Red bus Cape Town stops, in the order the bus calls

Anyone who looks at the red line for the first time notices that the numbers do not run in sequence. The route page lists stops 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11 and 12, and calls them 9 stops in all.¹ The reason is that the operator numbers its stops across the whole network, so the gaps belong to stops that the blue line uses and the red line passes by. You will see the same numbers again on the blue route, which is why a stop sign can carry a number that is missing from the red list.

The timetable is slightly more generous than the route page. It lists ten stops on the red line, adding stop 9 at Queens Road in Sea Point, which the route page also describes in its stop-by-stop detail as a pick-up point.^2,6 Two official pages therefore count the line differently, and neither is wrong: the timetable counts every place the bus will stop for you, and the route page counts the ones it chooses to headline.

Plan the day by the order of the stops rather than their numbers, because the hop on hop off bus Cape Town stops form a loop that starts and ends at the Aquarium. The bus starts at the Aquarium, calls at the Waterfront and the city, climbs to the cableway, drops to the Atlantic coast and runs home along the Sea Point front. The operator gives the whole red circuit as about 90 minutes if you never get off, and its timetable rounds that to 1,5 hrs.^3,2

Stop 7 is the lower station of the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway, and it is the stop that asks for the biggest block of time. The operator suggests 2 hours there.⁷ The first bus of the summer column reaches the cableway at 08H50, and the second column reaches it at 09H20.^2,4 The bus ticket does not include cableway admission, which is bought separately.²⁰

The mountain is the one stop on the line that the weather can cancel. The Cableway itself says bad weather days are always risky for the cable car and that it cannot guarantee it will be open.²¹ If cloud is sitting on the table at breakfast, ride the line first and come back to stop 7 later in the day, rather than spending your two hours waiting at the lower station.

Stop 8, the Camps Bay strip, is where the red line meets the Atlantic. It is listed for the beach, lunch and sunset cocktails, with 1 hour suggested.⁸ The summer column has the first bus there at 09H06, and the other column at 09H36.^2,4 The next page on this site goes deeper on Camps Bay for those who plan to give it longer than an hour.

The first red bus of the 24 September to 31 March column leaves the Aquarium at 08H00 and the second column starts half an hour later, at 08H30.^2,4 On the other end of the day the timetable shows last departures from the Aquarium at 16H45 under the 3 May to 22 September 2027 column and at 17H15 under the 24 September 2026 to 2 May 2027 column.⁴⁶ The operator also says bus frequency varies with the season and the time of day.⁴⁷

The buses do not run every day. The operator says its red buses run 363 days a year in Cape Town and are closed for the Cycle Race and the Cape Town Marathon.⁵ The 2026/2027 timetable lists the closures: there is no service at stops 8 and 9 on 1 January 2027, and the buses stop for the Cycle Tour on 14 March 2027 and the Cape Town Marathon on 23 May 2027.³⁸

Cape Town's weather also shapes the year. South African Tourism notes that the Western Cape has winter rainfall, in contrast to the rest of the country, so the open top deck is wetter from the cooler months.⁴⁸ That is a reason to check the live bus tracker rather than the printed timetable alone, because the tracker shows where the buses are now. The timetable points to www.nextredbus.co.za for it.⁴⁹

Treat the red line as a menu rather than a route. The operator says you may hop on at any official stop, and that the main terminals at the V&A Waterfront and 81 Long Street are the recommended places for ticketing and information.⁴² Start where you sleep, and work backward from the time you want to be at the mountain, since that is the one stop with a fixed risk.

Use the suggested times to count the day. The operator suggests 1 hour at the Clocktower, 30 minutes at the Convention Centre, 1 hour at Long Street, 2 hours at the cableway and 1 hour at Camps Bay.^11,12,13,7,8 Together with the ride itself, that fills a day, so choose three or four stops and leave the rest for a second ride on a later day.

Buy the ticket before you stand at a stop. The operator says the best price is always on its own site and that you board with a barcode instead of queuing.³⁹ You can also buy from the driver, with card payment preferred, or at the ticket offices at the Aquarium and on Long Street.⁵⁰ The ticket this site sells is a GetYourGuide listing priced from $32, with free cancellation up to 24 hours before.