Hi! I am spending 11 days in and around Paris, and my last stop is in Chartres. I would like to spend the last night there. I have a 1:20 pm flight from CDG from Delta on October 19. I also need to take my rental car back to Terminal 2 (Europe car, I believe). According to www.mappy.fr, it is only about 1.5 hours from Chartres to CDG so I though that if I left around 8:30 am, I should get to CDG more than 2 hours before my flight (after dropping the rental). Any thoughts, comments, will be appreciated. I am leaving Thursday for Paris. Can't wait!

CDG has a notoriously long security check process, at least 1 hour if not more. Then you go to the airline counter for boarding pass, 20-30 minutes. Boarding will begin 40-50 minutes prior to takeoff. You are taking a risk by not joining the security checkpoint by 10:00 am. Also, you leave no room for any roadway mishaps, detours, etc. I don't have the constitution for this schedule myself.

Don't count on it taking 1.5 hours. I would allow 3 hours to do the trip.

We had considered staying overnight in Chartres for a noon-hour departure at CDG, but instead went on to Senlis, 20 minutes from the airport. On a late Saturday afternoon, it took the full 3 hours, with a huge bouchon (bottleneck) just past Orly. On a weekday morning, it could well be worse.

My experiences with dropping off a car at Europecar at CDG is that it is usually very fast.

Hi car,

For a 1:20 flight you want to be at the terminal no later than 11:00.

If you leave at 8:30, you should plan on arriving at the airport and taking care of the car by 11:00.

I would leave no later than 7:30.

WE did just the opposite this summer and stopped in chartes after we'd flown into CDG. It took us a really really long time to get out of Paris in our rental car and it wasn't rush hour or anything. I'd allow a lot more time than 1.5 hours.

Thanks for the responses. I think I will spend the night in Senlis then. Any place in Senlis that you know of? If not, is there a suburb of Paris in the way from Chartres to CDG that we could stay overnight? Let me know. Thanks!

I do not understand the post about the long security check and THEN going to get your boarding pass. When we have left CDG we go to the airline counter and check in with our luggage, then proceed to a security check point for our carryon. We have waited an hour in the airline check in line however. And then of course there is at least one other check point, plus immigration.
All that said, and being the most nervous of the nervous Nellies about airline departure, I would leave Chartres at 6AM. Anything can happen. And actually it took us perhaps 3 hours to drvie from Chartres to Orly, which is much closer than CDG.
Go early and shop the duty free. Take some cheese home.

I might be 'misremembering' but it seemed like the last couple of times in T-1 that we waited in a long line for passport check, and I'm almost certain they put our bags thru the screener then we went to the counter for boarding passes, then up to the gate. But I could be wrong, won't be the first time.

Wy not return the car one day early in Paris and take the RER to the airport?

Our experience in CDG is that first one goes through the luggage check and then go to the counter for the boarding pass and checking in luggage.

In Senlis, we stayed at the Hostellerie de la Porte Bellon. It's a Logis de France 3 star, and quite nice with a good restaurant. It's right in the center of town which is quite attractive.

As you will see, it's north of CDG, but quite convenient.

Here's the hotel website:

http://www.portebellon.com/indexgb.html

I would be glad to be updated re the security check. We have been twice since 9/11 and neither time was that happening. We are going in 2 weeks however and so will be more knowledgeable. The checkin lines for security at Newark this summer were UNbelievable!!
This scenario is exactly why we do all our travelling outside of Paris, return the car and then depart (via CDG) from Paris where we can count on the amount of time it will take.

Well, we'll be flying back on Oct 20th from T-1, so I'll get a refresher!

I flew out of there in early August, and it was like Travelnut says, but it wasn't like a separate process or line, exactly. They did do a special baggage search (of your bags you planned to check) before you got your boarding pass, but it was during the same line, not a separate one. I don't really recall if they had a baggage scanner or not, maybe, but it was the same line.

So, the line to checkin and get a pass functioned the same way, and then you had to go through security with your carryon bags to get to the gate, as usual. I was in 2E, however. I was flying to Washington DC and they hand-searched every person's baggage on that plane, which I think was special because it was DC. That was during that check-in line process. It didn't really slow things down a whole lot as you know how much time you spend kind of just waiting in that line, anyway, as the ticket clerks take a long time for each person.

I got there 3 hrs ahead of time and had no extra time to spare--a Thursday midmorning. HOwever, I must add that part of the problem was that there was a very large Canadian youth touring group leaving on a flight around the same time as I was (on Air France) with extreme amounts of luggage, and they caused a lot of problems and delays in this line and confusion. I suppose AF might have straightened that out a little sooner and processed them separately, they had no method.

I flew from CDG to Newark two weeks ago on Continental and had no such problems with checkin...the whole thing took me half an hour, including check in and passport control. However, we arrived earlier than two hours ahead of time, so we beat the checkin "rush hour."
We have driven from Chartres to Brussels, passing CDG on the way and would find 1.5 hours on a Thursday WAY too optimistic...

You mentioned you would like to spend the last night in Chartres....but you will need to leave fairly early in the AM. We usually spend the last night in a hotel at CDG.,turn the car in the evening before and then take the hotel's free shuttle the next day right to the terminal. THIS time, in Nov., however we have decided to stay in Chantilly (have never been in that area) and it is only 20 min. north of CDG on the same side of the city.So this time we will turn the car in the morning of departure. Best WEstern Du Parc , Chantilly for 86 euro...and of course there are loads of other hotels AT the airport. Chartres is on the opposite side and little further to get to the airport.

Hi carlacs
We spent our last night in Chartres (at the Best Western Grand Monarque) on Sept.15. The town is going through a major construction project, which slows things a bit. Our flight was for 1320 on USAIRWAYS. We were advised to leave for CDG no later than 0800. We were a bit leery since our mappy, etc information showed a rather quick trip. Thank goodness we took the counsel of the locals. We spent (I swear this is not an exaggeration) over two hours in Paris traffic at a near standstill. You can read my trip report by doing a word search on this forum for my screenname. I posted a review of the Grand Monarque on trip advisor. I can certainly say it was not worth the money. If I had to do it again, I think I would position myself closer to the airport, say in Chantilly and have a much more pleasant last morning in France. By the time we got through traffic, returned the rental car, went through security, we were pretty frazzled.
I hope your trip is wonderful.

You convinced me. I will stay in Senlis!