Banff Gondola — Attraction in Alberta

Awesome. Incredible experience. Highest quality guest services. Amazingly amazing. Weirdly, almost the entire staff is Australian! We arrived at 17.30 on August 19 - plenty of daylight left, not so crowded, but still busy. Sign announces free wifi - p/w gondola! - and the network seems seemless all the way to the top.

Very slick management immediately evident. Loading on 4-person goldolas swift and efficient. Crew greats with smile, smoothly ensures everyone is safely seated, door secured. Good training, good attitude. The Aussies, and a few Kiwis, and even some Canadians, seem to share a friendly, forward-going attitude, but also working hard and attending to their duties.

Gondola ride is scary but everything looks well maintained and the views on the ascent are awesome as one travels over the treetops and the vast panorama reveals itself. At the top, an astonishing 4-level structure includes restaurant, cafe, gift shop , theatre (waste of time), heated (!) observation decks, clean loos!

You’ll want to spend at least a couple of hours here and it’s a 360-degree experience. These cragged mountains sculpted by upheavals and glaciers, are glorious. Banff, far below, is the hand of man on the face of God.

Folk from every corner of the globe are here and it’s easy to strike up conversations with people you’d otherwise never have met. the friendliness is part of the experience. There’s a terrific rock playlist at the top-deck exterior cafe, with a great barbecue and some lovely Canadian beers and wines. Prices aren’t cheap, but they’re reasonable, certainly not extortionate or grabby, and very good value for money. The food is good!

One marvels at the ingenuity required to have constructed this temple to nature (and tourism) on top of a mountain, and its architecture, which is functional, refined and not insulting to the surrounding environment. There have been big brains behind this project. Faultless execution.

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Pricey but definitely worth the views and experience at the top of Sulphur mountain. Make sure to go on a clear day, there's no point in wasting your money if it's cloudy or foggy. The ride up is beautiful and the attendants were kind and seemed to really love their jobs. This would have been a five star review except for one nuisance. The place was packed with tourists, which is perfectly fine, but the rules of the boarding times should be followed. I purchased tickets a few days in advance for a boarding time of 210pm. We arrived around 130pm and the line was moving quickly. We had about 40 mins to spare so we decided to grab Starbucks and just hang out until we had to board. We made our way over as soon as we were called for the 210pm boarding and were behind almost 40 people. I was confused as to how so many people had a boarding time of 210pm until I glanced over at the tickets some of the people were holding and the majority of them said 330pm! The attendant was scanning them all in and they got to go in! I was so frustrated, what was the point of getting tickets in advance for a certain boarding time when the attendants were just going to disregard the boarding times. We would have went up 40 minutes earlier if we had known that the boarding time didn't matter. I was content once we were headed up the mountain but so annoyed that a bus load of tourists who had a boarding time after us go to head up first. What was the point of the...

I visited Banff Gandola with my friends in July 2021. The experience was ok, nothing special. We were expecting to see beautiful views and bit long ride up there. It was very hot end of July and because of some 200 active wild fire in British Columbia at that time, the sky area in Banff was extremely smokey and eyes were burning. Skin had all the rashes and allergy due to direct sun and hot weather. We then went to Sulphur mountain and could not see anything from the peak. Perhaps if the weather was good and sky was clear, we might have enjoyed a bit, but even then there was nothing special to experience ( specially if you have been to Gandolas before).

Due to Covid-19 the staff were careful to sanitize the gondola after every ride. Staff were very friendly. Their friendly gesture somewhere took away a little bit of the frustration and irritation that we experienced due to no so good weather. They have a souvenir store and a restaurant when you reach up. There was also a store to grab some soft drinks or ice-creams to cool you down from the heat. That was helpful. I dont think the experience would be any different for banff “gandola ride” if the sky was clear & had some cool breeze as you expect when you reach at some height so I leave my rating as three stars.

P.S I don’t know how this location review has picked up the bus...