Robben Island Museum: the institution that runs the island

What the Robben Island Museum is

The Robben Island Museum, often shortened to RIM, is not a building you walk into. It is the public institution that has managed the whole of Robben Island since 1997, when the island stopped being a prison and became a museum. It looks after the Maximum Security Prison, the historic sites, the ferries, the guides and the tours. In 1999 UNESCO listed the island as a World Heritage Site.

Who runs it

The museum was set up in 1997 by what was then the Department of Arts and Culture. According to its own archive, it was the first national cultural institution created by South Africa's new democracy. It is a public entity governed by a council: in October 2026 the museum's website lists Prof. Saths Cooper as chairperson of the council, Dr Jonty Tshipa as Chief Operating Officer and Ayanda Woji as Acting Chief Heritage Officer.

Its stated vision is to preserve and promote Robben Island as "an inspirational national treasure and World Heritage Site that symbolises the triumph of the human spirit over extreme adversity and injustice". In practice it has three jobs: conserving the island's buildings and nature, telling its history, and running the tours that pay for much of that work.

To be clear: this website is not the museum. Robben Island Guide is an independent guide. The museum's official website is robben-island.org.za, and that is where you find its own announcements, schedules and changes.

Where is the Robben Island Museum?

In two places. The museum itself is the island, in Table Bay, about 11 km from Cape Town. Its mainland base is the Nelson Mandela Gateway, in the Clock Tower Precinct of the V&A Waterfront: this is where you check in and where every tour ferry departs. The museum does not publish a street address, only a postal one, so search for the Gateway by name:

How old is it?

The museum opened in 1997, so in 2026 it is 29 years old. What it protects is much older: the island was used as a place of banishment and imprisonment from the 1600s until 1996. Our page on Robben Island history tells that story from 1488 to today.

What the museum looks after

The museum's own list of what it manages is longer than most visitors expect: the Maximum and Medium Security Prison complexes, Robert Sobukwe's house, the curio and village shops, the Mayibuye Archives on the mainland and the three ferries that carry people to the island. Here is what that means for your visit.

The Maximum Security Prison

The heart of the museum is the prison where the apartheid government held its political prisoners from 1961 to 1991. The visit ends in B Section, in front of the cell where Nelson Mandela slept for 18 years. The full story is in our guide to Robben Island prison.

Who guides you through it is changing. For years the prison was shown by former political prisoners, and Wesgro's page on the museum still says that "former prisoners guide visitors through the prison". The museum's own page on its tour types now says that the prison tour is conducted by a Robben Island Tour Guide, as part of what it calls an integrated tour model. The men who were held here are now elderly, so the prison part is often, but not always, led by one of them. A Tiqets ticket for the standard visit puts you on the same museum ferry and the same museum tour as one bought from the museum, so if an online listing promises a former prisoner, read it as a likelihood, not a guarantee.

The sites across the island

The museum also manages everything outside the prison walls. The standard tour passes the leper graveyard, the Lime Quarry, Robert Sobukwe's house, the Bluestone Quarry and the army and navy bunkers of the Second World War. Elsewhere on the island are the Church of the Good Shepherd, built in 1895 by people with leprosy, the Moturu Kramat, the Minto's Hill lighthouse and the village with its Guest House and school.

The exhibition at the Nelson Mandela Gateway

The Gateway is more than a ticket hall. According to the V&A Waterfront it holds interactive exhibitions, personal objects, photographs and oral histories about Mandela's life, and entry is free even if you are not taking the tour. Wesgro, the Western Cape tourism agency, also mentions a shop and a restaurant. It is worth arriving a little early to see it.

The museum shops

If you are looking for the Robben Island Museum gift shop, there are two kinds. On the mainland, the museum shop is inside the Nelson Mandela Gateway, so you can browse it before you board or after you land, without a ticket. On the island, the museum runs curio and village shops; the one most visitors use is small and sells snacks and drinks, as there are no restaurants on Robben Island. If you want to take something home, the Gateway is the easier place to shop, since your time on the island is tied to the bus.

Jetty 1

Jetty 1, in the Waterfront harbour, is the old embarkation point from which prisoners were taken to the island. The museum notes that the building kept its red brick front, iron doors and barbed wire until the late 1990s, and that the first tour ferries left from here when the museum opened in 1997. Wesgro describes a free multimedia exhibition there, with testimonies from former prisoners, warders and their families. We could not confirm whether Jetty 1 is open to visitors in 2026 or at what times, so check with the museum before you plan around it.

The tours the museum runs

All visits to the island are guided and all of them start from the Nelson Mandela Gateway. The museum offers four kinds of tour.

The standard tour

This is the visit almost everyone takes. The museum's ferries, the Krotoa (280 passengers) and the Sikhululekile (260), cross to Murray's Bay Harbour in 30 to 60 minutes, depending on the boat. A museum guide then takes you round the island by bus, and the visit ends with the walk through the prison and Mandela's cell. With the ferries, it takes about 3.5 to 4 hours.

From 1 September to 30 April ferries leave at 09:00, 11:00, 13:00 and 15:00. From 1 May to the end of August there are three departures, at 09:00, 11:00 and 13:00, although one part of the museum's own site also lists a 15:00 ferry in winter. All tours run weather and demand permitting. On Tiqets the standard tour starts at €42.50, and the ticket reaches your phone a few minutes after booking. Our Robben Island tour page explains what happens hour by hour.

Pick a departure to see roughly when the standard tour brings you back to the Waterfront:

The Walking Tour

On Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays the museum runs a longer Walking Tour. It leaves at 09:00 and lasts about five hours, with a guided walk of about 5 km that includes the Visitors Centre, the Maximum Security Prison, Sobukwe House and the Lime Quarry. The museum says it is only suitable for people who are fit. It is sold only by the museum and costs more than the standard tour: its prices are in the museum's price list at the end of our tickets page.

