London or Paris first?

Compare a RT ticket to London plus a RT train ticket to Paris against all the other options. Worked well for us a couple times. 2 days in London, 4 in Paris, then 2 more in London or something similar.

Hello Tamara,

I would price it out on skyscanner.com or kayak.com. See if there is much a difference in price. I personally prefer to fly into Charles de Gaulle or Gatwick rather than Heathrow. If you see an affordable option to fly into Gatwick grab it, most Brits consider it the better of the two. Any of the above airports have express shuttle trains connecting them to the city. You will need to book the Eurostar for the chunnel well in advance. Paris is a little more affordable than London, so if you are worried you will spend too much in England go to Paris first. Otherwise, go with the one that makes you feel more comfortable for the start of your trip.

Paris is wonderful! I love the food, art, language, people, the everything. Don't forget to try as much French as you can and remember...the French person speaking English may be just as nervous as you trying to speak French. Bonne Chance et Bon Voyage!

Consider flying open jaw. Into London and out of Paris. This way, you won't incur the expense of a round trip train ticket. You'll only need a one way train ticket.

I would fly into London, because if you then end your trip in Paris and fly out of Paris, you will avoid the "departure tax" that you pay from one of the London airports. Saving the departure tax and half of your train fare (one way ticket instead of round trip) could save you some money.

Thanks for all the great tips everyone! I'll have to price out all these options.

On my trips, both a couple of years back, the open jaw cost more than the sum of RT to London plus the train fare. Not much more but I detest Chucky D airport so it was a double advantage. If there is any departure tax it's in the ticket price and not on top of the ticket price as I have been through Heathrow a dozen times and never paid a tax. But if you can get a cheaper open jaw and don't mind Chucky D, then that's the way to go.

Yes, the London departure tax is in the total ticket pirice.
But it is there.
If you set up various flight options using British Air, their site has a click for the flight that will reveal the complete fair breakdown, and you can see that departure tax added to the flight that is leaving (not on connecting flights) from the London airport. Last time I saw this, over US $100.

Some of the advice so far might not be germane:

. Last year was the last time a U. S. scheduled carrier went into Gatwick. Using that airport is probably out unless you fly BA which, I think, flies out of Tampa, but usually doesn't have the best price on many routes.

. Too much is made of the British departure tax. It's based on distance to the initial destination, but only amounts to about seventy bucks for a flight to the United States. Regardless, it's included in the price of the ticket along with many other costs that determine the fare. The bottom line shows up on any fare search - - go by that only.

. There are enough of us around who speak French either as a native language, or as though it were. Regardless of our impeccable, unaccented, idiomatic, spiffy command of the language, responses to us in the tourist areas are invariably in excellent English. We don't care which language we use, but it's only when we're trying to find a left-handed retaining nut for a lawnmower blade that French becomes necessary. People serving tourists just want to get the job done and really don't care to fiddle around with somebody who's bumbling in a language they can't speak. A tenet of foreign travel is to find the language that works best (even if it's as third one) and get on with your business.

With such a short trip, you have two considerations: time and money.

The Eurostar eats up about a half day each way, perhaps obviating the desirability of riding it twice in favor of a multi-city itinerary.

Figure that London will cost you half again as much as Paris, maybe a bit more if you aren't careful.

I use Roissy and Heathrow several times a year and don't find either to be better/easier than the other and neither is at all difficult. Both require about the same amount of time and money to get to the city centers.

It should take you about ten minutes to make the sequence decision:

Get five figures:

1. RT Tampa to Paris
2. RT Tampa to London
3. MC Tampa, London / Paris, Tampa
4. MC Tampa, Paris / London, Tampa
5. Eurostar prices, round trip and one-way

Use LON and PAR in your searches to make sure that you cover all airports in each city so that some odd thing doesn't pop up at Orly or Gatwick that you'd miss if you used just LHR and CDG.

Build your package. Remember the time factor.

Ed has stole my thunder. His suggestion on getting 5 figures is what I was going to suggest.

It's too early to be sure of June prices but I used www.itasoftware.com for a test. Flying Tampa-CdG and London Gatwick-Tampa came in at around $1580 on American/British Air. The reverse, Tampa-London and CdG-Tampa, came in at around $1660. Those fares include all airport and airline charges. If there is some extra surcharge collected in London at the gate, I will be glad to here more details, because Internet forums such as this one are the only places that seem to know about it. (To be clear, frequent flyer tickets sometimes include extra charges, especially on BA/American, but those are collected by the airline, not the airport.)
A simple round trip to London is about the same as the multi-destination ticket but you lose the travel time and train price of returning to London for your return.

Thanks again, everyone. Since no one has specific warnings about leaving from or arriving to either airport, I will plan to price it out and go with the less expensive option. We will most likely do the multi destination option because spending more time in each place is more important to us. I appreciate the time you all took to give good feedback!

Do you have some flexibility in dates or are you stuck with a schoolteacher's schedule? If you can move the trip up to May, you can sometimes save $350-$400 per ticket because departing on, say, May 14 or 15 puts the ticket on less expensive spring pricing schedules instead of peak season summer fares. Weather is still generally spring pleasant that time of year too.