The Brisbane International Cruise Terminal is about ten minutes from the airport by road. Here are the four ways people do it, what each one costs, and which day of your trip is the one worth pre-booking.
See cruise terminal fares← All articles · Published 19 October 2026
The terminal sits at Pinkenba, on the same side of the river as Brisbane Airport, so you never cross the city. It is about ten minutes by road. A private transfer is a fixed $95 in a sedan, per vehicle rather than per person, which for two or more people is usually the cheapest way to arrive with your luggage intact and your boarding window still open.
They are not equally good, and which one wins depends on how many of you there are and which direction you are travelling.
Every fare below is per vehicle, fixed at booking, and includes meeting you inside the terminal. Nothing is metered.
| Vehicle | Fare | Suits |
|---|---|---|
| Sedan | $95 | 1–3 passengers, 2 large bags |
| SUV | $105 | 1–4 passengers, 4 bags |
| People mover | $110 | 1–7 passengers, 6 bags |
| Luxury sedan | $120 | 1–3 passengers, client pick-ups |
| Luxury minivan | $125 | 1–7 passengers, 6 bags |
| Sprinter 10-seater | $180 | Up to 10 passengers |
| Sprinter 14-seater | $255 | Up to 14 passengers |
Fourteen people in one Sprinter is $255, or about $18 a head — which is the point at which a per-person coach ticket stops being the cheap option. Book both legs together and the return is 10% off.
A good share of Brisbane sailings leave with Gold Coast passengers aboard, and that run is published too rather than quoted:
| From | Sedan | SUV | People mover | Sprinter 14 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coomera | $220 | $235 | $245 | $410 |
| Helensvale | $235 | $250 | $260 | $445 |
| Southport | $260 | $270 | $280 | $465 |
| Surfers Paradise | $270 | $285 | $295 | $510 |
| Burleigh Heads | $280 | $295 | $305 | $510 |
| Coolangatta | $305 | $320 | $335 | $555 |
The terminal is roughly ten minutes beyond Brisbane Airport, so add that to the drive. Our measured off-peak times to the airport run from about 36 minutes at Ormeau to about 73 at Coolangatta, which puts the ship at roughly 45 minutes from the northern end of the coast and 85 from the southern, with up to another half hour on a weekday in peak. Work back from your boarding window, not the ship's departure time. Every other Gold Coast suburb is priced in the booking form.
Cruise terminals board to a window of a few hours, not to a departure. The queue at the start of that window is the longest it will be all day, and the ship is not going anywhere for hours afterwards. Arriving in the back half of your window usually means handing over bags and walking straight on.
So tell us your boarding window when you book, not the sailing time, and we will recommend a pick-up against it. If you are flying in the same morning, give us the flight number too — we track it, and the pick-up moves with the aircraft.
This is the leg worth booking in advance, and the reason is arithmetic rather than salesmanship. A whole ship comes off inside a couple of hours. Several thousand people want a car from one kerb, in one industrial cul-de-sac, in the same ninety minutes — and unlike an airport, there is no steady supply of drivers already circling.
A pre-booked transfer is already there with your name on a board. A hailed one is a queue, at the exact moment the day's pricing is least in your favour.
Cruise bags are bigger than flight bags. Two people on a fourteen-night sailing routinely exceed a sedan's two-bag allowance, and the honest answer is an SUV at $105 or the $30 luggage trailer, not a sedan that will not shut. Tell us the bag count when you book and we will send something that fits the first time.
Golf bags, surfboards, prams and foldable wheelchairs travel free where they fit. Child capsules, convertible seats and boosters are $15 each, fitted before we arrive — and they have to be booked with the car, because a seat that was not booked cannot legally be improvised at the terminal.
About ten minutes by road. Pinkenba is on the airport side of the river, so there is no city crossing and no tunnel toll in the fare.
For one person travelling light on embarkation day, probably not — it is a short run and a meter will be modest. For two or more, for anyone with real cruise luggage, and for every disembarkation, the fixed fare wins, because it is per vehicle and it does not care what the day is doing.
Yes. You get the chauffeur's name and mobile number before the day, and they wait with a name board. You are not standing on a kerb working out which car is yours.
Yes, and it is 10% cheaper than two one-ways. It also means the leg that matters most — the one off the ship — is locked in before you sail.
Put in your suburb and your boarding window. The fare comes back instantly, the return is 10% off, and the leg off the ship is locked in before you sail.
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