I'm not really sure where all the hassle in the reviews comes from. I visited on a Tuesday in the third week of the Polish school winter holidays. I booked online the day before, which by all accounts is essential, though there was barely anyone at the ticket office on arrival at 1310 for a 1320 booking. I walked straight into the cable car area, scanned the ticket and waited for it to arrive and got on. Totally straight-forward. On the return trip, I had a guaranteed return time of 1510, but ended up getting the 1450 and walked straight on no hassle. As for the trip up and down, the side windows fog up in winter so you want to be at the front end window going up a d the back end window going down, preferably on the left hand side for the best views of snow covered pine trees with the snow covered peaks behind. Afterwards I took at 4 zloty bus ride back into Zakopane. Seemed frequent, there were also taxis around. You could also get official taxis and buses there if you wanted. Totally worth the trip I thought, the snowy views on a clear day are immense. If you do come, do yourself a favour and take the mile walk uphill to Polana Kalatowki, a beautiful snow covered meadow with Mountain huts in front of the Tatras. A mile back down as well of course. The path is on a road effectively so easy going even in winter. If you are more adventurous you can get here via a longer walk from Zakopane - I walked down the Dolina Strazyska to the waterfall then across to Polana Kalatowki before dropping to Kuznice for the cable car. Absolutely stunning narnia land walk in winter of about 3 hours, much better than I expected in terms of views too and for me a better winter walk than the road to Morskie Oko, though crampons are recommended for the stretch between Strazyska and Kalatowki.

We booked our ticket online, as this is a popular attraction in Zakopane. This turned out to be a good idea as online bookings take priority on those booking at the ticket office. On arrival, the ticket queue is very, very long & we went September which isnt peak season! Stay to left of the queue if you already have tickets. The cable car is cramped so unless u manage to squeeze to the window the view can be restricted. But in spite of that, what an amazing experience. Smooth travel up the cable line. You only have an hour & 40 mins at the top so bring your own food, to save wasting time trying to get some at the restaurant on top. The views are breathtaking & trails well managed. A must experience for trail lovers & those with an appreciation of the beauty of nature.

We went for a ski event our daughter was participating in. I recommend ordering tickets on the website ahead of time. We tried the day of on Sunday and there were no tickets available until after the event was completed. The ride does not take long between the 2 stations. They do have 2 cafeterias at the top. I am thinking in the summer, there would be some nice hiking from there.

Once you’re inside, it’s easy to climb the mountain. All well organized. Getting tickets is one of those things, though. We were there Saturday and there was an infinitely long line for tickets. You would have had to wait two hours to get a ticket and drive up. The vending machines had a choice of 5:50 p.m. as the earliest departure time. I then bought tickets for Wednesday at the vending machine and that day everything happened quickly. We were able to pass the very long line again and directly into the gondola. There is also a time limit when you have to go back down and that is 2 hours later. So with us up at 10 and down at 12, we ended up going up at 9:30 and down at 3 p.m. There were no problems.