TGV Train Seats Charles De Gaule to St Jean de Luz

I am not sure if they show the train direction at TGV. My solution, since my wife hates riding "backwards", is to try to reserve seats facing each other across a table. That way we can switch seats if I guess wrong on the which direction we are heading.
You can never be assured that your inbound flight will arrive on time. Unless I was getting a fantastic deal like 75% off the standard price and gave myself at least a 4 hour window, I would not buy a nonrefundable ticket. Check the price for TGV 2nd Pro, or TGV 1st Tarif Normal, which are refundable (at least to some extent). Otherwise, just buy tickets when you arrive. There are trains at 8:19, 10:16, 14:09, and 16:21.

There is no way to guarantee forward riding seats. All trains cars are designed to run in either directions so most seats face the middle - so except where seats are paired facing each other. And sometime a train during the course of train will reverse directions so you could start riding forward and be switched to riding backwards. If you insist on buying tickets in advance, then I would allow at least four hours, maybe five. Assume you are arriving from the US and will be going through immigrations and customs. That is always a wild card. Immigrations could be 30 minutes or an hour and 30 minutes or more. Second, your play could be delayed so put in a wide window of time.

Thank you both for the input. We will have to see what will work best for us. We have been looking forward to using the train, but with strikes and delays, we might be better looking at some alternatives. We land at 8:30. There is a train at 10:16. The next train would be 2:09. That would get us to St. Jean around 9:00 p.m. and mean over 5 hours at the airport. That would be one grueling day!

Yes, but to try to make the earlier train, you'll have to hope that your incoming flight arrives exactly on time and that you can make good time between your arriving terminal and the TGV terminal.

We really do appreciate the responses. The early train would be a gamble. Have you had trouble getting through CDG? We have been there several times and the process was always smoothly. I was looking at a website called easycdg.com. It recommended 60-80 minutes for the transfer. Our time would be 100+ minutes. Yes, still tighter than we would like, but better than the long wait for the later train. Does time of day of plane arrival make a difference?

International flights tend to be on time. With the distance and time it is easier to adjust for late departures, etc., but planes can still be delayed by weather and other problems. We are just back from a trip in May where two different flights were cancelled - not delayed - cancelled. In the end we were a day late, landed at a different airport, and, of course, lost the connecting flight because we had booked a discount airline with a five hour window and a flex ticket that allow us to change to any other flight. Just didn't land at the right airport. The ticket value was about $150. Should have bought their insurance. That was our biggest travel problem is some 20 years of travel. But the point you can have problems so you need to consider that ticket expendable should you not make it. The probability of you not making it is low but the possibility is always there. Next time we buy the insurance.