turned into a museum and guided tours of can be taken of the island to view the various historical sites. The island is an official World Heritage site today.

If you would like to take a trip or just want to read more about the place than I can tell you then the website is www.robben-island.org.za. We tried to book at the ticket office down at the V&A waterfront but their internet was down so we ended up booking online. The tickets were 200Rand per person ( about 11 Rand to the £1 when we were there) . We just printed them off on the hotel printer and went along to the Nelson Mandela Gateway building, just by the Clock tower in the V&A waterfront at the appropriate time in the morning. The ticket office is open from 7.30am to 9.00pm daily.

When you get to the Nelson Mandela Gateway building you are invited into a display area which shows many of the people who were involved in the fight against Apartheid. There are so very personal black and white photos in the display which gives you an idea of how much suffering there was during this time.. This building has a 120 seat auditorium as well as interactive and multimedia exhibitions as well as conference facilities.

You are taken through airport like security machines before boarding the ferry across to the island. It is quite a small ferry with seating up stairs or downstairs out of the wind and sun. The trip across takes about 45 minutes and during the trip you get amazing views of Tabletop Mountain and Cape Town and if you are lucky you might see dolphins or seals. We were lucky enough to see a couple of seals but no dolphins unfortunately.

Once you arrive on the island you are welcome by a loud speaker telling you to make you way to the buses. You are loaded on the buses until each is full then the guided tour begins. We had an entertaining guide with a lively sense of humour and a very sound knowledge of the island’s history and some of the people who had been imprisoned on the island.

During the visit we stopped at the house where Robert Sobukwe was kept in isolation for most of his life in fact he never enjoyed freedom as he died a prisoner. We saw the historic lighthouse, the guest house where famous dignitaries stay, most recently the FIFA delegates to discuss the World Cup but Nelson Mandela also stayed here after he was a free man and President of South Africa. The limestone Quarry where the political prisoners spent their day digging out lime was another stop on the tour. During their day of hard labour they had a lunch break which they spent educating each other and many got to the level of university education by the end of their prison sentence. In this quarry is a pyramid of large pebbles or stones which is a sort of monument built by former prisoners in an impromptu way. According to our guide when Nelson Mandela and a number of former detainees returned to the quarry after they were free Nelson Mandela picked up a stone and placed it on the ground and others followed suit. The result was a small pyramid of stones. They don’t let the tourists get out at this point as some ignorant people decided it was a nice souvenir to take a stone off this pile and so that the pile was not gradually eroded they have stopped allowing people off the bus at the quarry.

The next stop was the actual prison where we were escorted and guided by a former political prisoner who told us about his time in the prison and then escorted us through the the bock where we were able to see the actual cell where Nelson Mandela spent 18 years of his life imprisoned. It was exactly the same as all the other cells except that they had put back in this cell the prisoner’s kit – bowl. Toilet etc.

It was a very interesting tour which involved 45 minutes on the boat each way and about 45 minutes on the bus and then the rest of the time going around the cell blocks with the former detainee. You are not left to wander around by yourself until the end when you walk back from the prison to the harbour to meet the boat and you have about 15 minutes for this walk, to visit the toilets and the souvenir shop.

I thought it must be very strange for the guide who was an ex-political prisoner on Robben Island to be showing people round it as a tourist attraction; I bet he never thought that would happen. It was a very interesting tour and I felt it was important to see this in respect for what these people suffered to bring an end to the awful racist regime of Apartheid. It is lovely to see that South Africa is now a truly multi racial society, not everyone is equally wealthy nor do they live in the same sort of houses but it is early days yet and in a couple of generations who knows what it will be like.
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From journal South African Road Trip

South African Penguins Project - Earthwatch

by Norman

Cooper City, Florida

July 30, 2008

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During my visit to South Africa I participated in the South Africa Penguins Project as an Earthwatch volunteer. During this 12 day project 5 volunteers worked with researchers to gather information on the South Africa Penguins and other animals on ...Read more

From journal Wonderful Cape Town

Robben Island: A Place of History and Nature

by Norman

Cooper City, Florida

July 29, 2008

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Robben Island is 7 kilometers off the coast of Capetown, and is reached by a ferry available at the Nelson Mandela Gateway, next to the Clock Tower. From there you can take the 20 minute ride across Table Bay to tour the island and its prison. The ...Read more

