Plane to Train

I made a train connection at CDG like that in April with time to spare. However, it could be a bit tight if several fully loaded flights arrive at the same time, so... - Only bring carry-on baggage. - Try to get a seat as close to the front of the plane as possible so you can be one of the first passengers to de-board. - Run (or at least walk as fast as you possibly can) to Passport Control. - If there's a long line when you get there, quietly ask other people if they would kindly let you move ahead, or if there's an official-looking person, ask if s/he can expedite you through so you can make your tight connection. - Study the airport map in advance so you have an idea how to get down to the train station (it's fairly well signed). - Once in the train station watch the monitors carefully for your train and when it shows the Track (Voie) number, go down to the designated platform and board the train.
- Collapse into your seat, take a few deep breaths, relax and enjoy the ride.

Dantae,last time I landed at CDG(December 2012) it took 90 minutes to get through the non-EU Passport Control line. Asking people to let you go to the head of the queue because you are in a hurry may get you a few places ahead but not to the front. (Of course, if you have a EU passport you'll get through in a flash!) Is there no other train for you but the 2:09?

I wouldn't risk it. Even if your flight arrives on time and you get through immigration/passport control relatively quickly, you will have to stand in line at a ticket window at the TGV station to validate your rail pass. Lines can be long.

thanks for all the feedback but i'm a bit scared...I will have one carry on that I can't not have so I will have to go to baggage claim...I'm in row 24 on the plane which is the 6th row in economy...no EU passport...it would mess things up alot if I took a later train. Does it really take that long to validate the tickets? Also, does it make things alot worse if I'm getting in on a Sunday(12:30)?

.......Also, I get in at terminal 2E which is only a 5 minute walk from the Train station (as it says on airfrance.com)

....and it's mid july when i'll be going

How much worse does it mess things up if you don't make the train and have to take the next one anyway, plus buy a new ticket at walk-up prices? You're asking a question now that you should have thought of a long time ago. The idea of moving up the immigration line by begging is going to come to a screeching halt the first time you're told to buzz off. What if you park on the tarmac and have to bus in, if it takes close to an hour for the luggage to show up, if the plane is late, if you misread one sign, if you have to go to the bathroom, if anything else is less than perfect? You're grasping at straws with the five-minute walk notion - - you can get to the tgv station from anywhere in T2 A-F in about ten minutes if your butt's on fire, that's not the problem. Nor is where your are on the plane - - most empty in fifteen minutes. I know that airport as well as I know my little six-gate one. Sometimes I'm sitting in a rental car thirty minutes after the aircraft door opens. It's also taken two hours to get to the same point. I might try it without checked baggage, but not if I had much invested in a train ticket.

Hahaha! You may be a beggar but I'm not. And people may respond to you by telling you to 'buzz off', but that has never happened to me in decades of domestic and international travel, for both business and pleasure. My experience is: if you give kindness and courtesy, you get them in return. Dantae, there are 4 variables possibly going against you in this situation: 1. Your arrival could be later than scheduled. 2. The Passport Control line could be very long if multiple fully loaded international flights arrive about the same time.
3. Your baggage takes a long time to come in from the plane. 4. There's a line at the TGV window to validate your pass, and don't you just know it - there's a big family in front of you that has a complicated situation and it takes a while for the attendant to process them, especially if there's a language barrier. I was optimistic for you earlier because I had no difficulty beating my similar deadline in April, but now that you've said you'll have checked baggage, I think it could be tough. I didn't have to stand in line to validate a pass, but I did have to check in at the Air France desk in the train station to get my Thalys boarding pass checked. I was on a combined Air France plane > train ticket so my situation was a little different than yours. I was the only person waiting at the train station AF ticket office and it took only a couple minutes for them to validate and stamp my boarding pass. Best of luck!

Thanks!

Of course people will tell you to buzz off, at least some of them, if you ask to get to the front of the queue at Immigration. Practically everyone in the line has an urgent reason to get to the Passport Control guy and get the heck out of there. I can tell you that during my 90 minute wait in line last December if anyone had tried to get ahead of anyone else an unpleasant scene would have ensued.

dantae, Before you go into further conniptions looking for something you don't have ('sign in or however you say it'), you don't have a pre-existing ticket stamped and validated at an Air France desk in the train station with the fly/ride combo. If that's what you've done, you don't have the ticket yet so don't bother looking for it. It's essentially just another e-ticket - - a code that exists in a computer somewhere and now you have to get what amounts to a boarding pass. What you do is go to the tgvair counter in the station. Show them your flight itinerary and they'll give you the actual ticket which will be good for the rest of the trip. If you've lost that sucker, they'll cough you up one if you flash them some identification. Cross that one off your list of things to worry about - - except that it's another line and a lot of people from several airlines are going to be doing the same thing. If you're not working the fly/train program and have a separate train ticket, you have to go through the validation process that Tim mentioned. I've never done that as far as advance ticket goes. I have bought tickets at the station a couple of times and the line was long; I've no idea if the lines I was in were also validation lines.

