Paris to Amsterdam?

Take the Thaly.. book it online.. on the official Thaly site. Its easy fast and can be cheap IF .. and only if you book well in advance.. I think they release tickets for date 2-3 months in advance.. suggest you check by doing a dummy booking..

Done this trip quite a few times. Three hours city center to city center.. no hassles with commuting to airports etc.

Other than Thalys what are the various train options going from Paris to Amsterdam? I was under the impression that Thalys is the only option.

The "Travel Tips" section of this website includes advice on how to plan train travel, and a link to the DB Bahn site showing train times all over the continent. Using that site, and picking a random day next week, I found only Thalys providing direct service between Paris and Amsterdam, with no changes. There are alternatives where you change in various cities, but why do that if your plans don't include them? Thalys takes just over three hours, tickets start selling 90 days before travel, when they're the cheapest. We took it from Amsterdam to Paris last year and had a great experience (except for sitting facing backward which I didn't enjoy).

If your confusion has to do with the various rail passes and different ways to buy tickets online, welcome to the club! If you're just looking at the one trip from Paris to Amsterdam, then a pass would be a waste of money.

Thalys is the only direct train (as well as it's part of any train departure connecting at Brussels). You can buy reserved advance-discount tickets starting three months ahead (when the best prices go on sale) at http://ricksteves.raileurope.com/us/rail/point_to_point/triprequest.htm, which has the same prices as the Thalys site, but probably fewer credit card approval issues.

agree on Thalys. Also, if you are traveling on a weekend, you may find a significant first class fare discount.

I just made a round-trip from Paris to Amsterdam, and I booked with Capitainetrain.com (as I usually do for most destinations from Paris). All trains from Paris to Amsterdam leave from Paris Nord station and are Thalys trains.
Because I booked a few weeks ahead, I was able to buy 1st-class seats for less than 2nd-class ones. The trip is about 3 hours and 15 minutes.
I love Capitainetrain.com , which works closely with the French SNCF system. Capitaine is more user-friendly, and their prices are identical to SNCF or Thalys fares.

Btw, Capitaine accepts most credit cards as well as Paypal. Their customer service is excellent (although I don't doubt that Rick Steves's is also top-notch).

The Thalys can be booked 3 mos in advance and the tickets are about a third the price of tickets purchased close to the time of travel. It takes about 3.5 hours. First class is not worth it unless you can get a very reduced price. I always book directly with thalys -- it sometimes takes a few swings to get the credit card accepted but it has always worked. Contact the credit card company before you start as the fraud triggers are annoyingly high and we find we get hassled or blocked when booking international tickets unless we do that.