From journal Wonderful Cape Town

Robben Island Tour

by Kimlen

Miami, Florida

April 21, 2007

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It is amazing to tour Robben Island and hear the history straight from former political prisoners. Ask them questions, listen, and be thankful that they are sharing some of the most painful parts of their lives with us so we may be able to learn ...Read more

From journal Cape Town Beauty

Robben Island

by MikeInTown

Leesburg, Virginia

February 3, 2007

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Best of IgoUgo Robben Island has served as a leper colony between 1836 and 1931 and later as a maximum security prison for political prisoners until 1991. South Africa's former President and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Nelson Mandela, spent 18 years of his 27-year ...Read more Robben Island has served as a leper colony between 1836 and 1931 and later as a maximum security prison for political prisoners until 1991. South Africa's former President and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Nelson Mandela, spent 18 years of his 27-year sentence in a tiny cell on this island.

From the V&A Waterfront, the ferry boat ride to the island takes about a half hour. Once there, there are two parts to the tour: the Island Tour which takes you around the island in a school bus and the Prison Tour which walks you through the prison. You find out which tour you are doing first when you get to the island. Basically, if you get off the boat and find that all of the school buses are full then that means you are doing the prison tour first.

The prison tour begins with everyone taking the same walk from the dock to the prison as every new inmate did when the prison was in operation. Inside, we met our guide, Len. Len spent 6.5 years as a prisoner on Robben Island. He walked us through the various sections of the building while explaining the hardships he and other inmates endured here. For example, we learned about the bucket system in which each inmate was given a bucket that he was expected to use as a toilet, a bath, and laundry wash. Len told us a community bathroom was eventually added during his stay.

We were shown the tiny cell in which Nelson Mandela spent 18 years. With the exception of his cell, we were given time to wander in and out of other cells. Each contains a bio or anecdote about the inmate(s) who lived there.

After our 45-minute tour of the prison, we boarded a school bus for our circle tour of Robben Island. We were shown sights such as the remnants of a leper colony, the solitary confinement chambers of inmates, the quarry in which prisoners were forced to work 8 hours per day, and the community in which the current residents of Robben Island live. Surprisingly, some former prisoners now live in harmony in this neighborhood with former wardens. The former inmates told us it was the non-violent and forgiving attitude of Nelson Mandela that has helped them get over the resentment they had of being imprisoned.

One other thing we noticed during our ride around the island is the wildlife. There are rabbits everywhere. We also saw antelope on the uninhabited side of the island. We even saw a colony of penguins.

Our visit to Robben Island, including the ferry boat rides, lasted three and a half hours. It was one of the highlights of my time in Cape Town. I've visited many museums in which you see exhibits and read the posted information; however, to be guided by people who actually lived the history makes the experience far more moving and educational. I was humbled by this tour. Close

From journal A Cape Town Look Around

Becoming Prisoners on Robben Island

by kwasiak

Tucson, Arizona

April 16, 2006

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Best of IgoUgo To get to Robben Island, you must board a ferry from a dock near the Red Clock Tower in the Waterfront area of Cape Town. The building you go through to board the ferry has a small apartheid museum.The ferry ride is about half an hour long and ...Read more To get to Robben Island, you must board a ferry from a dock near the Red Clock Tower in the Waterfront area of Cape Town. The building you go through to board the ferry has a small apartheid museum.

The ferry ride is about half an hour long and sometimes can be pretty rough. The outside decks become full and crowded fast, as the majority of the space for passengers is on the bottom level inside. If you do end up standing outside, be ready for a windy and wet ride. I suggest riding inside on the way there in order to see the short movie on Robben Island. If you want to experience the ride outside, do it on the way back, as the movie does not show then. The movie mostly gives the information you will probably hear on your tour on the island, but it does give a better pre-1900 history than you are likely to hear on the tour.

