richarddd

Would you trust the Eurostar from Paris to London to be no more than an hour or so late?

We're thinking of taking a 7am Eurostar from Paris to London on a Wednesday in mid-February. If it's much more than an hour late, we'd have issues making a flight from LHR (we'd take the Piccadilly line from St Pancras to LHR and figure it takes about an hour).

The main alternative is to travel the night before, which I'd like to avoid, or to fly from Paris, which is unfortunately not realistic.

Gagravarr

Most Eurostars arrive on time, or just a couple of minutes late. On most days you'll be fine. You can take a look at their live arrivals board on their website and see, for that day, how their trains are doing

However, every so often there's a problem. Could be immigrants getting onto the tracks, could be a train breaking down, could be Eurotunnel deciding it's a great idea to let another truck that's on fire onto one of its trains and taking it into the tunnel, could be some emergency engineering works, or a strike. If one of those hits, expect delays of several hours, and Eurostar's customer services to melt down.

As long as you have good travel insurance, you'd be fine even if one of the rare meltdowns occurs.

Also, you can shave ~20 minutes off at much higher expense if you tube or taxi it to Paddington, then jump on the HEX

Ghentleman

usually runs on time but:
- strikes
- bad weather that time of year
- trouble at the tunnel (illegal immigration)
Bad weather and strikes are somewhat predictable but you need a plan B, which will not be easy to organize at the last minute.
Mostly depends on how much stress you can handle.

richarddd

The added complexity of another two transfers aren't worth it.
I'm beginning to think taking a late train the night before is the way to go. I'm not a big fan of stress.

We're arriving LHR, and I'd hoped to spend a bunch of days in London, Eurostar to Paris, spend a bunch of days there, then Eurostar, etc. back to LHR for an afternoon flight. Adding a London hotel at the end adds some complexity (splitting London stay in two), but may well be worth it for the peace of mind. The odds of a few hour Eurostar delay don't seem minimal, while the odds of a 12+ hour delay probably are infinitesimal. I'll risk the tube from Bloomsbury to LHR not taking much more than an hour.

stimpy

In the summer I wouldn't worry, but in February extreme weather can shut down Chunnel operations. Of course if it is really bad it can be shut down for more than a day, but that doesn't happen every year.

MHG

What makes the flight alternative "unrealistic" ???

If booked now fares are very reasonable (for one-ways) starting at around 45,-€ for either ORY-LHR or CDG-LHR on BA and starting at ~ 55,-€ for AF ex CDG.
... and still a wide choice of flights are availlable - even early morning.

I would not consider the train option at the moment because reliability is unpredictable due to the issue with illegal immigrants trying to enter the UK via the tunnel.
They still continue trying to enter the tunnel or UK-bound trains at Calais on a daily basis causing interruptions until they are removed from the "sterile" area.
And this does affect also Eurostar trains that do not stop at Calais normally (when the tunnel is closed it´s closed to all traffic)
It does not look like this problem is solved anytime soon.

richarddd

I was thinking of switching flights from LHR to CDG, not adding another flight. D'Oh!

The lowest price I'm seeing for the week of 21 Feb is €66 on BA (which is better for me) from either CDG or ORY.

stimpy

If you don't have BA or OW elite status, then you should think about baggage fees. And even then don't buy an HBO fare if you have bags to check.

richarddd

OW sapphire and no bags to check. OTOH, no HBO fare on that day.

Codik

Eurostar delays are very rare. Of course you might be unlucky...