Getting Through Customs at Charles de Gaulle

By “customs” I presume you really mean Immigratipn/Passport Control. Well, unless you have an EU passport, you are likely, very likely, to be faced with a long queue ahead of you. An 8:00 am arrival, if on time, means you cannot disembark and get to the immigration queue before 8:15, at the soonest. So going through P. Control and finding your way to the train by 9:10 would take a lot of luck. Can you change your train ticket?

PS Will you have checked baggage to pick up? If do, add another 10 or 15 minutes to whole affair

Thank you so very much. First time in France and we will have 2 carry ons but also a backpack with "biking clothes" for a barge and bike after 10 days of traveling around France. We are following Rick's itinerary somewhat and I have reserved train travel but haven't bought the tickets yet. I appreciate your quick response. There is another train 2 hours later which we should hopefully make.

I have reserved train travel but haven't bought the tickets yet.

If you are buying normal tickets (not a pass), then the tickets include reserved seats where required. You only need to reserve seats as a separate transaction if you are using a rail pass.

For a random date in August I see:

Aeroport Paris-Charles de Gaulle TGV 09:19, 2h20, 1 change, Amboise(St-Pierre) 11:39
Aeroport Paris-Charles de Gaulle TGV 11:19, 3h01, 1 change, Amboise(St-Pierre) 14:20

No way you would make the 09:19, I would go for the 11:19.

Oh, good! The 11:19 means you can use the loo, go through Immigratipn, pick up your gear, and meander to the train. Hope you will love France.

I went through immigration 2 weeks ago. The plane arrived about 11 am. I spent 10 minutes total, and most of that was walking to the area through the airport. I wasn't asked one question. Passport stamped and on my way.

I went through CDG passport control on 6/4 and it took about 30 min of waiting in line. But it took at least 30 min to de-board the plane (and I’m not slow). Then it took about 15 min of walking to get to the line for passport control. Then, it took at least 45 min to get my checked bag. So, as Norma and Chris said, I do not think you can get the 9:19 train. The 11:19, yes.

Not feasible. Book the 11:19 and hope that your plane arrives on time.

The good news is that luggage carts are free! which will help you with transporting your stuff from baggage claim to the train station.

The recommended time gap to be relatively sure of making a train from CDG is 3 hours after ETA so your 11+ train is just right. You might whip through immigration in 15 minutes but the only time we have done that in Paris is when traveling business class (they have a faster line) and then we waited for baggage quite a while. We have averaged about an hour; there have been a couple of posts here where people took almost 2 hours to get through. The wait for luggage is often fairly long and again business luggage comes up first. You have almost no chance of making a 9:19 plane; you are almost certain to make the 11 am plane although there is always some risk when booking tight like this. Planes do come in late. Our last couple have been on time, but before that we had 8 in a row to Europe that were late -- most by a half hour to an hour but one by 5 hours.