Eurostar
 

I'm flying into Paris and then want to travel to London. Can anyone advise me on the best way to travel between Paris and London? The Eurostar trip seems expensive. Does anyone know of cheap flights? I'm flying back to Canada from London but my ticket doesn't include the journey between. Any ideas would be great.

Quite often there are Eurostar fare discounts, check the eurostar website or www.raileurope.com.
It's definitely the best way to get from Paris to London - Gare du Nord to Waterloo in 3 hours. When you factor in airport waiting times and transit times between airport and central cities, it's quicker on Eurostar.

Flying the discount airlines is the cheapest - but the eurostar is more convenient. The low fare airlines use remote airports and the hassle of getting there / advance check-in / and gettung into cental London makes the train actually a bit faster.

As martytravels says - there are often specials for the Eurostar. Look into discounted round trip fares - they are often cheaper than one way.

Before you book the Eurostar which is, I agree, very convenient, and the mode of travel I prefer, try searching on www.opodo.com or even Expedia for possible flights. I recently booked RT on British, London to Paris for $128.00 and that is Heathrow to CDG...no "far out" airports.

As mentioned above, British Airways will fly you from CDG to LHR for about $125 R/T. Since you will only need one way, throw away the return.

The other option is EasyJet.com. They will sell one way ticket without any additional cost, so depending on when you want to travel it could be as low as $25 (That's not a mistake), but you will be flying into Luton Airport from CDG so it will take about 45 minutes to get to central London. So if you add the cost of the train ride, about $20, you can do this trip for about $50. Less money, little bit more hassle.

Obviously, the Eurostar would be more convienient, from central Paris to Central London.

Decisions, decisions....:-)

Have a great trip!

Is there any passport control on the Eurostar train between London and Paris?
Do they check and stamp your passport at all? Or any customs forms to fill out?
Also between Brussels and Paris?

Thanks for any info.

I rode the Eurostar in 2000 so I'm not sure what passport control is like now. I remember presenting it once on entering the train boarding area.
There's no passport control between Brussels and Paris on the Thalys, just show your ticket. I took the Thalys from Amsterdam to Paris in June and it was like going from NY to DC on Amtrak. (except that the train was on time and quite pleasant LOL)

In travelling between Waterloo and Paris, after going through the security detectors, there is a police post or something like that where somebody who appears to be part of the French police looks at passports for about 3 seconds, does not run them through readers, does not question you on why you are going to France (or Belgijm) or whatever. There is no further passport control; when you arrive at Gare du Nord, you just get off the train and walk through the exits similar to the Thalys train arriving at Gare du Nord.

On returning from Gare du Nord to Waterloo, there is a British official just after check in who looks at your passport and if required issues you a landing card (required of non EU and Swiss passports). Upon arrival at Waterloo (I assume Ashford International too but I've never gotten off the train there), you walk downstairs to a passport control installation. EU and Swiss passports just show their national identity cards and walk through. Non EU passport holders have to line up, hand in their landing cards, be questioned (although not too much) by the immigration official and their passport is stamped. So again and again, I have British stamps in my passport everytime I enter the country via Heathrow or via Eurostar.