Educational tours

For schools, the museum runs Educational Tours from Monday to Friday, between 2 May and 31 October.

Specialised tours

Private, VIP and Protocol tours can be arranged on any day and last from 3.5 to 8 hours, with prices on request. If what you want is a private day with your own driver-guide, Tiqets sells a private tour of the island, Table Mountain and the city.

Side by side, this is how much of your day each kind of visit takes:

The virtual tour

If you cannot travel to Cape Town, or want to prepare before you go, the museum has a free virtual tour on its website. It has pages on individual sites, among them the Maximum Security Prison, the Lime Quarry, Robert Sobukwe House, the Church of the Good Shepherd, the leper graveyard, the Moturu Kramat, the lighthouse, Murray's Bay Harbour, the wartime gun positions and the Penguin Boardwalk. Several of these places are only seen from the bus on the real tour, so the virtual pages help you understand what you are looking at.

The Mayibuye Archives: the museum's collections

Much of what the museum holds is not on the island at all. Its collections are kept by the UWC Robben Island Mayibuye Archives, on the campus of the University of the Western Cape in Bellville, on the edge of Cape Town. They cover the struggle against apartheid from the 1940s to the early 1990s.

The archive is older than the museum. In the late 1980s Prof. Jakes Gerwel, then rector of the university, set up a committee to explore a museum of the struggle, and the Mayibuye Centre for History and Culture was created in 1990 and 1991. In 1992 it received the records of the International Defence and Aid Fund, a London-based anti-apartheid organisation that closed after 1990, and these became its core collection. In 1996 the South African Cabinet recommended that the Mayibuye collections form the core of the new Robben Island Museum, and in 2000 the centre was formally incorporated into the museum as its collections unit.

The material is organised in four sections: historical papers and books, photographs, audio-visual recordings, and art and artefacts. The sound and oral history collection holds interviews with activists, exiles and former political prisoners.

• Who can use it: researchers from South Africa and abroad, by appointment.
• Where: UWC Main Library, Robert Sobukwe Road, Bellville.
• Contact: +27 (0)21 959 2935, mayibuye@uwc.ac.za. Selected collections can be explored online on the archive's website.

The museum is also building a database of former political prisoners and their families, and asks relatives and comrades to send in contact details through its website. If someone in your family was held on Robben Island, that page is the place to start.

Opening hours, address and contact details

These are the details the museum publishes on its own website.

• Opening hours: Monday to Sunday, 08:00 to 17:00. The first ferry leaves at 09:00, and the Gateway is open before then.
• Phone: +27 (0)21 413 4200
• Email: info@robben-island.org.za or infow@robben-island.org.za (the museum uses both); for refunds, refunds@robben-island.org.za; compliments and complaints, customerfeedback@robben-island.org.za
• Address: the museum gives no street address. Its postal addresses are PO Box 51806, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town, 8002, and Private Bag, Robben Island, Cape Town, 7400
• Departure point: Nelson Mandela Gateway, Clock Tower Precinct, V&A Waterfront
• Website: robben-island.org.za

Contacts by department

• Educational tours: +27 (0)21 409 5146
• School concessions: +27 (0)21 413 4201, concessionbookings@robben-island.org.za
• Private and special tours, events: +27 (0)21 413 4225 or 4267, privatetours@robben-island.org.za
• Venue hire: +27 (0)21 413 4226

If you are driving, the Clock Tower and Silo garages are the closest to the Gateway; parking rates change, so check them on site. The other options, from the MyCiTi bus to taxis, are in our guide on how to get to Robben Island.

How to book the museum tour

The standard visit, ferry, island bus tour and prison included, is bookable on Tiqets from €42.50. If you want to be able to cancel or change the date for free up to 24 hours before, which helps on an island where the weather decides the sailings, choose the flexible ticket at €65. The ticket arrives on your phone a few minutes after booking, you pay by card in your own currency, and the site and customer service speak your language. The museum's own prices and the other options, from the tour with hotel transfer to full days with Table Mountain, are on our Robben Island tickets page.

What visitors say

On Tiqets the Robben Island Museum scores 3.8 out of 5 from 374 reviews. Bear the format of the visit in mind: you are on a guided schedule from start to finish, you cannot choose how long to stay at each stop, and the museum can cancel or change sailings in bad weather. Go for the place and its history, and leave some slack in the rest of your day.

Book the ferry and museum tour

Return ferry, bus tour of the island and the prison visit. From €42.50 on Tiqets, with the ticket on your phone in minutes.

Robben Island: Ferry Ticket & Prison Museum TourFrom €42.50 · 4 hoursCheck availability

Museum rules worth knowing

Bring a document: you need a passport, ID or driving licence to board. Arrive at least 30 minutes before departure: the gates close 10 minutes before the ferry leaves.

Photos are fine, drones are not. You can take photos for personal use, but drones and tripods are not allowed, and commercial photography needs the museum's permission.

Food: there are no restaurants on the island, only a small shop with snacks and drinks. You can bring your own food, but alcohol is not allowed.

Accessibility: the museum asks visitors with a disability or a chronic illness to contact it before booking, so that it can arrange safety and support. The museum does not publish details on wheelchair access, and visitor reviews mention steep ramps in places, so ask about your specific needs.

Weather: the museum can cancel or change sailings without notice, and refunds trips cancelled for bad weather or ferry problems. On a ticket bought from the museum, changing the date needs 48 hours' notice and an admin fee; on Tiqets, the flexible ferry and prison tour can be moved or cancelled for free up to 24 hours before, while the standard €42.50 ticket is non-refundable.