Scenic Helicopter Flight over Cape Town

V&A Waterfront helipad

Your flight starts and ends at the helipad on the eastern side of the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, Cape Town's historic harbour turned into the city's busiest shopping and dining district. You check in at the hangar lounge with your passport, go through a short safety briefing and a discreet weigh-in, then watch the crew prepare the aircraft before boarding. The whole visit, including the briefing and the flight, takes roughly an hour.

How to get to the Cape Town helipad: it is a short walk from the main Waterfront shopping centre and the Clock Tower, with parking nearby, and most central hotels are ten to fifteen minutes away by car. Complimentary pickup from accommodation in central Cape Town can be requested when you book, subject to availability; otherwise a taxi or ride-hailing car drops you at the helipad entrance. Arrive fifteen to thirty minutes before your flight time.

Table Mountain from the air

Seconds after lift-off the helicopter climbs over the harbour and the stadium, and Table Mountain fills the windows: a three-kilometre-long sandstone plateau rising just over a thousand metres straight out of the city, flanked by Devil's Peak on one side and Lion's Head and Signal Hill on the other. From the air you understand the shape of the City Bowl, the amphitheatre of streets held between the mountain and the sea, in a way no ground-level view allows.

On clear days you can see hikers on the summit paths and the cable car gliding up the front face. The Twelve Apostles, the row of buttresses running south from the main table along the Atlantic coast, are the next landmark, and the pilot banks so that both sides of the cabin get the view. Mornings usually have the stillest air and the clearest light for photographs.

The Atlantic coast: Clifton, Camps Bay and Llandudno

From Lion's Head the route turns down the Atlantic Seaboard, Cape Town's most photographed stretch of coast. Clifton's four small beaches sit between granite boulders below the apartment blocks; Camps Bay's long white beach lies at the foot of the Twelve Apostles with its palm-lined promenade; further south, Llandudno is a crescent of sand hidden in a cove with no shops at all, reached only by a steep road.

The water here is a deep, clear blue because of the cold Atlantic current, and from above you often spot kelp forests, surfers and, in season, whales and dolphins offshore. The pilot points out each beach and neighbourhood as you pass. On the twenty-minute default flight this coastal leg is the longest section, so keep your camera ready on both sides.

Hout Bay and the return

The turning point of the default flight is Hout Bay, a fishing harbour in a bowl of mountains with the Sentinel peak guarding the entrance and the first bends of Chapman's Peak Drive visible on the far side. From the air the harbour, the beach and the colourful boats make a compact, satisfying picture before the helicopter swings round and heads back north with the mountains on the other side of the cabin.

The return leg passes the back of the Twelve Apostles and Table Mountain again from a different angle before descending over the city to the Waterfront. Longer options on this page continue to Chapman's Peak and False Bay (the Two Oceans flight) or all the way to the Cape of Good Hope (the full peninsula flight), while the Robben Island route flies out over Table Bay for views of the island and the city skyline behind it; no landing is made on the island.

The harbour boat cruise

The default twenty-minute option, like the longer Two Oceans and full peninsula flights, includes a ticket for a one-hour boat cruise from the V&A Waterfront. The ticket is valid for seven days, so you can take the cruise straight after your flight or on another afternoon. The boat leaves from the quays near the aquarium and heads out through the harbour entrance into Table Bay, with Table Mountain behind the city and seals often playing around the breakwater.

Seeing the city first from the sky and then from the water rounds off a Cape Town sightseeing day neatly, and the Waterfront's restaurants and shops are right there for the time in between. Sailing times vary with the season and the weather; check the departure board at the quay or ask our team for the day's schedule.