Is it best to get public transport to the airport?

Emmia

B0bbyEwing said:

Emmia said:

B0bbyEwing said:

Voyager2002 said:

Personally, I would not expect a friend or relative to serve as my personal chauffeur like that: three hours of driving (they have to get home afterwards) is a lot, and they would face significant expenses.

How does that help my question at all really? 

You have zero idea if I've asked them they've offered to me I'm paying them, they're saying I don't need to or they're saying I don't need to but I'm going to transfer them money regardless. 

Absolutely no idea. 

And not that any of that is relevant to the question/answer anyway. 

If you're paying them, are they insured for Hire & Reward - i.e. as a taxi?

In the event of a collision and their insurance company finding out you were paying them for the trip they'll probably have invalidated their insurance policy.

When you offer friends/family money for a lift favour do you ask if they've sorted their insurance out as well? 

Seems extremely OTT. 

I don't ask for financial recompense for a lift, and I don't offer any - I don't actually ever expect a lift, I go places under my own steam on public transport or by (in extremis) getting an actual booked taxi.

la531983

B0bbyEwing said:

I don't know the location of everything in relation to where we need to be etc but if we go down the route of staying in a hotel the night before to be extra sure then what is the best one to stay in? 

I'm told from someone else today that we'll be flying out of terminal 1 apparently. But they've only based that on who we're using & the fact that they're using the same airline next week and will be flying out of terminal 1.

I don't know if that's how it works but is there a hotel that's best placed to be stopping in if we decide to do that? 

The terminals are all linked together, that doesnt really matter too much. Only Jet2 and Aer Lingus fly out out of multiple terminals iirc, check the Manchester Airport website and it will tell you.

As per an earlier post I made, it seems that there are no 24 hour trains to Manchester Airport anymore, at least on a Sunday morning anyway, you used to be able to get one from York and Leeds, clearly this isnt a thing anymore. So there is no chance you can get to Manchester Airport on a train for an 8am flight on a Sunday morning anymore, not even from the centre of Manchester.

I use the Radisson at the airport but its not cheap.

Pollycat

B0bbyEwing said:

I don't know the location of everything in relation to where we need to be etc but if we go down the route of staying in a hotel the night before to be extra sure then what is the best one to stay in? 

I'm told from someone else today that we'll be flying out of terminal 1 apparently. But they've only based that on who we're using & the fact that they're using the same airline next week and will be flying out of terminal 1.

I don't know if that's how it works but is there a hotel that's best placed to be stopping in if we decide to do that? 

It depends if you're going to drive yourself and park for the duration of your holiday or still use public transport/your relative to get there.

It depends who you're flying with - do they do twilight check-in?
Jet2 and TUI do from Birmingham so we like to stay on-airport so we can walk from the hotel after checking in to the airport and dump our bags.
It works for us because we take the skytrain to Birmingham International train station and then get a train to the centre of B'ham and have a nice evening out before we fly.
We don't have to mess about with taxis.

But lots of accommodation a few miles out from the airport.
Some offer free transfers to the airport, some charge for it.

Lots of hotels on and off airport on various booking sites.
We tend to use Holiday Extras.

Wyndham

I've driven to Manchester airport. I've taken the train to Manchester airport. Both have mostly been fine, but had the odd blip. You never can tell.

I've also stayed over the night before, which works well for me. But airport hotels are not necessarily cheap. I've stayed at the Radisson which is then on the walkway between the terminals, so it doesn't matter which one you are flying from (but obviously you do need to find out which it is before your flight). I once stayed at a hotel a bit further from the terminal which had a shuttle bus to the terminal which I think was free.

My preference is to drive, then use the airport meet and greet so I dump the car really close to the terminal and hand over my key for someone else to park it. Never had an issues with this, but I know that not everyone wants to hand their key over.

Basically, it comes down to a fair bit of choice and a personal preference. For me, being late is just not something I want to do, so I allow a lot of time or stay over. For others, they turn up ten minutes before the gate closes and are happy doing that. I also quite like flying, but know that some people find it stressful.

At the end of the day you need to make your own decision to suit you - people here can help and advise, but there isn't one 'right' answer to your question. Some of your answers indicate that you want someone to tell you 'the answer', and when we are not doing that your responses are verging on rude. Please remember that this is a public forum that is generally quite friendly and helpful, and we are all asked to be nice to each other.

vacheron

We've done manchester a couple of times, (about a 2.5 hour drive for us though, but I would certainly leave plenty of time, even just for waiting in the queue for those bizarre lifts up to the departure hall!

One thing I don't think you mentioned was if you are able / willing to drive yourself?

We flew from Manchester to Italy about 7 years ago and I think it cost us £70 to leave the car for 9 days in the T1 multi storey car park (which is about a 2 minute walk from the terminal entrance).
You do need to book in advance for these cheaper prices though. 

As it sounds like there are 2 of you (or possibly more) travelling together the costs of public transport both ways could easily outweigh the cost of parking on the doorstep

B0bbyEwing

soolin said:

B0bbyEwing said:

I'm on the phone at the mo and not PC so to save quoting all I've clicked the thanks. 

Yes, we intend on getting there really quite early before the flight out. As Soolin said, we'd rather be sat about waiting than having to dash. 

Also thanks Soolin for the explanation as to why airport may matter. In that case it's Manchester and we'll be coming top down than bottom up but that's as much info as I'm giving on my location on a message board I'm afraid. No I don't think anyone is coming to my house of this one thread but still.

Thanks for the feedback. 

