We are arriving in Paris at 9:30am on a Sunday from New York and will need to go through customs. We want to take the train from the airport to Amsterdam. We will be there Sunday afternoon/evening to Monday afternoon. From there, we are taking a train back to Paris to stay until Saturday. Question, what is the best route to take? Do you think the traveling back-and-forth is worth the quick trip to Amsterdam. We have never been to Europe and would love to visit Amsterdam if possible but our main purpose is to visit Paris. Any help would be great, thanks!
Posted by
Rick Steves' Europe
16895 posts
No, although I love Amsterdam, I would not spend the time and money on trains for this overnight visit. CDG to Amsterdam is an expensive train ticket, whether you take a TGV departing directly from CDG to Brussels and connect there or whether you take the local RER into Paris Gare du Nord and Thalys train from there. These train tickets are only sold for specific dates, times, and seat assignments. If you pre-purchase a ticket (which is usually cheaper) and then miss the train, you'd have to buy a new ticket at the full fare of about $150 one way in 2nd class. The minimum connection time that I'd allow at CDG is 3 hours, but that still goes "out the window" if you have any significant flight delay.
Posted by
Edmonds, WA 🌨 ☂
12000 posts
Any chance to re-arrange your flights, so you fly into one city and fly out of the other and take the train just once? This way you could have at least a whole day to be there.
For the ~8 hours you are planning to be in Amsterdam ( excluding sleep), I would not spend the time to do the commute.
Posted by
Boston
4132 posts
It's not worth it. But if I absolutely had to do it, I would look into flying.
Posted by
Windsor, Ontario, Canada
4091 posts
If you don't know the procedure, use a multi-city search function to fly into Amsterdam and home from Paris (or vice versa). It shouldn't cost much more and saves a lot of time. These are not a set of one-way tickets. Your idea of a long flight, time waiting for border security checks (customs is usually a walk-through once you have retrieved your luggage), then riding the train to another country and thinking you will actually enjoy less than 24 hours in Amsterdam is, frankly, a flight of fancy. Give Amsterdam a decent look by staying at least a couple of days.