10-hour wait for free cable car rides on Monday

As the Jubilee weekend came to a close, Singaporeans were expected to go all out to make full use of the various promotions announced by many companies islandwide.

But those who were at the Singapore Cable Car (SCC) on Monday, Aug 10, were hit with an obstacle as they attempted to continue with SG50 celebrations.

Many had showed up to enjoy the offer of complimentary rides by SSC, but the large crowds forced them to put up with long hours standing in line - for as long as 10 hours.

The attraction, which is operated by the Mount Faber Leisure Group, had come up with the offer in line with its SG50 Jubilee weekend promotions but it caused extensive queues that snaked out of the cable car stations as seen in photos posted on social media.

Some customers had complained on SCC's Facebook page regarding people who had jumped the line and asked for the attraction to deploy staff members to effectively control the crowd.

Another Facebook user had also commented on the absence of a line specially catered for senior citizens.

At about 9am, which was supposedly the start of the free cable car rides, the company announced on its Facebook page that the waiting time was at about two hours. Since then, they began posting regular updates on the waiting time.

An hour later, it was announced that the waiting time had escalated to between four to five hours at their cable car stations.

Thereafter at about 1.20pm, SCC told its potential customers to "refrain from queueing for the free rides" as the waiting time was at eight to 10 hours for the Mount Faber Line.

In another Facebook update shortly after, SSC said: "We will not be able to accept more guests on the cable cars today. Please do not join the queue at Mount Faber, Harbourfront and Sentosa stations."

According to a Facebook user, the SCC had closed at about 3pm due to an overwhelming crowd size. She advised commuters to consider taking shuttle buses or the monorail if they were headed for Sentosa. There were also other users on Facebook who left helpful comments on how to skip the long queue, such as purchasing two attraction passes at $25 because the bundle comes with a free cable car ride.

In its latest update at about 7.30pm, SCC acknowledged the overwhelming response its attraction's promotion had caused and continued to advise "newcomers to not join the queue" at its three stations on the Mount Faber line.

The update also included an apology to those who failed to get a complimentary ride today and thanked everyone who had waited in line.

ssandrea@sph.com.sg