One more thought and it's pure conjecture: If you have a fly/ride deal, it might be that it implies some kind of known connection feasibility time. Just like a missed flight connection on one ticket, there might be an obligation to toss you on the next train out at no cost. If that's the case, the gamble might pay off as far as money, but not your time crunch. I've no idea where the answer might be. Tim???

Ed, Dantae has a rail pass which means he will have to stand in line at a regular ticket window to have it validated. Dantae, Have you already bought your seat reservation for the 14:09 train? If not, are you aware that SNCF (French National Rail) limits the number of seat reservations it allocates for pass holders? If those seats are gone when you get to CDG, you will either have to buy a regular full fare ticket or take a different train. Where are you going? It's possible you will have more departure times from which to choose if you go into Paris and depart from there. That way you would avoid a possible long wait for the next train departing from CDG that goes to your destination.

I found a way that I wont have to have any checked luggage. It would mess up the trip a bit because I already bought a THREE day pass which means that if I took a later train (which is 4 hrs later) I'd have to buy it full price. If I have to, I have to but obviously would rather not spend more money. I also called air france and the woman told me that they usually tell people that a normal flight connection should be an hour and a half and that's when it takes 90 mins to walk to the next terminal...that's what she said adding that it looks like I could make the 2:09 train. I realize that I have to go through customs and validate the pass but if I don't have any checked luggage I should be okay for that train, right? ...and if I as ever so sweetly to go further on the line at customs?

I'm going to Lourdes. Thanks for the suggestion about going into the city of Paris. I was trying to avoid that because I don't speak french but it's better than missing the connection! And thanks Rose for all the long detailed responses!

Okay, Dante! More scoop always reveals a work-around. Don't sweat the language. The trains for Lourdes leave from Gare Montparnasse. I don't know what the schedule is, but it's going to be about a six hour run. Worst case, you should be able to chug in by midnight. The RER and TGV stations are collocated at the airport. The run from Roissy to G Montparnasse should take about an hour if you know exactly what you're doing. You don't. Here's the gumball. You need to switch from the RER B to Metro 4 at Chatelet-Les Halles which bills itself as the largest underground train station in the world. It can be a mess, but you can work through it. Allow yourself an extra fifteen minutes or so and follow the signs. One ticket gets you the whole way. You'll actually get off the metro at Montparnasse-Bienvenue and have to hike the tunnel over to the SNCF side. That little bit is only about five minutes and I've already plugged that factor into the hour and fifteen minutes cumulative time. Hold on to the ticket you bought at the airport until you get all the way out of the rer/metro system. You'll still have to deal with the pass validation system and everhow the reservations work - - that's beyond me.

Dantae, I've got all my fingers crossed for you. Changing to carry-on baggage gives you a better chance, as long as your flight arrives on time. My last international flight landed about 20 minutes early. One other thing I've seen happen on 2 trips in the past couple years - once at CDG and once in Rome FCO - a uniformed person was near the non-EU Passport Control line (the one you'll go through) and was taking families with strollers/children and lots of luggage to an alternate line to help get them through faster. At CDG there were some people in line near me who were visibly very anxious about their connection. We encouraged them to speak to the uniformed officer. He looked at their connecting boarding pass and expedited them through. Nobody else around me seemed to mind. It never hurts to make your need known.

EDIT: Oh, crikey!!! I didn't bother looking up the skeds for Lourdes; I was assuming it was a direct train from CDG. Absolutely No Way! Sorry :-( No. Reread the above. I've done a similar thing several times and I know exactly what I'm doing...with No Checked Baggage. Checked baggage really makes this a no-go. Sure, you MIGHT pull this off...but as already pointed out, what happens if you don't? My last flight to Paris arrived on time, but didn't get to a gate until 30-minutes later :-( When there are 2+ airplanes full of 'foreigners' going through passport control, it takes awhile...I understand your wanting to get to your destination ASAP, but I would take a later train and Just Relax at the airport. There's plenty of places for food, drink, and shopping. Plus, the people watching is pretty fascinating - it's like the United Nations, to boot! Bonus! Do you like running through a strange airport, panicked?!? At the beginning of your European vacation?!? Ugh...

If you wait until you get to CDG to buy seat reservations on the 14:09 TGV and they are gone, you will pay €97.00 for a 2nd class ticket from CDG to Bordeaux. The Bordeaux-Lourdes leg will be on a regional train so you can simply hop on and show your pass. I recommend that you save yourself the anxiety - and potential extra expense - of planning to take the 14:09 TGV. Instead, go into Paris and head straight for Gare Montparnasse. Either put your bag in the left luggage facilities there or haul it with you as you explore the area around the station on foot. Go to the top of the Montparnasse Tower for a great view of the Eiffel Tower. Take the direct TGV from Gare Montparnasse to Lourdes, departing at 17:25 and arriving at 23:28. Go to raileurope.com and buy a seat reservation for that train ASAP. It will cost more than buying one at Gare Montparnasse, but you'll know you have a guaranteed seat. Validate your rail pass at Gare Montparnasse. While you're exploring the area around the station, go shopping for food to eat on the train and have yourself a picnic - complete with wine if you so desire. Sit back, relax, and have a stress-free ride.

