Connecting through Paris CDG from Canada

This is easier to navigate for a solo traveler.
That said since Its your 1st time and you are a party of 4 Its a gamble.
Your flight might be delayed from Canada.

For example I was on a flight delayed 2 hours; the delay caused me to miss another flight that I bought separately;

since I did not book the plane with the same airline that caused the delay, I had to buy another ticket.

Please look to pay a little more and look at other airlines with direct flights to Prague from CDG 4 hours later. or after 12:00.

Or book your flight all the way to Prague with the same airline and its codeshares that way they are liable in case you miss the connection.

I think the 2 hour connection is a very close call. Flight delays are common. Passport control can have very long lines at CDG for non-EU passengers, particularly at peak season. Add on bathroom breaks and you'll be challenged. The 4 hour window is more reasonable but I personally would not do it. I'm the one who stays a night just to avoid connection stress. And a night in Paris ain't bad!

Once when making a similar transfer, CDG airport staff directed me to the bus/navette that drives around the outside of the airport. Or at least that's how I interpreted their directions. And that does put you outside of security. The bus itself is also slow, so try to avoid it. Another time, my flight has departed SEA and arrived CDG an hour late, and another time CDG passport control took 45 minutes, causing me and others to miss our connections.

Is there a significant cost savings using Easy Jet CDG to Prague or some other benefit to not booking Toronto to Prague on one ticket? Air Canada has a flight connecting in Brussels to a code share Brussels Air to Prague or Delta connecting at AMS with a code share KLM to Prague.

There is almost no chance of making that flight. Remember Easyjet closes check in 40 minutes before the flight, so you have even less time to connect. A plane half an hour late (8 or our last 10 European flights have been late, one by 5 hours) or two jumbo jets ahead of you in the immigration line and there you are. I would never book a flight on a separate ticket with less than 4 hours between unless I was casual about tearing up the ongoing ticket and buying a new one -- which seems unlikely with 4 people traveling. I would book 4 hours later and then if your plane is early and immigration takes 15 minutes don't whine about it but laugh and go get lunch.

I am curious why you didn't book to Prague so you would have been on a protected connection.

Thanks for all the replies. Yes, I agree it would have been better to book it all on one ticket but there is a reason for this. We bought the tickets to Paris sort of on a whim as they were very cheap, and we were planning to spend a few days in Paris and a few elsewhere. We felt the fare would go up considerably so we bought the tickets to Paris and decided to take our time discussing where and how to get to our other destination. The initial plan was to head to the south of Spain, but upon doing copious amounts of research we determined we wouldn't have enough time to see everything we wished to, so we decided to go to Prague and save Spain for another time. That, and we are planning on 4 full days in Prague, and 4 full days in Paris, so all of those connections (DEN-YYZ-CDG-PRG-CDG-YUL-DEN) would be hard to book on one ticket. So obviously the easyJet flight isn't an option. The price difference is ~$300 more for the later flight which leaves at 12:45. Is that a safe amount of time? There is a middle ground (in price) option which leaves at 2:50pm, but we were hoping to not have to spend 6hrs at CDG airport.

Mark

That is understandable we all have seized good fares and booked separate tickets
Go for the 12;45 that is enough time.

Checkin online the night before and print boarding passes so that is one less thing to do.

the thing about budget airlines is they really really don't care -- you probably have enough time to make the 12:45 but if you have bad luck, you will be out of luck. It is smart to finish the trip in Paris, so it is a risk I would take -- but it would make me crazy until I was on board.

janettravels44 you may have been traumatized by your experience with Budget airlines;
they do care. You just can't have champagne taste and settle with a beer pocket book.

The 12:45 flight is on Czech Airlines (Operated by AirFrance) so I don't think that would qualify as budget.

If Plan A was Spain and Plan B Prague, you may want to consider a Plan C and stay in France. The cost and worry of an Easy Jet flight to/from Prague may not be worth the benefit.

https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/france/itinerary

Depending on the length of your trip, and taking geographic proximity
into account, here are my recommended priorities:

• 3 days: Paris, maybe Versailles
• 6 days, add: Normandy
• 8 days, add: Loire

If you have only a week and it's your first trip to France, do Paris,
Normandy, and the Loire

Good choice higuys23 I took Czech Airlines From London To Prague in 2003.

Finally I know there really is no such thing as a budget airline it is more about price especially on short flights.

If you choose to spend your money with an airline don't forget to read about the services offered so you don't have other expectations and to follow the rules about checkin and baggage allowance.