My wife and I are landing at London Heathrow at 940 AM and wanting to get to Paris quickly by train that same day. What is the best approach to going from LHR to Paris and how much time should be allowed between a 940 AM arrival with risk of flight delay to a booked train ticket to Paris?
Thanks!!!
Go to St Pancras International via the Piccadilly Tube line, then board the Eurostar. You need to be there at least 90 minutes before departure. Why not just fly from LHr?
LHR to St Pancras takes about an hour via tube.
A minimum of five hours if your flight arrives on time
https://www.heathrow.com/transport-and-directions/by-rail-or-train/st-pancras
but if your flight is delayed and you miss the train, put it down as a learning experience
I would just book a flight from LHR to Paris. It will be cheaper, and less hassle.
Eurostar is "all the annoyances of air travel, but slower and more expansive".
Personally, I prefer not to spend an hour on the Piccadilly line if I have other options. If you want the fastest (but most expensive) way, take the Heathrow Express to Paddington (15 mins) and then the Hammersmith and City/Circle line to St Pancras (10 mins). If you want a less expensive but slightly slower way, I would take the Elizabeth line to Farringdon (35 mins) and then go one stop on the Metropolitan/Hammersmith and City/Circle line to St Pancras. These are better options particularly if you have large bags/a lot of luggage with you.
For the Eurostar, I'd aim to arrive 60-90 minutes in advance. The gates close 30 mins before departure. Good luck!
On 16 November there will be no Heathrow Express or Elizabeth Line train running from Heathrow (you find that out when you try to book a HE ticket) so you will be on the tube.
(but the post referenced above seems to have related to last November, on another day when the HE and Elizabeth Line was closed for engineering work)
Thanks all, this is for an early May trip this year, and we wanted to take the train for a few reasons: a) we love trains, b) the last time we took the train was after dark so it would be nice to see the surroundings, and c) flying into London saved us about $850 on the two airline tickets ($600 after all the train tickets) and because we could get a direct flight into London, the extra time to do all this only costs us about 2 hours total time in exchange for $600 and a free train ride.
Booking this far ahead you can get an Earlybird Heathrow Express ticket for £10 each (just checked). Even adding on the tube fare that is faster and cheaper than the Elizabeth Line.
Note the minimum check in time for Eurostar at St Pancras is now 75 minutes, not 90 minutes. It won't harm to be there sooner, but that is the new minimum.
There is no scheduled engineering work on any day in early May to affect your journey.
the last time we took the train was after dark so it would be nice to see the surroundings.
Not to be facetious but… there aren’t any surroundings for a large part of the journey! And the above ground bits aren’t very scenic at all. The landscape is kind of blah, such as it is.
Thanks everyone for this, I did book the Heathrow Express ticket and left plenty of time for the transfer. Thanks!!!
I realize that I’m in the minority here. but I would always need to take the train from London to Paris
In one city or the other you have to get into the city center. London imho has much better options than Paris. once Paris gets their new high-speed direct line from the airport to the city done thar may change but right now commuting to London arrive in the center of Paris would always be my choice.
I'm with Carol. I love the Eurostar and our go to trip was to fly into London and fly out of Paris saving the exorbitant UK airport departure tax. I quite like the countryside on the French side and appreciate the view of the slice of hard scrabble life as you approach the banlieues.
So I'm just now applying for our UK ETA's, do I really need these just to get out of LHR, go to the train station, and depart for Paris by train? Second question, it says 16 GBR for the ETA each, but it's forcing me to pick a processing option with a minimum cost of 79 GBR for each pass? This adds 200 GBR cost to the trip that I hadn't anticipated if accurate?
So I'm just now applying for our UK ETA's, do I really need these just to get out of LHR, go to the train station, and depart for Paris by train? Second question, it says 16 GBR for the ETA each, but it's forcing me to pick a processing option with a minimum cost of 79 GBR for each pass? This adds 200 GBR cost to the trip that I hadn't anticipated if accurate?
Sounds like you’re not on an official site - there shouldn’t be a processing charge for the ETA. What’s the domain name of the site you’re on?
Here’s the official site. It gives you the option of downloading the app or applying on the website. It will always have a gov.uk URL.
And yes, you need an ETA. If you were simply transferring airside at Heathrow to a flight to Paris then you wouldn’t. But you are entering the UK, even if you’re just spending a few hours.
(Just as every British visitor has needed an ESTA to enter the US for many years now, even if we were, for example, getting straight on a train to Canada.)
Thank you Golden Girl - was on Uk-eta.com. Downloaded the official app and that was just $22 US, and super easy process. Thank you!!!
Thank you Golden Girl - was on Uk-eta.com. Downloaded the official app and that was just $22 US, and super easy process. Thank you!!!
Happy to help.
There are a few threads about it on the forum - Googling always brings up those opportunistic sites trying to make money.
For everyone who needs to apply, look for the gov.uk URL.
To be fair, the one you were on says this:
UK-ETA.com is not affiliated with the Government of The United Kingdom. The official website of the UK is https://www.gov.uk/
But it scams the unwary by promising to “simplify” the ETAprocess. Whereas in fact the UK Gov website/app is very cleanly designed and remarkably simple to use.
