Eurostar Carriage Questions

[Charlotea]

Hello everyone! This is my first post although I have been 'lurking' for quite a while since my sister made her account (Christieand).

I have been put in charge of the Eurostar and have tried very had to choose the right carriages for our journeys.
I have looked at online diagrams but they are still quite confusing , so wondered if the wealth of knowledge on these boards could help me.

On the way to Paris, we are in carriage 18, and as I understand we will have a long walk from the platform to our carriage when we are boarding but will not have far to walk when we arrive in Disneyland.
On the return journey we are in coach 1, so the same again - a long walk getting on the train and a short walk when we arrive in London?
This is important as we are getting the train from St Pancras to our home town and don't want to miss it!

Thanks for your help (in advance!)

 

[Jonjo]

Always allow plenty of time for your conection, at least an hour. Eurostars from DLP have been known to leave anything upto 40mins late due to delays with security checks at Marne la Vallée.

I always go for a coach with power sockets myself for charging up our phones and portable DVD player and not realy worried where it is on the train. At St Pancras the platfrom is wide enough to easily overtake other passenger who are dawdling along along infront of you.

When we arrive at Marne la Vallée we always wait until everyone else has gotten off the train as their are always long, long waits for the lift and they tend to bock up the platform.

 

[Charlotea]

Always allow plenty of time for your conection, at least an hour. Eurostars from DLP have been known to leave anything upto 40mins late due to delays with security checks at Marne la Vallée.

I always go for a coach with power sockets myself for charging up our phones and portable DVD player and not realy worried where it is on the train. At St Pancras the platfrom is wide enough to easily overtake other passenger who are dawdling along along infront of you.

When we arrive at Marne la Vallée we always wait until everyone else has gotten off the train as their are always long, long waits for the lift and they tend to bock up the platform.

Great, thanks for your help. We will have plug sockets on the train to London, so will be able to charge gadgets on the way there (there aren't many table seats left now to change to be near power sockets, as a party of three a table seat is desirable).
I seem to remember tackling the escalator last time we went as we didn't know there was a lift so will probably just do the same again!

 

[adr2.8i]

ahh the lifts and excalators at marne la valle......i have happy memories of them both on 2 previous trips. as good as the eurostar is, the french station is very dangerous. the disney express service is in completley the wrong place. its right next to passport control. so as you climb the excalators you are hit with too many people either queing for passport control or queueing for disney express. on both my trips i have been stuck on an excalator and have fallen over people in front of me and then people have fallen over me. it took an age to find the emergency stop button for it. i would be very suprised if there hasnt been a serious injury sustained on that escalator.

and the lifts are too small and there arent enough of them. both my trips have been "off peak" so i dread whats its like in peak season.

but saying that, my next trip will still be via eurostar.

 

[NewbieMouse]

Does anyone know if there is also a delay coming into Paris at Gare du Nord on the Eurostar? I hadn't thought of that.

 

[Charlotea]

ahh the lifts and excalators at marne la valle......i have happy memories of them both on 2 previous trips. as good as the eurostar is, the french station is very dangerous. the disney express service is in completley the wrong place. its right next to passport control. so as you climb the excalators you are hit with too many people either queing for passport control or queueing for disney express. on both my trips i have been stuck on an excalator and have fallen over people in front of me and then people have fallen over me. it took an age to find the emergency stop button for it. i would be very suprised if there hasnt been a serious injury sustained on that escalator.

and the lifts are too small and there arent enough of them. both my trips have been "off peak" so i dread whats its like in peak season.

but saying that, my next trip will still be via eurostar.

Oh dear that does not sound good at all! Last time we went we used the Eurostar and we weren't sure how long we'd need to check in so got to the station at 4pm for 6pm departure so no queues then
we will make sure we are there in plenty of time again as we don't want any accidents!

 

[Jonjo]

Does anyone know if there is also a delay coming into Paris at Gare du Nord on the Eurostar? I hadn't thought of that.

This service normaly runs to time. If there is going to be a delay Eurostar will tell you on the train or before boarding.

