Brisbane Airport to Gold Coast - how?

[OceanPrincess]

Looking for advice or experience from people who live in Qld or have done a similar transit recently...

We are off to Sea World for our holiday soon! Woohoo! So am now looking into details like how exactly we are going to get from Brisbane Airport to the Gold Coast.

I've googled - I can see there is a train, there are shuttle bus services and hire cars. Train looks interesting but I'm worried about how the juniors will go given we will be just off a plane and they will be jumping out of their skin.

Any suggestions? What worked for you? What's easiest, cheapest?

[*TripleJ*]

there is an airport at gold coast did u try that?

[Rivlas]

DD2 did this late last year. Caught a bus to N... cannot think of the place's name except it's where the faactories are then taxi.

[Maruschke]

It's fairly expensive to get from the airport to the city via train (especially with 2 adults and 2 kids) and usually works out about the same price to get a taxi. You can then jump on a train to the GC. Otherwise, just hire and car or jump on the shuttle straight from the airport and be done with it all . That's what I personally would do... nothing worse than lugging 2 kids and luggage on and off multiple trains etc etc.

[Beautiful Disaster]

You can catch the train from bris airport all the way through to gold coast. Sea world should have a courtesy bus that can collect u from the station and they will tell you the best one

[Sopdet]

What Kylz said

The train goes Airport - Brisbane, or Airport - Gold Coast.

At least on the train, unless it is during peak hour (or when a game is on at the coast), the kids will be able to move around a bit.

[Miss.September]

We caught an airport shuttle from Bris to Gold Coast years ago - Sea World might have their own that travels that distance. When we went to Noosa, we landed on the Sunshine Coast and caught a shuttle with DD there too without any problems.

[sloane]

I've only driven (hire car). It was without kids but the drive was an easy one altho i guess would dep on the time of day. Might depend on whether you think you'd use a car the rest of the time you're there?

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[OceanPrincess]

Plan is to NOT use the car while we are there - we hadn't planned on hiring a car.

I just got a quote for a hire car for $65, including two car seats. That is very attractive considering it'll take us door to door. Hmm.

I think I need to call Sea World and find out about shuttles that they offer. And look into train tickets. I do like the idea of letting the kids run around a bit. What is the shuttle train service like?

[Doing my best]

Except for peak hr, all the trains from the airport go to the Gold Coast and are express trains. And they are generally aren't packed so the little ones can move around. They also have lots of luggage space and most of the airport trains have toilets.

Personally though, after a 2 hr flight, the last thing I would want to do is take the kids on a bus or train that I have to stay on till our destination is reached. I prefer the idea of car in case I need to stop for any reason.

[UntoldAngel]

We took our two munchkins to GC earlier this month, and we hired a car - we got an Audi A4 for 7 days for $248. We took our own car seats as they don't count toward luggage, and the car gave us the freedom of working around the kids schedules etc

[human bean]

Pretty sure the shuttles run to all the theme parks from the Helensvale station if you go the train route. They used to be really regular and an express train doesn't take too long from the airport down to the Coast.

[OceanPrincess]

Thanks everyone for the responses!

I'm about to start googling trains but DH is now thinking if we hire a car for Day 1 and Day 5, we might as well get one for Day 1 - Day 5. That way we have freedom for dinners as well, won't be confined to the resort and if we get sick of Sea World we can go check something else out. Found a pretty cheap car rental place too, East Coast Car Rental, anyone used them?

Going to check train prices...

[diva det]

hey love- we did the gold coast trip with twins when they were 5 years old
we hired a car- way to hard to get around gold coast without one and the kids in tow
got a car through europcar for like $28 a day so cheap as
also pays to get the car insurance here b4 you go through racv and that way you dont have to pay the extra for the huge excess thingy they try and scare you with
you can take car seats with you or i actually hired a car with 2 seats as well- it was only a couple of bucks extra a day to do so- they also installed them but i definately had to check them b4 i used them
even just hire cars for days you are not a seaworld and for the airport shuttles
it worked out cheaper to hire a car for us than use public transport to get around everywhere
xxx

[OceanPrincess]

Wow, it is $57 return per adult, $14 per child, for Airtrain from Brisbane Airport to Gold Coast station. Hmm! Might just be cheaper (and easier) to hire a car!

[Floweryfields]

Are flights booked? Because flying into Gold Coast airport would be much easier. Otherwise I think hiring would be a better option - seaworld isn't exactly in the middle of other things - sort of a distance to travel - not walking as far as I remember anyway if you want to do other things during your stay.

[OceanPrincess]

Yep, flights booked. Gold Coast = Jetstar, Brisbane = Qantas. Not really a question if you ask me

Looking into the hire car option again.

[MummyNaomi]

We took our own car seats as they don't count toward luggage

This isn't the case with all airlines though, best to check with the airline you are travelling with.

We flew with Virgin to the GC and had no problem with excess luggage as they didn't include pram, travel cot etc - Jetstar on the way home did and slogged us $200 excess - we were not at all happy!!