Great way to toss away half a day!

We got there at 1030am with pre purchased tickets from their website, and we still had to queue for over an hour because for some inane reason, you need to "exchange" your qr voucher for the tickets.

The counters were understaffed, and don't think using Klook would get you there quicker.

There's only 1 counter for the klook bookings and you have to do the exact same thing as everyone: queue.

Why they do not simply use the QR code as a ticket, I'll never know. Besides, the queue does not check the physical ticket. What they look at are the wrist bands (like some night club). Even on return, they barely looked at our wristbands.

What you shouldn't do is to try to purchase the tickets onsite. Literal 5th class citizens as these people go ahead of you:

1. Tour groups (they get fast tracked)
2. Web bookings
3. Klook bookings
4. Hotel package bookings
5. You.

Of course the queue is going to be long. The main bottle neck is this dumb queue system which doesn't save any time if you had prebook tickets. You are at the mercy of the usher who decides which of the 5 queue lines get to go to the next available counter.

We got crystal cabin, and that's a mistake. The premium isn't a lot, so there's plenty of people going for it. There's 1 crystal car every 2 or 3 normal cars (crystal plus is every 5 cars), so the second queue to the cable car is another hour plus. They will cram 10 to a car because there's no way around it. Not exactly premium. There was plenty of lines for both crystal and crystal plus.

There's a poor photographer grabbing photos of tired and annoyed people. Can't blame him for his job, but on reaching ngong ping, there's like 10 staff (really well staffed!) ready to sell you pictures. 100hkd just for the picture without a frame. No thank you.

We took the normal car on the way down and the views are just as good. My 2 cents: don't bother as you wait longer and the views are the same (unless you want to see the ground)

Plus, we were lucky we didn't go to tai O. Huge line at the bus and the boats were already full. The counters were offering full package refunds for prepaids or a 100hkd tai O voucher. Not exactly what I want from a touristy spot.

Really don't recommend it unless you like queueing for 3 hours and throwing away half a day. If you're here for the buddah, take a cab from the mtr station.