 

[Sid74]

Hi,

If you can change from coach 18, I would.

I was in coach 18 on my return trip in November. It has the smallest amount of luggage space of all the carriages. I had to put my bags in 2 seperate luggage racks in 2 different carriages.

All it took in my case was 2 families with pushchairs and bags, and there was no more room. 3 different families refused to take their booked seats, as there was nowhere for them to put pushchairs or bags.

There is storage space over the seats, but it is no use if you have anything that is bigger than backpack size.

 

[Charlotea]

Hi,

If you can change from coach 18, I would.

I was in coach 18 on my return trip in November. It has the smallest amount of luggage space of all the carriages. I had to put my bags in 2 seperate luggage racks in 2 different carriages.

All it took in my case was 2 families with pushchairs and bags, and there was no more room. 3 different families refused to take their booked seats, as there was nowhere for them to put pushchairs or bags.

There is storage space over the seats, but it is no use if you have anything that is bigger than backpack size.

thank you very much for that information, we will have three suitcases so have changed to coach 5! This is right next to the food coach so will have people walking through all the time to get there, but at least we will have somewhere to put our cases! This was one of two table seats left so just in time- thanks!

 

[Jonjo]

We are in coach 5 next week seats 45 & 46, table seat with power sockets We had these seats on our last trip and they were fine, handy for the buffet car and the bathroom.

 

[Charlotea]

We are in coach 5 next week seats 45 & 46, table seat with power sockets We had these seats on our last trip and they were fine, handy for the buffet car and the bathroom.

Thanks for your help, and have a great trip!

 

[Charlotea]

We are in coach 5 next week seats 45 & 46, table seat with power sockets We had these seats on our last trip and they were fine, handy for the buffet car and the bathroom.

Thanks for your help, and have a great trip!

 

[Charlotea]

We are in coach 5 next week seats 45 & 46, table seat with power sockets We had these seats on our last trip and they were fine, handy for the buffet car and the bathroom.

Thanks for your help, and have a great trip!

 

[Sid74]

I'm glad you were able to change seats. Just make sure with 3 suitcases you get on the train as soon as possible.

 

[Charlotea]

I'm glad you were able to change seats. Just make sure with 3 suitcases you get on the train as soon as possible.

We will certainly try! When we went last September (with the same amount of cases) we we sat relatively far away from the Travelators up to the platform as we had never travelled by eurostar before, so didn't know where we'd need to sit. I seem to remember being the first on our coach (15 - so quite far down the platform). We must just be fast walkers! They won't be big cases so hopefully we won't have a problem

 

[bethiepops]

Can any one advise are coaches 4 going there and 3 going back any good?

 

[Aussiesonholidays]

I've read about people struggling with their luggage i thought that with Disney express they take your bags at St pancreas then deliver straight to hotel ? As in not having to take them off the Eurostar at Disney Paris ? How does it work as I'm confused now

 

[tennisfan]

I've read about people struggling with their luggage i thought that with Disney express they take your bags at St pancreas then deliver straight to hotel ? As in not having to take them off the Eurostar at Disney Paris ? How does it work as I'm confused now

I understand it that you take your luggage off the train and take it to a desk in the station who will take it to the hotel. You also put the luggage on the train too

 

[HappyPanda]

I've read about people struggling with their luggage i thought that with Disney express they take your bags at St pancreas then deliver straight to hotel ? As in not having to take them off the Eurostar at Disney Paris ? How does it work as I'm confused now

You take your luggage with you on the train to DLP when you get to the station you then take them to the Disney express desk and they will then take them to your hotel for you so that you can go straight to the parks!

 

[Charlotea]

I've read about people struggling with their luggage i thought that with Disney express they take your bags at St pancreas then deliver straight to hotel ? As in not having to take them off the Eurostar at Disney Paris ? How does it work as I'm confused now

yes, as the others have said, you do have to take your luggage on the train. This was quite a challenge on our last trip, as lifting our heavy cases up the steps was difficult because they were very heavy - particularly on the return journey from all the souvenirs!