Got an international flight and trying to find cheap parking near the airport.
I normally use the Blu Emu car park, but this only has a shuttle to Domestic terminal.
From the website, it says it is possible to use it for international flights, just got to catch 2 trains.
https://www.sydneyairport.com.au/info-sheet/parking-faq#self…
Does anyone know how much additional time I need to factor in to go from Blu Emu to the international terminal?
Yep. I used this car park a few times now and it’s every 15 mins.
The trip itself takes about 10 to 15 mins on a bad day, so If you just miss the bus it could be between 20 and 30 mins to get to the terminals.
This, the blu emu pulls up at the same bus stop, both are free
About 30-40 minutes extra, depends on how lucky you are with the connection.
Cool that's basically the info I need. I'll factor an hour to be safe.
just curious, is there free transfer bus from international terminal to domestic as well?
Yes, but neither the free buses, nor the far-from-free trains, run 24x7
From the website:
You would need to take the free shuttle service that runs between Blu Emu and the Domestic terminal (this runs 24 hours), and then get a free Transfer bus or a train from Domestic to International. The trains between Domestic and International run from 5:00am to midnight, and the buses run from 6:00am to 8:50pm.
Personally, adding 30-40 mins to my journey to/from the airport is a total deal-breaker.
My usual preferences are to:
I only really resort to the latter for longer trips where I don't wanna be dealing with larger luggage items on public transport.
Understandably, if you're coming from outside of town, things may stack up differently.
Far from free trains? What does that mean? Fairly sure both the blu emu to domestic transfer and domestic to international transfer is free.
They just take time. Factor in 30-40 minutes as the other poster said
Far from free trains? What does that mean?
It meant pretty much exactly what it said. If it was any further from free, I would expect there to be some sort of organ extraction involved. :)
In all seriousness, the Sydney Airport train line is ridiculously priced to the point of being irrelevant to most people. If there's more than one person in your party, then the collective train fares will almost certainly total more than a point-to-point taxi/uber for the lot of you.
I had to check the current pricing for the inter-terminal hop… I've only done it once myself and that was shortly after the line opened. I don't remember what the fare was back then, but it was bad enough to not consider it again.
The online info seems a bit inconsistent…
According to Sydney Airport Link website:
Airport Link offers a $6.40 (one way, per person) single transfer ticket for passengers travelling between the T1 International and T2/T3 Domestic terminals. However, pricing does vary if the traveller is using an Opal Card.
If this is accurate, then you're being gouged more for a trip that "takes only two minutes" than most people, including myself, pay for their weekday peak-hour trip.
@bobbieb: It’s embarrassing how bad the setup is for such a tourist focused city, other airports do terminal transfers so much better. It really needs free existing train transfer between terminals and a new build airside skytrain. This would eat into airport parking profits. The more isolated the better for them.
@Stewardo: Absolutely, I couldn't agree more.
As a local, it's easy to shrug it off, but knowing what's it's like to arrive at an unfamiliar airport, I can imagine how Sydney airport would make a very bad impression on our foreign visitors.
Whilst a few individual airlines make an effort to compensate and make the best of what they have to work with, good luck if you're a visitor who's left to their own devices by those that don't.
Frankly, I've been to airports in developing nations that leave a better impression than Sydney.
@bobbieb: Ah ok. Sorry Im totally confused. I didn't realize there was a bus AND a train to get between terminals.
Are people really paying extra to take the train to get there a couple of minutes early?
You catch the bus from blue emu tothe domestic terminal and then you catch the free transfer bus from domestic terminal to international terminal. Buses go every 15 mins I believe.