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Rio de Janeiro: Museum of Tomorrow & Yup Star Ferris Wheel

★★★★★★★★★★ 5.00 (4 reviews)

Free cancellation

1/10

Duration4h

GroupUp to 19

LanguagesEN · PT +1

PickupAt your hotel

Porto Maravilha's Three Stops: Museum, Mural, and the City from Above

You get picked up at your South Zone hotel and driven to Porto Maravilha, Rio's revitalized port district. You spend time inside the Museum of Tomorrow exploring interactive exhibits about the future, stop to photograph the Kobra Mural — one of the world's largest graffiti pieces — and ride the Yup Star ferris wheel for 360-degree views of Christ the Redeemer and Sugarloaf Mountain. Entry fees, transport, and air-conditioned vehicle are included; the driver drops you back at your hotel by late afternoon.

Step-by-step itinerary

Pick up from hotel
Visit Maua Square
Tour Museum of Tomorrow
Walk through Porto Maravilha
Photo stop at Kobra Mural
Ride Yup Star ferris wheel

The Experience

"The ferris wheel, it shows you everything at once," our driver said as we pulled into Maua Square, the revitalized heart of Rio's port zone. He wasn't exaggerating. The day starts with hotel pickup from the South Zone — the driver arrives on time, the car is cool, and you're already moving past the neighborhoods most tourists miss. Maua Square itself is where the 2016 Olympics left its mark, and it's the threshold to everything that follows: the Museum of Tomorrow sits right here, a building that looks like it landed from another planet, all white curves and impossible angles.

Inside the Museum of Tomorrow, you're not just walking through exhibits — you're moving through questions. The whole place is built around what comes next: how we feed ourselves, how we live together, what we do with the planet. It's interactive, it's dense with ideas, and it's genuinely strange in the best way. After that, you walk into Porto Maravilha proper, the port district that got completely remade. The streets are cleaner than you'd expect, there's art everywhere, and then you turn a corner and see the Kobra Mural — one of the largest graffiti pieces in the world. Five ethnic groups, realistic faces, geometric shapes in colors that somehow work together. You stop, you take photos, and you realize you're standing in front of something that took months to create and will probably outlast most of the buildings around it.

Then comes the Yup Star ferris wheel, and this is where the day shifts. You board, the wheel turns slowly, and Rio spreads out in every direction. Christ the Redeemer is there, Sugarloaf Mountain is there, the beaches curve away, the mountains rise up behind the city. A full 360 degrees, and you're seeing it all at once — the thing the driver meant. The whole tour takes roughly four to five hours from pickup to drop-off, which is enough time to move through three completely different spaces without feeling rushed. You're back at your hotel before evening, which means you can still eat dinner somewhere, still have a night ahead of you.

What’s included

Hotel pickup and drop-off from main South Zone hotels.
entry to the Museum of Tomorrow with internal interactive visit.
walk through Porto Maravilha and photo stop at the Kobra Mural.
ride on the Yup Star ferris wheel with 360-degree city views.
all entry fees and taxes.
air-conditioned vehicle throughout.

Good to know

Easy physical levelStroller friendlyPublic transport nearbyNot for heart conditionsInfants must sit on laps

Operated by C2Rio Tours & Travel

Is this one for you?Book this if you want to see Rio's newest attractions and get a complete view of the city from above without arranging transport, buying separate tickets, or figuring out which stops matter most — the fixed itinerary covers the three things Porto Maravilha is known for and gets you back to your hotel by late afternoon.