eurostar to paris daytrip

thamesmatt

hi, I want to take my son (10) and my mum (65+) to Paris for the day in August.

I have only been on eurostar once years ago and I was looking on the eurostar site but the dates I was looking at 16-24 ish August are all £350+ for the 3 of us.

my question's

are there promos and discount codes, happy to go mid morning and back later evening as we are really only going for a bit of sightseeing and to go up the Eiffel tower!

are there times to avoid, to book a cheaper fair etc... I had half expected the cost to be around the £200 mark but £350+ seems really high


I can get a ferry to calais for 1/10 of the price and drive it for loads less... or alternatively go to Brugge instead (but been there loads of times)

Anyone got any advice, codes, websites to use etc....

Matt

Alan_Bowen

Eurostar is doing very well at the moment, bookings up 25% this year so far so there won't be any deals in the middle of August. The lowest day return in £59 but tickets go on sale 12 weeks ahead so there may well be none left for peak season. Have a look at Saturdays, they are sometimes cheaper and as you say, leaving at 1000 may be cheaper than 0800, when I passed through St Pancras last week, it was absolutely heaving and that was a Thursday!

BernadetteN

Absolutely no chance. It's peak travel period and there's not really a quiet day on Eurostar to Paris, perhaps Wednesday on the last train out of St Pancras.

Wait until September / October, half term perhaps and you may get a cheap day return then. Put the earliest start time in order to capture the prices for every train.

Otherwise, try a day out in Bruges. It's another hour by train from Brussels and this train is included in the price. You can only really have a good day out if you take the first train out in the morning and if you take the last train back, don't turn up with a few minutes to spare as it's a really busy train and many passengers miss it because they don't allow enough time for the various checks.