Too much in one day?

Depending on day of the week, it's a minimum of an hour via public transport (including some changes depending on route) to get to the airport, plus another hour getting back to Gare du Nord to get to Eurostar. All of it with all of your luggage, which is not that much fun in my opinion. Your daughter needs to be at the airport minimum 3 hours early and you need to be at Eurostar at least 90 minutes before your train departs, plus the 4 hour journey to Amsterdam.

Is it not an option to put your daughter in a cab to the airport and save yourselves a lot of time and hassle?

Thanks, that's all really helpful! So, 3 hours early at Charles du Gaulle for an international flight?

Absolutely 3 hours ahead at CDG, especially in August (peak travel) and the unknown time for EES (or not) and just that it takes a long while to get bags checked and to your gate at the airport (based on my experience at terminal 2).

Thank you! What is EES?

At many airports people are finding that the transition to the EES system is causing delays, and as we don't know where the pain points are likely to be, dare I suggest that you try to get to CDG even earlier than 3 hours? I think it would be worse to miss a plane because of EES queues than to be a little early and potentially killing time quaffing a coffee airside.

Getting your daughter to the airport early would suit your plans also to make sure you can get to the Eurostar on time.

Lavandula

A correction to CL's post regarding the Eurostar train from Gare du Nord to Amsterdam. Since you will not be going through passport control you only need to be at the station about 20 minutes before departure to find your carriage.

When to arrive at the station

What is EES?

https://travel-europe.europa.eu/ees/what-is-the-ees

Entry/exit system to arrive and leave Schengen zone countries. I'd Google it and check the news of the nightmare of lineups at airports it's causing.

EES is a scheme to collect biometric data at the Schengen border. Sometimes there have been delays of up to 5 hours in the EES queues. I went through it in Zürich last November: the normal conversation with a border guard, and then looked into a camera and placed 4 fingers on an electronic pad. It was very quick and I experienced no delays there. However when I left Schengen, it was through Brussels and clearly it was a busy time of the day. My biometric data was not scanned there (Dec 2025). EDIT: I might add that this was before the EES had been introduced formally; Switzerland seems to have been collecting early.

The principle is good - it will eventually speed up travel, and protect countries from illegal migration, but the execution has been difficult because they basically have to coordinate 28 countries who all work differently (herding cats).

Lavandula

janeirwin,
No LESS than 3 hours before your daughter's flight. Get her there at 8:00 a.m. If all goes well and she has a longer wait to board, better than cutting things close or missing her flight. She can text you when she gets to her gate. No sense dragging your bags around to and from CDG.

jeanm thank you for the correction, I was thinking about my going to London experience. Apologies to the OP.

Is your daughter old enough to travel to the airport on her own? If you pre book and prepay on the G7 taxi app she won’t be overcharged and won’t owe anything (other than a small tip) when she gets to the airport.

No need to return to Paris to take the train to Amsterdam. There is a SNCF TGV to Brussels almost every hour where you change to the Eurostar to Amsterdam. This is more efficient.

Make sure your daughter knows which terminal at CDG she is departing from.

Janeirwin, One tool I have found incredibly helpful in our travel planning as of late is to ask this question on the google search engine and gemini--google's AI will help you determine a possible timeline for moving from one place to another. this still needs to be verified of course on the web to ensure the AI isn't hallucinating, but it provides a good starting point. have a wonderful time in europe!

Thanks to everyone for your very helpful replies!!