Rail Travel From Paris to Amsterdam Economy 4 Seniors Oct 2012

Teresa, The "most direct and economical way to travel from Paris to Amsterdam" will probably be via Thalys fast train. The train I'd use is a direct (no changes) departure from Gare du Nord at 10:25, arriving Amsterdam Central at 13:44 (time 3H:19M, reservations compulsory). You can check the Thalys website for details on prices, as there are a number of different options. The have an "Adult & Co" option listed at 59€, which may be good for a group of four (I usually travel solo, so don't know the details on that). The cheapest appears to be the "No Flex" tickets with prices from 35€, but keep in mind there are no refunds or exchange possible with those. They do have a Seniors 60+ category, but I'm not sure the prices are any better. One other point to mention. If you plan on buying rail tickets at Amsterdam Central, they ONLY accpet "Chip & PIN" credit cards, so be sure you have cash on hand. Happy travels!

No, Eurostar and RailEurope are not the same nor are they related. Eurostar has two meanings in Europe. In Italy it is the now slightly outdated brand name the Italian state railroad FS gave to their very fast trains. In Belgium, France and England it is the name given to the very fast trains which use the Channel Tunnel to link Brussels to London and Paris to London. Certain Eurostar trains also continue beyond Paris to Disneyland and the French Alps (in ski season) and Avignon in Provence (in summer vacation time). Eurostar trains, even though they go to both Brussels and Paris cannot be used in domestic travel and cannot be used to link those two cities. The Eurostar map looks like a "Y"" and you can't go round the Y. RailEurope is a rail oriented travel agent majority owned by SNCF, the French rail operator. They sell a portion of available train connections, often at a (sometimes very much) higher price than is easily found by going direct to the national companies providing the journey. As suggested by Ken, the easiest connections between Paris and Amsterdam is the Thalys high speed train easily found on their own website. Thalys is a consortium of SNCF, the Belgian operator SNCB and the Dutch NS (and perhaps others, I haven't recently looked) to provide high speed service between their three Capitols. There is also a branch down from Brussels into Germany, to Cologne. Once you have the date of travel you can get decent fares on Thalys but you need to get them very early.

Eurostar refers to the high-speed trains that run between London and Paris and London and Brussels. Rail Europe is a ticket reseller, not a train company, and sells tickets and railpasses for many routes in many countries. RE's fares are higher than the discount fares you can get by booking directly on a train company site. To get the cheapest fare (€35.00) for Paris Nord-Amsterdam Centraal, book ASAP (up to 90 days allowed) at www.thalys.com. That is the best fare possible, regardless of one's age.