PrincessInOz
Thanks for my avatar, Mary Jo!
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2010
- Messages
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Road to Shanghai
When I was negotiating time off for this trip, I slipped in a couple of extra days to this trip. Yes, the-old-squeeze-as-much-in-as-possible trick! Give a mile, take a few more inches.
I had originally booked a morning flight out of Melbourne; which would have gotten us into Shanghai at about 11 pm at night. Well…..about 2 months ago, Cathay gifted me with extra time in Shanghai. The morning flight was cancelled and they rebooked us on the midnight flight out of Melbourne. I have to admit that I was less than impressed with the flight being cancelled. Flying out at night had never been on my agenda!
But after I got over the fact that I would not be getting any sleep on the plane, I realised that this flight would get us into Shanghai at about 11 am in the morning. That means bonus time in Shanghai. And because I’ve now ended up with 2 days to spend in Shanghai, it means that I can cast my eyes towards Suzhou, the water town. With the one full day that I have in Shanghai, I’m hoping to pick up a day-tour to Suzhou. I’ve checked online….there are any number of tours I can book right now for Suzhou. I’ve decided to hold off because it may end up being cheaper to book the trip to Suzhou locally.
There was another bonus to arriving in Shanghai during the morning. It meant that catching the Magnetic Levitation train from Shanghai airport to the city centre suddenly became a viable proposition. Yes, I could have caught the train at night. The issue was we would still need to catch a taxi from the city train station to our hotel and given the reports of shifty taxi driver behaviour at that station, I didn’t really want to have to deal with it late at night.
I’m more than prepared to deal with the Shanghai taxi drivers during daytime hours.
In order to get to a decision on how to get to my hotel in Shanghai, I did some basic research on the various transport options in Shanghai. Here are some basic info snippets for the Maglev train, taxi and public transport in Shanghai.
Maglev Train.
The Maglev train can be caught from Pudong Airport to Longyang Road Station.
Cost of the train from Pudong Airport, with an air ticket discount, is 40 Yuan one-way. You need to show your air ticket in order to get the discount.
You can transfer from Longyang Road Station to other lines; but I figured it was just as easy to catch a taxi from this station to our hotel with our bags.
At Longyang Station, at all times, the taxi drivers will be waiting on the upper platform to ask if you want a taxi. Never accept an offer on the platform. Take the escalator to the street to select your taxi from the dispatcher.
Taxis.
Always look for a white (Jinjiang company) or light blue taxi (Dazhong taxis 大众, highly reputable, telephone number 96822) or yellow/gold (Qiangsheng 强生, highly reputable) or white. Avoid dark blue and red.
Taxis should cost about 55 Yuan from Longyang Road Station to the hotel. I used this taxi calculator to get the estimated cost. https://www.taxifarefinder.com/main.php?city=Shanghai-China&lang=en
In the city there is an initial meter charge of 14 RMB for most 3 km drives (including the fare surcharge), plus 2.4 RMB per km thereafter when it exceeds 3km, and then plus 3.6RMB per km after 10km when it exceeds 10km.
Public Transport System
And just to round out the information sharing. Shanghai is quite well serviced by it's mass transport system. One of the better guides around can be found on the Travel China Guide website. I have no doubt I'll be buying passes of some sort. It remains to be seen whether I go with the day passes or the 3-day pass.
https://www.travelchinaguide.com/cityguides/shanghai/transportation/subway-ticket.htm
When I was negotiating time off for this trip, I slipped in a couple of extra days to this trip. Yes, the-old-squeeze-as-much-in-as-possible trick! Give a mile, take a few more inches.
I had originally booked a morning flight out of Melbourne; which would have gotten us into Shanghai at about 11 pm at night. Well…..about 2 months ago, Cathay gifted me with extra time in Shanghai. The morning flight was cancelled and they rebooked us on the midnight flight out of Melbourne. I have to admit that I was less than impressed with the flight being cancelled. Flying out at night had never been on my agenda!
But after I got over the fact that I would not be getting any sleep on the plane, I realised that this flight would get us into Shanghai at about 11 am in the morning. That means bonus time in Shanghai. And because I’ve now ended up with 2 days to spend in Shanghai, it means that I can cast my eyes towards Suzhou, the water town. With the one full day that I have in Shanghai, I’m hoping to pick up a day-tour to Suzhou. I’ve checked online….there are any number of tours I can book right now for Suzhou. I’ve decided to hold off because it may end up being cheaper to book the trip to Suzhou locally.
There was another bonus to arriving in Shanghai during the morning. It meant that catching the Magnetic Levitation train from Shanghai airport to the city centre suddenly became a viable proposition. Yes, I could have caught the train at night. The issue was we would still need to catch a taxi from the city train station to our hotel and given the reports of shifty taxi driver behaviour at that station, I didn’t really want to have to deal with it late at night.
I’m more than prepared to deal with the Shanghai taxi drivers during daytime hours.
In order to get to a decision on how to get to my hotel in Shanghai, I did some basic research on the various transport options in Shanghai. Here are some basic info snippets for the Maglev train, taxi and public transport in Shanghai.
Maglev Train.
The Maglev train can be caught from Pudong Airport to Longyang Road Station.
Cost of the train from Pudong Airport, with an air ticket discount, is 40 Yuan one-way. You need to show your air ticket in order to get the discount.
You can transfer from Longyang Road Station to other lines; but I figured it was just as easy to catch a taxi from this station to our hotel with our bags.
At Longyang Station, at all times, the taxi drivers will be waiting on the upper platform to ask if you want a taxi. Never accept an offer on the platform. Take the escalator to the street to select your taxi from the dispatcher.
Taxis.
Always look for a white (Jinjiang company) or light blue taxi (Dazhong taxis 大众, highly reputable, telephone number 96822) or yellow/gold (Qiangsheng 强生, highly reputable) or white. Avoid dark blue and red.
Taxis should cost about 55 Yuan from Longyang Road Station to the hotel. I used this taxi calculator to get the estimated cost. https://www.taxifarefinder.com/main.php?city=Shanghai-China&lang=en
In the city there is an initial meter charge of 14 RMB for most 3 km drives (including the fare surcharge), plus 2.4 RMB per km thereafter when it exceeds 3km, and then plus 3.6RMB per km after 10km when it exceeds 10km.
Public Transport System
And just to round out the information sharing. Shanghai is quite well serviced by it's mass transport system. One of the better guides around can be found on the Travel China Guide website. I have no doubt I'll be buying passes of some sort. It remains to be seen whether I go with the day passes or the 3-day pass.
https://www.travelchinaguide.com/cityguides/shanghai/transportation/subway-ticket.htm
Glad you're here, Magdalena. Are you and M heading to Shanghai in the summer? How awesome. Which destination are you hubbing in/out of to make the 144-hour visa work?
And I am sure that Michael will want to get to take part in writing it again as well. We do have another trip report to write before that, but I am much more excited about writing about Japan than another cruise on the Disney Fantasy (yes, I know those are really the proverbial first world problems here 
).
