London - Paris - Dover

[perthgirl]

Hi - we are considering a Baltic cruise and were thinking of a few days in London, a quick overnight trip to Paris and then straight to Dover to join the ship.

 

I think I can do this by the fast train - if so, can anyone tell me where I would get on and off (what area) so I can look into accomodation that is near the train?

 

Or are there other alternatives?

 

Thanks for your help

[Globaliser]

The Eurostar goes from St Pancras International station in London to the Gare du Nord in Paris.

 

Be careful with accommodation in the area around St Pancras. While it's not far to go to get to some reasonable tourist accommodation, there are some nearby areas that are not so nice.

 

When you go from Paris to Dover, the easiest thing to do if the times work is to get a train that stops at Ashford International. Then either get a cab from there to the dock at Dover, or get a train from Ashford to Dover Priory and then jump into a cab for the last mile or so.

 

However, my view is that "a quick overnight trip to Paris" is not worth the effort. You spend a lot of time travelling, wasting sightseeing time, and you end up seeing nothing of Paris. What's the point, other than to say that you have physically set foot in Paris. Personally, I would say "big deal" to the latter. You've only visited a place when you've had a chance to see it. And both Paris and London each deserve (minimum) two week visits on their own to see what they have to offer, which is heaps.

[belle907]

My advice would be to spend a few days in London before your cruise and then when the ship returns to Dover head over to Paris to spend a couple of days there. If you go after your cruise you don't have to have the worry of making it back in time to get on the ship.

I definately don't recommend a quick overnight trip, it's not worth the time and expense.

You can always fly home from Paris so you don't have to go back to London for your return flight.

[perthgirl]

While we'd love to have more time in Paris, the problem is my daughter only gets 2 1/2 weeks holidays in July so we really can't take more time out. My thinking was 3 days in London (our daughter will miss 2 days of school), then take the early train to Paris, have 2 nights there where we can see the Lourve, Montmartre and the Eiffel Tower then on to the ship. We really need to get straight back home to Perth as the ship disembarks the day before school gets back and we lose a day travelling back to Australia - plus she will probably need at least 1 day to recover.

 

If she wasn't in high school I wouldn't mind so much but we took her out of school for a week for the Med and it took her all semester to catch up on the work she missed while doing all the homework she is set each night and frankly the stress just wasn't worth it.

 

Our holidays are in January and while that would be a different experience, we prefer warmer weather!

 

Thanks for the info on the train -