Wigan Warrior

Hi,

Can anyone offer any advice on the best passes to purchase when we get to Sydney to cover us for the week?

We will basically going to Manly, Bondi, out to look at some areas to live (far out as Hornsby and Cronulla) and the rest of the time will be spent round the centre (we're staying near Wynyard station and plan getting train from/to airport).

As I see it the options seem to be:

SydneyPass

Unlimited hop-on, hop-off travel on
Sydney Explorer
Bondi Explorer
Return transfers on AirportLink trains
All regular Sydney Buses services
All regular Sydney Ferries services
All regular CityRail trains within the Red TravelPass zone
Discounts on Sydney Attractions

Effective from 1 April 2006 (all prices in Australian Dollars)
3 day pass - any three days over a eight calendar day period
ADULT CHILD FAMILY
$110.00 $55.00 $275.00
5 day pass - any five days over a eight calendar day period
ADULT CHILD FAMILY
$145.00 $70.00 $360.00
7 day pass - any seven days over a eight calendar day days
ADULT CHILD FAMILY
$165.00 $80.00 $410.00

Bus, Train & Ferry TravelPass tickets

Purple - All Buses
Train Boundaries Bondi Junction, Cowan, Carlingford, Richmond, Emu
Plains, Macarthur, Otford and Cronulla
All Ferries except Manly JetCat

PURPLE TravelPass 7 Day Adult - $57.00 7 Day Concession - $28.50

There seems to be a big price difference between the 2 and can't see what the benefits are of the sydney pass over the purple bus,train, ferry pass.

Presume with the purple pass I could catch normal ferry to Manly instead of jetcat and the airport train would be covered. Not sure if can use the explorer buses under this pass though it does say all buses??

Any one able to offer any advice?

Cheers,
WW

northerner

Forget the Sydney pass - overpriced ticket for tourists.

I'm not even convinced you need to go as far as the purple ticket - I think the pink one may be sufficient ($50) - the only place is doesn't quite get you is Cronulla. It gets you to Horsby but no further, so if you plan on maybe going a stop of two further to investigate then you may be better off just getting the purple ticket and being done with it.

Yes the pink or purple (well, pretty much anything but the bog standard red) will get you to Manly on the normal service - extra for the jet cat, but then the slower trip out is very pleasant - no need to rush!

Here is a useful link showing all the zones for bus/train/ferry (I'm sure you've found something similar)

http://www.cityrail.info/fares/TravelPass.pdf

This is a very useful page with links to the bus routes for each region

http://www.sydneybuses.info/regionalmaps.php

Hope this helps

Graham

Wigan Warrior

Thanks for that, Karma on it's way!

Swerv-o

I'm with Northerner on this one - The Sydney pass tickets are heavily priced and aimed at Tourists. The travel passes are good value for money, and allow travel on trains, buses and ferries.

My initial thought would be to just get a green travel pass, and then stump up the costs to Cronulla and Hornsby on the day of travel, but then I guess it will depend on how many times you intend to travel there. The difference in the Green and Purple passes is on $10, so it may not be much of a saving.

One thing to note is that the travel passes don't cover the nasty little 'gate fee' at the airport line stations - this is a fee just to get onto or off of the platform, and not included in the cost of travel. I think it is about $7 a head at the moment. This really needs to be changed, but nobody seems to be able to or interested in doing anything about it.


S

northerner

That sounds like a 'we've decided to charge you for the air you breathe' type charge!

Didn't know about that one!

Graham

Swerv-o

Yeah, it's pretty disgusting really. That's why those stations are always spotless and empty - nobody can afford to use them for commuting at $14 a day plus the cost of travel!

Cheaper to get a taxi to Central.

One of the election candidates pledged to do something about it, but whether anything actually happens is another matter. You know the Aussies. Just bend over and take it, then turn around and justify it when somebody complains!


S

muffinoz

Agree with the others ... don't go for the tourist option ... the Airport Link in Sydney is privately owned hence the gate fee ... I only paid $2 for the gate fee when I was working near the airport in Sydney recently ...

If there are more than two of you and you are going from the airport to anywhere in the CBD (inc Wynyard) / Rocks / Darling Harbour ... you are cheaper getting a taxi ... but there can be horrendous q's at peak times in domestic ... if you're coming into international can't comment ... haven't done that recently.

Again if there are a number of you go for the ten trip tickets if you're not getting a weekly ... the staff at the ticket offices are generally pretty helpful

Cheers ... David

Red_V_Roger

Wigan Warrior - I would suggest an open top bus, but you wont have seen many of those in Wigan lately, certainly not with anything silver on board.

Hope you have a good trip!

Wigan Warrior

There will be 5 of us, is it easy to get a minibus from the airport or are they all generally 4 seater cars?

muffinoz

there's maxi cabs ... they take more than four ... no more expensive from a cab rank, but cost a few bucks more if you pre- book ... when we went to Sydney in November there were 5 of us and we got a maxi from domestic with no problem ... think it was about $45 / $50 into Darling Harbour - would have been a few $$ more if we had gone thru the toll tunnel but it was midday so just told the driver to go thru Mascot / Redfern and into the city ..

Cheers ... David

Wilgar

Also,travelling with children in Sydney is that you only pay for the first child.Subsequent children travel free of charge. With 3 children this makes leaving the car at home more feasible.

Wigan Warrior

Is it easy enough to pick up the maxi cabs from international arrivals without pre-booking?

muffinoz

Hi ... haven't come into Sydney International for a few years ... as I said domestic is no problem perhaps 1 cab in 20 is a maxi and the taxi marshalls will signal it for you ... would guess there may be a higher ratio in international due to passengers carrying more luggage

Cheers ... David