Brisbane Ferry / CityCat, Brisbane

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The big floods in early 2011 knocked out the City Cat Terminals. Over 100 million dollars will have to be spent to re-establish the infrastructure.
Much work has been done to get ferry services back to normal.
Status of City Cat and Ferry services can be found on the Translink web site

Mid 2011: Much work has restored services.

Note: even when the Cat Service is up and running there are outages during times of heavy rain in the upper reaches of the Brisbane River system. Debris washed down the river can make high speed water travel risky. Expect City Cat services to be cancelled after heavy rain.

The photo shows the Sydney Street Terminal at Newfarm. Just after the flood.
The floating dock has completely disappeared from the vertical piles around which it normally floats and the interconnecting walkway from the shoreline to the dock has been destroyed or sunk.
See the photo of the new Sydney Street Terminal.
A map of the ferry terminals shows the 2 Zone system for tariffs.
Don't neglect Brisbane City Cycle hire system. A good way to reduce your carbon footprint and expand your tourism horizons.

CITY CAT, is a Catamaran that services the Brisbane River.

There are over 20 different terminals where you can get on and off.

It is a great, cheap way to have a look at Brisbane from the River, or just to get across to the other side of the River, very easy.

The "Cats" run from 5.50am to 11.30pm, EVERY DAY.
You can buy your ticket direct from the Ferry operator.

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City Cat

- The city cat ferry is a cheap and fun way to scurry back and forth across the brisbane river.

- Ferries run every 20 minutes from 0600AM to 1100PM.

- An all day pass is only $5.40 and can be used for the city cat, city ferries, as well as buses and trains.

It's a afordable and fun way to see the city and take pictures.

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The City Cat is the Brisbane Public Transport system on the river and is a fantastic way to see Brisbane. The boats are large and fast, having both inside and outside seating, we preferred outside with the breeze in our face. Fares are cheap with an all day Off-Peak adult ticket costing Au $3.90 and you can get off and on as often as you like. We travelled on a Saturday afternoon, the day of the RiverFire fireworks spectacular and the river was very busy with all sized craft getting "best position" for the night's entertainment. Saturday is also a good day to view the local sailing clubs in competition.
We travelled the full circuit before alighting at Southbank.

Just take a city cat instead of the bus if it will bring you to the place you want to be. It is a nice experience and I guess many people wuld use a boat as transportation method the first time. It costs just as much as the bus and is fast, too. The best alternitive during the busy hours...
You can also take the city cat to Lone Pine. Did not do that but I assume it is nice to do so.

This is one of the best way to enjoy brisbane city. Travel along the brisbane river by city-ferry. You can to see southbank, Univeristy of Queensland, QUT, Kangaroo Cliff, etc.

It is cheap and you can use the same ticket for both buses and ferry (citycat)

This fleet of sleek catamarans operates from 5.30am to 10.30pm daily - and the service extends from Brett's Wharf, Hamilton, to University of Queensland, St Lucia. There are 14 stops along the way, including Newfarm Park, Kangaroo Point, Southbank, Riverside and Toowong.

The best way to travel across/along Brisbane River is to take a City Ferry - the slow ferry - as it's really a pleasure ride. The fast one - City Cat - is just too fast, so fast that you can hardly see the surrounding clearly before arriving your destination.

On my last day in Brisbane, I spent half of the afternoon travelling on the Brisbane River on several City Ferries with my day-tripper (1 day ticket for transportation). I enjoyed the rides so much. Some ferries are with open-topped, some are with a small open-air deck at the end. It's really a bargain to travel with the daytripper!

Here are my routes:
Trip 1: North Quay --> Eagle Street (originally wanted to go to Sydney Street but the captain said it would take 1.5 hours, so i jumped off at Eagle St);
Trip 2: Eagle Street --> South Bank (it's too early for night pics of Story Bridge so I went to South Bank for some day pics)
Trip 3: South Bank --> Eagle Street (it's sunset time and the sky started to change colour, oh jeeeeeeeeeeessssssss, it's so beautiful!!!)
Trip 4: Eagle Street --> North Quay (after taking pics at the areas around Eagle Street, it's time to go back to the city centre.)

I felt so good on the ferries, didn't want to get off.