I've spoken with several people who tell me that I must book a non-smoking car on the Eurostar since the smoking cars are so bad it's hard to breathe.

The Eurostar website doesn't seem to offer non-smoking as an option, and a look at the FAQ says that all direct trains are non-smoking. We'll be travelling from London to Paris RT. Will this be non-smoking or is there a better place to get tickets so I can assure a non-smoking car?

We recently traveled Florence to Venice and had no problem reserving a non-smoking car upon our arrival in Florence. We only asked after we'd gotten our tickets.

Furthermore, we have traveled Paris to London on Eurostar w/o requesting either and our car was non-smoking.

Therefore, I would think that you would be in a non-smoking car unless you request a specific smoking car. There were few smoking cars on both trips in our experience.

Hope this helps. However, I'd ask to be reassured.

We just returned from Europe and took the EuroStar. We booked 1st class, which is no smoking. Sorry, we didn't walk through to 2nd class so I don't know if it's non-smoking or not. We booked through the 800 number which was much easier than booking on-line and the price was the same.

I don't know about the London-Paris route, but when we travelled Venice to Milan in October 1999 there definitely was a first-class smoking car on our Eurostar train. At the time we reserved (four days prior to leaving Venice), there were no non-smoking seats left in any first class car.

So, in our car, there were perhaps four people smoking not quite non-stop but nearly so. Yucky, but we're not allergic so it was bearable.

Hi Guys,

There seems to be some confusion about Eurostar.

The Eurostar is the chunnel train from London to Paris.

The Italian ES* trains are a different animal.

Since late 2001, all Eurostar (ie London/Paris/Brussels) trains have been officially non-smoking.

There were horror stories before then though.

Thank you all. It looks like I have nothing to worry about!

I am curious, can you just buy a walk up ticket at Waterloo?? I was hoping to do that for a trip to Paris and thinking it might be cheaper than booking ahead??

Ira, you are right that the ES trains in Italy are a different animal from the Eurostar Channel Tunnel trains, but like it or not they are also called Eurostar. So the confusion is inevitable.