CDG- Enough time to get train?
 

I am arriving at CDG Terminal 3 at 11:30am and hope to take a 1:16pm train leaving from Terminal 2. Providing my flight arrives on time, is there enough time? I have my baggage to pick up, customs and terminal shuttle plus purchase my train ticket. What do you think?

I think that's cutting it way too close.

Even if your flight arrives on time, you may not get a gate assignment for a while or at all - which means being bussed to your terminal. If you're in the back of a large plane, the bus may leave and return several times before all passengers are boarded and transported.

Then, you have to get through passport control. You could zoom right through, or that could take a while.

If you have checked bags to collect, that will require additional time.

After that, you have to get yourself from Terminal 3 to Terminal 2, then to the track.

If everything goes ok, then yes you could likely make it. If it were me and I missed that train, I would take the RER into Paris and take the the TGV that leaves at 3:00 from Montparnasse.

An edit to my last post, I changed the date I was searching and got a train I wasn't getting before TGV 5216 leaving CDG at 3:42. That is also a very good backup option.

In addition to the time factors listed by djkbooks, here's one more: Standing in line to buy your train ticket can eat up quite a bit of time.

I would give myself 2.5 hours minimum - and still worry. Sometimes one breezes through CDG - but other times, anything that can go wrong does go wrong.

HI E,

In a word, NO.

You need at least 2 hr.

((I))

PS,

There have been reports of folks breezing through CDG in 0:45 hr, but I wouldn't count on it.

"Providing my flight arrives on time"

That's the operative phrase. I have made that connection without a problem.

Flights arriving on-time are becoming somewhat of a rarity. I am sure there are other trains throughout the afternoon. As they say, "You just gotta go for it".

Plus you can get PREMs probably at a fraction of the full fare

but i think they are non-changeable non-refundable in case you miss the train.

A full fare ticket would be much higher so leave plenty of time and go to www.sncf-voyages.com for PREM fares - TimS and Ira are always around to help smooth out the many pitfalls apparently lurking in the site however.

But it can be done and save a ton.

Otherwise if traveling far enough and wishing flexibility to take the next possible train look into the France DayTripper one-day railpass at around $110 or about 60 euros i think.