DLP to London - direct Eurostar vs. RER + transfer

YawningDodo

DIS Veteran
Joined
Sep 16, 2014
I'm still in the budgeting/setting itinerary phase of the trip I'm planning for this fall, so I'm getting ahead of myself a little, but:

My plan is to spend about a week in London after my stay in Disneyland Paris, and I'd like to take the Eurostar to get there (it sounds convenient, and even if a plane would get me there faster I'd probably still take the train just because it's a more unusual experience from my perspective). I checked on the Eurostar website and was able to confirm that they do have trains direct from DLP to London, but for the November dates I was plugging into the site only one train was coming up on the schedule, and it was an evening train that would get in around 9:00 at night. While I'm reasonably confident in my ability to navigate to my hotel at night, I'd sort of envisioned myself going earlier in the day so I'd have time to settle in that evening, maybe even go out to dinner and/or a show (right now I'm looking at a 4 night stay in DLP, which would give me three full days and the ability to not worry too much about squeezing every bit of park time out of my arrival and departure days).

From what I can tell, the RER runs pretty frequently, and there are a lot more Eurostar trains going from Paris to London throughout the day. How much extra time/extra fuss would it be to take the RER back into Paris and transfer there? If it's going to end up taking a huge chunk of my day I might as well just enjoy the day at DLP and take the later train directly there, but it just seems awfully late to be rolling in for the evening.

Also, does anyone know if Eurostar is likely to add more trains, or is what's on the schedule for November as of now all of what I can expect there to be?
 
There is only ever 1 direct Eurostar a day in each direction so the evening one will be the only one you can get direct.

Its reasonably easy to get into Paris Gare du Nord for more options. You will need to get the RER train from DLP and change at Chatelet des Halles onto a different line - Im sure its the same platform so easy to do. This will then take you direct to Gare du Nord.

The RER runs every few minutes and you dont need to book (it will take about an hour to get to Central Paris) but you will need to be at Gare du Nord in plenty of time as you will need to go through security etc there. You usually have to be there at least an hour before your departure time
 
There is only ever 1 direct Eurostar a day in each direction so the evening one will be the only one you can get direct.

Its reasonably easy to get into Paris Gare du Nord for more options. You will need to get the RER train from DLP and change at Chatelet des Halles onto a different line - Im sure its the same platform so easy to do. This will then take you direct to Gare du Nord.

The RER runs every few minutes and you dont need to book (it will take about an hour to get to Central Paris) but you will need to be at Gare du Nord in plenty of time as you will need to go through security etc there. You usually have to be there at least an hour before your departure time

Thanks! I'm a little concerned about how much additional time I'll have to allow for the RER to get me there in time for security and all of that versus doing all of that at DLP. Glad I'm not crazy to be considering it, though. Do you know if it's common for the direct train to/from DLP to only run every other day in November? Right now that's how they've got it listed, which makes it harder to consider a 3 night visit if I'm going to spend most of my departure day in the park.
 
It doesnt always run every day especially in low season. I dont think they will add any additional days if that is the timetable already published.

If you get a 2 night package you will get tickets for 3 days in the park - would this work better?

Where are you planning to stay in London as we may be able to give you an idea of how long it would take to get from St Pancras station to your hotel

Also how much luggage will you have? It may be much easier luggage wise to use the direct train
 


The other option is to get the train to London changing at Lille. That way you go directly from DLP to Lille and change trains there. Lille is a small station so really straightforward to use, you also go through passport control there.
 
It doesnt always run every day especially in low season. I dont think they will add any additional days if that is the timetable already published.

If you get a 2 night package you will get tickets for 3 days in the park - would this work better?

Where are you planning to stay in London as we may be able to give you an idea of how long it would take to get from St Pancras station to your hotel

Also how much luggage will you have? It may be much easier luggage wise to use the direct train

If I do a two night package I'll have to head into DLP first thing on my DLP arrival day instead of taking my time, and then I really would need to stay all day on the third day. That'd get me out of there on Wednesday instead of Friday, so I'd still be able to get the direct Eurostar...hmm. I guess what I'm concerned about is that while it's possible I might someday come back to DLP, it's equally possible that this may be the only time I ever go, and I don't want to end up feeling like I didn't have enough time to explore everything. That's only one full day, and only two mornings I can expect to be at rope drop.

I don't have a place chosen for sure in London yet; I'm still working on my list of options. I said 'hotel' but I'm strongly considering a private twin room at a hostel; I don't really mind shared facilities and it's a big cost savings even without doing the dormitory thing and giving up on having a private sleeping space. If I go that route I've got my eye on Clink78, which is supposed to be a 10 minute walk from St. Pancras, but I'm still looking into other options.

I'm planning to do all carry-on for this trip, so I'll have a large backpack and maybe a smaller cross-body bag depending on how compact I'm able to get everything.


The other option is to get the train to London changing at Lille. That way you go directly from DLP to Lille and change trains there. Lille is a small station so really straightforward to use, you also go through passport control there.

Thanks! I'll look into that; I haven't read up well enough on the stations to know where's best to transfer, so this is really helpful.
 

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