Once on the island, you are corralled into buses or are part of a group that goes into the maximum-security prison first. I ended up on one of the historical buses that once carried the guards around the island. It was not very comfortable considering we had to squish three people per row. The bus tour takes you to many of the sites on the island, but you only get to see them from inside the bus. One of the stops was at the house used as a solitary prison for some man, who I did not catch the name of because I was too busy watching the penguin by the bus. Other stops included the village, where the guards once lived and now occupied by those working on Robben Island, and the limestone quarry, where Nelson Mandela and others worked during part of their time in prison.

The bus tour ended at the maximum-security prison, where we met our prison tour guide. Currently, all tours are given by ex-political prisoners who were held here for various anti-apartheid actions, such as being a member of the banned group, the African National Congress (ANC). The tour inside the prison was rather short, with a quick stop in front of Nelson Mandela’s cell and a stop inside a large cell that held up to 100 sleeping on the floor at one time.

After the tour, you are released from prison and walk back to the ferry dock. Before boarding the ferry, you can stop at the bookshop, but I found it very disappointing that it did not carry Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom. Close

From journal Cape Town: First World to Third World

Robben Island

by MiriamMannak

Cape Town, South Africa

November 29, 2005

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Best of IgoUgo The purpose of Robben Island changed a number of times over the last century. It used to be a leprosy colony, then an ordinary prison, and it served as a defence fortification during the two world wars. And from the second half of the 20th century ...Read more

The purpose of Robben Island changed a number of times over the last century. It used to be a leprosy colony, then an ordinary prison, and it served as a defence fortification during the two world wars. And from the second half of the 20th century until the 1990s, Robben Island was one of the most notorious prison islands in the world.

Here, on this tiny island 11km from Cape Town's coastline, thousands of anti-apartheid activists and dissidents were held for years, including Nelson "Madiba" Mandela, South Africa's first democratically elected president and one of the world's most-loved personalities.

I have been to Robben Island a couple of times, and I have the feeling I will go back there at least once more. Tours around the island and through the prison are simply extremely interesting.

A trip to Robben Island takes about 3 hours and takes visitors to the prison and on an island tour, with a viewing of the limestone quarry, Garrison Church (1841), lighthouse (1863), Leper's Church (1895), guesthouse (1895), and Kramat, or Muslim shrine.

Robben Island is home of a variety of seabirds, including the African (jackass) penguin and a colony of Cape cormorants. There is also wildlife, such as the bontebok and ostriches.

During your trip, you not only learn about the cruelty and brutality of the apartheid regime and the miserable situation in the prison, but you also learn about courage, faith, and strength, and about how prisoners dealt with their situation, what they did to prevent their spirits from being broken, how they made friendships amongst another, and how they forgave and moved on.

Detail: The tours through the prison, which was built by the prisoners themselves on top of an old leprosy grave yard, are given by former prisoners.

In 1999, Robben Island was added to UNESCO's World Heritage list. Several times a day, ferries depart from the Robben Island Exhibition and Information Centre, situated next door to the Clock Tower building.

This granite building harbors a museum depicting the history of Robben Island and the political struggle against oppression and for freedom and democracy. Here one can purchase lithographs of original Nelson Mandela paintings.

ADVICE: A ticket to Robben island costs about R150 (±17 Euro) and is to be purchased at the Nelson Mandela Gateway. If you have a credit card, you may make reservations over the phone. This is highly recommended in summer, as Robben Island is one of the most popular attraction; prevent disappointment and make that reservation.

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From journal What to do in Cape Town?

Robben Island - The Prison in the Bay

by deescheer

lewisville, Texas

May 2, 2005

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To get to the island, you are taken aboard a luxury boat owned and run by the ex-prison guards of Robin Island. It only takes about 20 minutes to get there. This island used to house political prisoners, the most famous being the ex-South African ...Read more

From journal Back To My African Roots

Robben Island

by Orl

Dublin, Ireland

January 11, 2005

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Best of IgoUgo A visit to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated, is definitely worthwhile. We had to book a day in advance. The 40-minute boat journey is pleasant--plenty of photos opps of Table Mountain. Although it was difficult to hear the ...Read more

From journal At The Foot of Table Mountain

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Robben Island/Robben Island Museum

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Rush Around Robben

Home of Nelson Mandela for Many Years

South African Penguins Project - Earthwatch

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Robben Island Tour

Robben Island

Becoming Prisoners on Robben Island

Robben Island

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