How much time to allow to get to St Pancras to take the Eurostar to Paris?

Kay,

You can check the tube schedule on tfl.gov.uk. Use the journey planner and the advanced option to enter the date of travel, time and your trip. It will come back with your options and the duration of the trip. Allow extra time. The tube can be delayed.

Keep in mind that you need to check-in for Eurostar 30 minutes before departure. Eurostar has airport style security.

Thank all who answered & helped me figure out this question. I feel much better now. I will book my ticked right away. Thanks again.

I think the first Eurostar to Paris is 6.30am. We caught that one. However, knowing we were doing this trip, we stayed within walking distance of St. Pancras Station. This could be a good option for you if you haven't organised accommodation yet.

On weekdays the first Eurostar departs at 05:25 and the next one departs at 06:55. On Saturdays the first train departs at 06:22 and the next one departs at 06:55. On Sundays the first train departs at 08:26.

The first Victoria Line train leaves Victoria at 05:34 and arrives at King's Cross/St Pancras at 05:44. Taking that one would give you time to catch the 06:55 Eurostar.

You can take a night bus from Victoria to King's Cross in time to catch the 05:25 Eurostar. Bus N73 runs every 15 minutes and the trip takes 24 minutes.

Thank you all for this helpful information. One of my questions is never being there before, once I get off at St. Pancras, is it hard to find the right place to go to check in and how long should I allow for this? Also, do you recommend I buy my tickets in the US & print them out or wait? Is Eurostar the best site to purchase them? I read somewhere that if you have a Saver Pass you can get a Eurostar discount, I did not see where there was a place that asked this when I was testing the site out. Thank you.

Kay ,, you really should buy your Eurostar tickets as soon as possible. Price will be a high as they can get at station. Prices start out cheapish,, ( I am paying 80 GBP return) for June, booked 3 weeks ago, and that was not the lowest available but next tier up!)

I bought on the Eurostar site and printed off confirmation to pick ticket up at station,

If you wait till day of travel you can easily be paying in the hundreds for those tickets.

The Eurostar check-in is well signposted - about halfway up the station going north to south.

As Pat says, book your Eurostar tickets ASAP (up to 120 days in advance) at www.eurostar.com to have the best chance of getting the lowest discount fare. I suggest that you save some time by printing your own tickets.

Yes, there is a special passholder fare for people who have the right kind of railpass, but it is more expensive than the lowest discount fare for a point-to-point ticket.

According to the Journey Planner on the Transport for London site, it's about a 7-minute walk from the King's Cross/St Pancras Underground station to St Pancras International.

As others have said, you must check in at least 30 minutes in advance for the Eurostar and you will go through security and passport control.

St Pancras International has its own Web site. Go here. You can take a video tour of the station.

Kay, the London stations are large, so give yourself a few extra minutes to sort things out.

Also, the rush hour Tube in central London is very busy. Not so much at 5 or 6 in the morning, but if you do travel later bear in mind that you might need to wait on a second train in order to find room. Trains run at very frequent intervals on those lines, so the wait should be very short.

And, if you're hauling luggage around, the Tube stops can involve a lot of walking and stairway traversing. Elevators will be there, somewhere. On weekends, it is common for a number of Tube lines and stations to be closed for maintenance. Notice boards are posted at the entrance to most Tube stations on Friday, and the info is posted on the London Transport site.

There are very few elevators on the London Underground - it's mostly escalators which are less convenient with heavy luggage. The only stations with elevators are the stations built or rebuilt in the last few years after the Disability Discrimination Act and a few older stations built before the 1920s that kept their original elevators because they were little-used or because (as at Covent Garden) the surface site was too small to install escalators.

Lots of info about using the Eurostar service.

http://www.seat61.com/London-Paris-train.htm

I believe you required to check in thirty minutes early for the Eurostar because you have go through an airport type of security screening.

All the above is good advice.

Having taken a recent journey from the Victoria Line to the Eurostar gates, I agree with what was said above.

The 30 minute check-in is an absolute minimum. You can pretty much guarantee that there will be a queue to the ticket reader machines, and you are not in until your ticket has gone through the machine.

Coming off the Victoria Line there are several choices of paths. Its well signed but a wrong turn will take you lots of minutes out of the way.

Once you get your ticket through the machine you will have luggage x-ray and personal examination, followed by immigration. More queues there. Then a waiting room with free wifi and very few nibbles.

Advise is to stock up on food at the loads of places BEFORE you check in. Cheap and plentiful, compared with what you can get on the train.

When your train is called you go up to the floor above where your train awaits. Be sure to know your carriage number, you need to go in the carriage and seats you have reserved. The train is a quarter of a mile long, so you may have a bit of a walk.

All that aside, it is a fantastic way to travel.

Just get there with plenty of time in hand. More time = less stress.

Thank you everybody for your help. I have now booked my ticket and think I got a time that we would not be rushed & would allow for a wrong turn or so too.

These replies are very helpful. Thank you.
Another question: the ticket I printed out is on a regular size paper. Do I cut out the ticket portion to go into this "machine" or do I go somewhere after I get there to get a "real" ticket in exchange?

Kay, if the ticket you printed out has a barcode on it, that is what you use in the reader at the station. I used the whole ticket, thinking the other info on that page may come in handy. The barcode is a scrambled-looking thing about 1 1/2" square. I just looked at the ticket I used last month; you should keep the whole thing to use at the station.

Gatekeepers will want to check that you are on the right train, so they will read the part of the ticket that says which train, etc. At St Pancras, there are clear signs pointing to the Eurostar entrance.

There are several barcode-reading devices for entering the station. The gate will open after you pass your ticket over the reader, then you will go thru passport control and security before entering the waiting room. Overhead signs show which door to the train you should use. Your coach number on your ticket tells you which door exiting the waiting room to use. Then when you get to the train, look for your coach number and seat number. It's mostly just following the crowd. Your luggage can be stored at the end of the coach or overhead. Sometimes there is room between seats for small bags.

Once you have gone thru this procedure, it will seem simple and logical.

BTW, if you are taking an early train on a Sunday, you may need to take a taxi to St Pancras. The Tube starts running later on Sundays. Check Tube hours in advance so you will be prepared. There is not much traffic early Sunday mornings, so it doesn't take long or cost much for a taxi.

Thank you SOOOO much. It makes me not so nervous to know all these things ahead of time.