Seating on Eurostar

katz,

THIS chart might help. It appears that with the Coach 7 configuration from London to Paris you'll be sitting facing the back (if I'm reading the charts correctly).

I'm surprised that you weren't given a choice when you bought the tickets. Eurostar.com normally shows a seating diagram and allows you to choose as you buy the tickets.

Coach 7 is allocated to either Business Premier or Standard Premier. It is 7 coaches from the London end and 12 from the front of the train when it arrives in Paris.

Seats 13 and 14 are the first row of seats at the Paris end of the coach, next to the luggage area and the doors to the platform. They are side by side at a 4 person table, backwards to Paris, facing London, at the far end of the coach from the toilet and the way through to the bar car.

If you haven't seen the seating plan, here is a copy of one from The Man in Seat 61's dropbox collection: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/30006269/trainseatplans/Eurostarseatplan_UK.pdf

Thanks Ken and Nigel for the links.

I don't know how the OP booked, but FWIW I did not get a choice of seats. I booked London to Brussels with an ongoing Thalys train to Amsterdam and booked thru SNCB. Looks like I am riding backwards too.

Nigel, thanks also for the info on the train set up. It's always easier entering an unfamiliar situation when you are armed with information.

Also, thanks to the OP for posting this question. It is one I didn't think to ask and would probably have been surprised when I boarded.

Nigel and Ken,

Thanks for the info..So i changed our seats to 17 and 18 in carriage 8 so we are now facing forward towards Paris. Are these seats undesirable because we are sharing the table with other people? There are no other seats together facing Paris.

thanks!

We have always enjoyed sharing a table with other - they are usually not strangers for long!

Hi Chrsiti,

Great attitude and thanks for the feedback.

only if you don't like them.

When we use Standard Premier we prefer the single pair of seats facing each other - what they used to call a Cote Duo, but I think that phrase may be passing - so that we have our own little sort of private area without any adjoining seats, but true be told, when the train starts moving we usually ask if we can move to one of the vacant 4 seater tables. They have much more room, especially when what now passes for the meal arrives. There isn't much room one a Cote Duo for a tablet, let alone a laptop or paper after the tray arrives.

Ken and Nigel, thanks from me too for that seating chart, now safely stowed away for future reference.

katz,

You would have also been facing other people across the table in your original seats in Car 7. Aside from facing forward on the trip to Paris, there's little difference in your new seating arrangement.