Eurostar good, Paris bad! (Eurostar)

Member Name: KentGuy

Product:	Eurostar
Date:	16/08/09 (54 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quick check-in compared to planes, fast, comfy, doesn't wreck the planet.

Disadvantages: Paris connections are hellish.

We took a family trip to the south of France via Paris in August 2009. I've been convinced high speed train travel is the future for some time, but this is the first time we experienced the reality - did it live up to our high expectations?

We caught the train from Ashford, which was painless - far less hassle than a plane. The trip itself was fine, except we had backwards seats (boo), which makes me a bit headachey. The train is very quiet and smooth, however.

We arrived in Paris wide eyed... and that's when the problems started. We had to queue at Gare du Nord for an hour to exhange our Visite Paris voucher for Paris travelcards... and when we got to the front, the single machine they had broke! We were given free single tickets to Opera, where we stumbled around for a while amid the traffic and tourists til we found The Paris Story... and one of the only other places to exchange tickets. The whole experience took around 2 hours. One other negative about the metro - escalators are few and far between, and if you have three line changes and a ton o luggage, it gets very boring very quickly.

We stayed in Paris for 2 days, then set off from Gare de Lyon on a double decker TGV for Beziers. This was brilliant, and totally hassle free.

The return legs were fine (but beware... in the south EVERYTHING closes for lunch including car rental, which meant returning our car became very stressful!). The one exception was, again, Gare du Nord. There are no signs for Eurostar check in - there is a sign for business check in. As we eventually worked out, you have to go upstairs and join a huge queue. There was such a horrific (and hot) queue for our train, they had to hold it for 5-10 mins just to let people get on. We ended up runing madly with all our luggage up all 18 coaches to the front where our seats were! Not a great experience.

High speed train is definitely the future, but the present still has teething problems with joining the dots. Gare du Nord is a nightmare - there needs to be serious investment into improving check in. Also there needs to be much better faclities for advanced purchasing of travelcards / carnets.

A bigger problem is how to deal with Paris, which is now a huge European rail hub with disconnected stations. The aincent metro simply isn't up to the job of handling large numbers of passengers with luggage crossing the city. In an ideal world there would be a new circle line, which links all the main stations, and free travel for high speed connecting passengers. And escalators!

Hope this review helps out others going on similar trips. Don't let the negtives put you off, but being forewarned is being forearmed!

Summary: Eurostar joins the UK to the amazing European TGV network - but Paris nearly wrecks it!