OK Manchester can have transport issues I have relatives that are high users of that airport. Check out the Premier Inn nearby, less than a mile to walk I understand. (Plenty of other hotels, it’s just that one I know my relative tends to use ) Check in on the Saturday, you’ll have no stress then as you can check in whatever time you want to the hotel, and perhaps if you did it early enough you might even want to walk over to the terminal and check out where the check in desks are so you are ready for a stress free Sunday morning. You could even get a meal deal at Premier inn and have a dinner the evening before you fly, and a very early breakfast. 

That gets you to,your destination, do you have transfers the other end ? 

I never worry quite as much coming home as long as I know I have transfers booked from my hotel to the airport in plenty of time on my return. On arrival in the Uk you are in home territory and then it doesn’t matter if the trains or buses are causing issues as you have no time constraints. 

One other tip, have plenty of money available for emergencies. We were on a plane last year that got in the press as people photographed it trying to land at Gatwick in a massive storm- ended up being dumped in Birmingham with no ground support staff to help us at around 2 am. Managed to get back to London eventually by getting the very first train out of Birmingham , but had to pay our fares and reclaim it some weeks later. Again though after hundreds of flights we’ve only been landed at the wrong airport twice, so statistically unlikely to happen. 

Lastly, the regulars on here are trying to help you with this , can I just remind you that MSE rules say that we should all be nice and polite to each other, and some of your replies to others are getting a bit borderline. 

Sorry, just now noticed the accommodation comment now I've had time to read more. Thanks for that and I'll take a look. 

Regards the end comment - I'd say that works both ways yet I see only a comment for me & not others. 
The jibes earlier, having it said that I said things I didn't, didn't give information that I did. Yes some in here are trying to help and I've given thanks to those people. 

But some are not trying to help and some are helping but throwing in little remarks also. These seem to be getting no pull up though??? If I'm borderline then I'm not sure how they're not also borderline. 

B0bbyEwing

Emmia said:

B0bbyEwing said:

Emmia said:

B0bbyEwing said:

Voyager2002 said:

Personally, I would not expect a friend or relative to serve as my personal chauffeur like that: three hours of driving (they have to get home afterwards) is a lot, and they would face significant expenses.

How does that help my question at all really? 

You have zero idea if I've asked them they've offered to me I'm paying them, they're saying I don't need to or they're saying I don't need to but I'm going to transfer them money regardless. 

Absolutely no idea. 

And not that any of that is relevant to the question/answer anyway. 

If you're paying them, are they insured for Hire & Reward - i.e. as a taxi?

In the event of a collision and their insurance company finding out you were paying them for the trip they'll probably have invalidated their insurance policy.

When you offer friends/family money for a lift favour do you ask if they've sorted their insurance out as well? 

Seems extremely OTT. 

I don't ask for financial recompense for a lift, and I don't offer any - I don't actually ever expect a lift, I go places under my own steam on public transport or by (in extremis) getting an actual booked taxi.

Each to their own but when I ask someone a favour & it puts them out financially then I offer. If I ask for a trip down the road a couple minutes that's nothing and I wouldn't offer but this is different. 

I don't expect others to foot the bill. More often than not I'll get told it doesn't matter, especially from the relative who's taking me whereas others will expect it. 

Regardless, I don't think we' re going to have the police knocking on our door for car insurance fraud. That's one 'risk' we will be taking. 

B0bbyEwing

vacheron said:

We've done manchester a couple of times, (about a 2.5 hour drive for us though, but I would certainly leave plenty of time, even just for waiting in the queue for those bizarre lifts up to the departure hall!

One thing I don't think you mentioned was if you are able / willing to drive yourself?

We flew from Manchester to Italy about 7 years ago and I think it cost us £70 to leave the car for 9 days in the T1 multi storey car park (which is about a 2 minute walk from the terminal entrance).
You do need to book in advance for these cheaper prices though. 

As it sounds like there are 2 of you (or possibly more) travelling together the costs of public transport both ways could easily outweigh the cost of parking on the doorstep

2 of us yes. 

And I did look at that (driving ourselves) but unless I'm missing something parking seemed ridiculously expensive to the point it wasn't worth it. We'd be having to pay for 4 days worth. 

la531983

vacheron said:

We've done manchester a couple of times, (about a 2.5 hour drive for us though, but I would certainly leave plenty of time, even just for waiting in the queue for those bizarre lifts up to the departure hall!

Not sure what lifts you are on about here. I am a regular user of all three terminals and there are no "bizarre lifts" to the departure hall.  Yes, there is a downstairs security area in T1 (as well as the usual one) but there are stairs, and in T2 there are escalators, although I have not used T2 since the new security section opened a few weeks back.

In any case he wont be "waiting in a queue" for lifts.

RAS

I didn't spot the reference to Sunday, possibly because it was at the end of the post.

If you are travelling from anywhere on the Transpennine Route Upgrade, or north of it, I'd suggest you travel on Saturday. The majority of trains now require a change at Manchester Piccadilly, often with other transfers en route. There's a very high chance of at least one diversion or bus replacement and often the precise information is only made public a fortnight ahead. 

If your flight is before midday, I'd definitely consider travelling on the Saturday. There are a half dozen hotels within walking distance of the terminals. Although none are cheap, they are closer than the Meet and Greet or the Free Drop Off point. There are several others on other sides of the airport that require a longer walk or a cab.

Since the train from Manchester Piccadilly only takes 15 minutes I've also stayed in the city itself as there's a good range of options at different price points. The obvious issue being that Friday and Saturday night prices are higher.

I've not used Manchester since Covid but have stayed in a local hotel for a flight after 8am. Arriving at T2 before 7am, it was rammed and I became quite anxious about getting to the gate on time. Herded like cattle wasn't far off. The queue managers were very effective but they weren't exactly gentle. There was no time to try and get refreshments en route. 

I've also had better experiences.