Mike Jacoubowsky
Aug 4, 11, 6:32 pm
It seemed like a great idea. The morning of the final Tour de France stage in Paris, we take the train from Grenoble to Gare Lyon, RER to Gare du Nord (since we'd be leaving from there later in the evening) and leave our luggage at the "left luggage" facility at Gare du Nord.
Ohmygosh do not count on that being practical!!! Not at a busy time of the year anyway. The line outside the facility was probably 30+ people deep, with nobody having a clue what was going on or why it was moving so slowly. There were four people working inside, although only one, near as we could tell, was "working." The others just standing around. While an ever-increasing line of people wait outside. We'd been told (and it's true) that everyone and all bags have to pass through metal detectors and x-rays. But that's not holding things up.
After 90 minutes we get close, and what I'd feared most is real. You're waiting for someone to arrive to pick up their luggage, to free up a locker. And if you need a "large" locker (anything approaching airline-legal max), there's a severe shortage. At that point I went back through the line explaining to one and all how things worked, why we were all waiting so long, at which point maybe half left (all behind me; my son and I were almost at the front by now).
We finally get in. And it's not over. You see, we have four pieces of "large" luggage, and you're running through the place looking for an available "large" locker. Of which there are none. So now you're waiting for each person coming in to pick up their luggage, and literally shadowing them (while others are doing the same).
Total time: Over 2.5 hours. Picking them up at the end of the day was easy, maybe 10 minutes. But don't count on "left luggage" being something easy to do, unless you know that it's a quiet time of the year and nobody's using it.
Oh, one more thing. They don't take credit cards, cash only. 9.5 euros for a large locker, down to 5 euros or so for a small one if I recall correctly. They do have machines that make change.
Hope this helps someone-
Ohmygosh do not count on that being practical!!! Not at a busy time of the year anyway. The line outside the facility was probably 30+ people deep, with nobody having a clue what was going on or why it was moving so slowly. There were four people working inside, although only one, near as we could tell, was "working." The others just standing around. While an ever-increasing line of people wait outside. We'd been told (and it's true) that everyone and all bags have to pass through metal detectors and x-rays. But that's not holding things up.
After 90 minutes we get close, and what I'd feared most is real. You're waiting for someone to arrive to pick up their luggage, to free up a locker. And if you need a "large" locker (anything approaching airline-legal max), there's a severe shortage. At that point I went back through the line explaining to one and all how things worked, why we were all waiting so long, at which point maybe half left (all behind me; my son and I were almost at the front by now).
We finally get in. And it's not over. You see, we have four pieces of "large" luggage, and you're running through the place looking for an available "large" locker. Of which there are none. So now you're waiting for each person coming in to pick up their luggage, and literally shadowing them (while others are doing the same).
Total time: Over 2.5 hours. Picking them up at the end of the day was easy, maybe 10 minutes. But don't count on "left luggage" being something easy to do, unless you know that it's a quiet time of the year and nobody's using it.
Oh, one more thing. They don't take credit cards, cash only. 9.5 euros for a large locker, down to 5 euros or so for a small one if I recall correctly. They do have machines that make change.
Hope this helps someone-