Rio de Janeiro day 1 - January 7 2025
- sridgway38
- Jan 7
- 3 min read
Updated: Jan 8
We flew overnight from JFK on an American Airlines 777-200 in business class. Leaving from New York was the best option for a direct flight and much less expensive than other options. We hired a car to take us to JFK so that we didn't need to leave the car overnight.
The snow didn't cause us any issues but one of the passengers on our plane didn't show up to board after their luggage was loaded so they had to unload the luggage containers and remove their luggage so we ended up being about an hour delayed. Since w were flying overnight we got lay flat seats. We had a nice dinner, and my favorite, a Sunday for dessert.
We both slept a few hours and arrived about an hour later than expected. We had a car arranged by the hotel meeting us at the airport. Because the plane was late and the driver was already there a representative from the airport met us at the gate, put us on a courtesy cart and drive us to the immigration gate, then put us through a completely empty line there and waited with us until the luggage came, she then sent us through customs without even a question or glance and out a side door. It was totally unexpected.
The driver took us to the hotel and we passed by quite a few Favelas which are masses of ramshackle houses built side by side from materials that can be scrounged. In this area there were also lots of people on the highway, in the middle of th lanes selling some sort of food and drink, but we didn't stop.
After about a 30 minute drive we passed through Ipanema and then entered Copacabana and pulled up to our hotel. We are staying at the Fairmont Copa Cabana. We went to check in, and the room wasn't ready yet since we arrived about 3 hours before check in. We headed up to the bar by the pool and had a nice lunch and by the time we went back down to the guest check in our room was ready. Our room has a gorgeous view of Copacabana beach and is very spacious.
We fook a few photos from the balcony of our room, but by the time we did, it had gotten much more cloudy.
We spent the rest of the afternoon at the quiet pool where there isn't a view of the beach but it's very quiet and peaceful and we were tired. Because we have a Gold room there is a happy hour from 6-8 for guests of those rooms and we went to check it out. It was very nice. We had some Brazilian wine which was really good, we also had lots of charcuterie and conrad tried some Pistachio desserts. I was holding out for some ice cream that we had seen at a shop on the main floor of the hotel so we stopped there on the way back to the room and then Conrad had a glass of wine on the balcony of the hotel and watched the nightlife while I edited some pictures and went to bed early.