Thanks Tim. I just looked at the Rail Europe website and am going to buy tickets for that train which would only be $22 now. But now I have another question. I remember asking a Rail Europe rep about night trains because I was worried about how many days the ticket would count for since that night train departed before 12 midnight. She said that anything after 7pm counts as the next day...but then does the 5:25pm train count as 2 days of travel since I'd get to Lourdes after 7?

And also does it matter if I validate the Rail Pass at Montparnasse or CDG train station? And do you know about how much it is a person to go from CDG by train to Montparnasse?

The "7 p.m. rule" only applies to taking a train that you board after 7 p.m. and don't get off until after midnight. It doesn't apply to a leg begun before 7 p.m. which ends after 7 p.m. You will use only one pass day. It doesn't matter where you validate your pass, but the lines may be shorter at Montparnasse. The current fare for a single ticket from CDG to anywhere in central Paris on the RER and Metro is €9.50. There usually is a fare increase on 1 July. I suggest that you avoid the "maze" at Chatelet-Les Halles. Instead, take the RER B from CDG to Denfert-Rochereau. Transfer to either Metro line 4 or Metro line 6 and take it to Montparnasse-Bienvenue. The direction a train is traveling is indicated by the name of the station at the end of the line. If you take Metro line 4, take a train traveling in the direction of Porte de Clignancourt. If you take Metro line 6, take a train traveling in the direction of Charles de Gaulle-Etoile. For a zoomable map of the Metro and RER system, go here: http://tinyurl.com/6xmvms4.

Here's info on Les Cars Air France Line 4. You were spot-on with the price, but you can pay 16,10€ AND print your ticket at home if you buy your ticket online (apparently, the price has increased from 15,50€ since the brochure was printed). Also, if you follow the link from that page, you'll see you can pay the driver On Board with a Credit Card. Very unusual, and handy! You can also see what the bus looks like; there are several different shuttle buses driving around CDG, so knowing what yours looks like will be a big help. Tim got you taken care of. I was thinking about you last night - why you'd have to buy a full-price ticket if you took a later train, etc. Great news - there's practically no reason to ever have to pay full price, nor anywhere near it, for European train tickets! I would recommend validating your railpass at Gare Montparnasse; the lines at the CDG train ticket counters are usually very long, and out of the way from your bus stop. FYI, when one is speaking of a 'night train', it almost always refers to an overnight train. So an 'evening' train, 16:00dp and 23:00ar, won't count as two days. And the AF agent that told you that 1 1/2 hours for a connection between gates may be technically correct (I'd prefer a bit longer...), but she didn't know what she was talking about when it comes to making your way to the train stations, standing in line at the ticket counters, having to get into Paris to transfer to another train, etc. What exact date are you arriving in Paris? Have you already purchased a railpass, and when and where are your other rail journeys?

If I'm going to go into Paris, couldn't I also take the Air France shuttle? I think it's 19 euros?...or 16.50 but much easier. And I think there is a line that goes straight to the Gare Montparnasse.

Yes. It's called Les Cars de Air France, but it's a bus. You'll see the signs as you come out of the terminal. They're white and run about every half hour. I don't think they're direct - - maybe one stop at Gare de Lyon along the way. Lyon is old with a clock tower, don't get off there. Montparnasse is modern glass. I think you're a bit high on the price guess. You can pay the driver.

I get to Paris on the 7th and have a rail pass...I think I'll end up just taking the bus since it doesn't seem much more expensive and does seem alot less confusing....I bought the other ticket and so think I have everything planned out now...Thanks everyone for all the advice! It was so helpful!

Cool. The good thing about the buses - IF you aren't crazy panicked about time (may be lots of traffic, etc.) is the view! Not much to see underground... Have a good trip!

One last question!-Does anyone know how long it takes to get to Montparnasse from CDG by the Air France bus? Is it a big difference in time from the metro?

I think they advertise an hour and a quarter, about the same as the metro/rer estimate earlier. The problem is the vagaries of surface transportation, but most of the way they'll be able to use the bus/taxi lanes once off the freeway. Figure an hour and a half and you'll be fine, but remember that's from when it pulls out and you have to get yourself there and maybe wait.

That brochure from the link I gave you says 1h15m. Remember - no transfers with the bus option :-) Sit and relax. Be sure your luggage has luggage tags on them.

Nice!...Thanks!