Our group of 9 will be in Paris mid-June. We are going to take a sunset hot air balloon ride over the Fontainbleau area. The meeting spot is Moret sur Loing at 7pm.

Here is the dilemma:
How do we get to and from Paris & Moret sur Loing? There is train service between Paris and Moret sur Loing, however the last train for Paris departs at 9:45pm and our estimated finish time is 10pm. As for shuttle services, I am discovering most can not accommodate 9 in one vehicle. We we likely need 2 vans.

3 Options I can think of:
1-The Balloon company has proposed a shuttle service that will drive us in 2 vehicles round trip: Paris-Moret sur Loing (including wait time) for 65 E per person OR a total of 585 Euro for 9 people. This seems like a lot of $ for transportation.
2-Take the train one way* and pay for a car service to pick us up at an appointed time and drive us back to Paris.*Will we be able to find taxis at the station to take us to the meeting spot?
3-Find an alternative car company to drive us to Moret sur Loing, WAIT and then drive us back to Paris.

Does anyone have any alternative ideas or recommendations for a shuttle service?

Thanks so much.

Or since you are spending so much (not much for what you get but a lot to the company) ask them to make sure you are back at the train station in time for the last train - the bargaining power of nine passengers must be great.

rent two cars and have fun that day outside paris.

Hi S,

Since you won't have luggage, rent 2 people movers for the day, see www.autoeurope.com, www.gemut.com, www.novacahire.com.

AE has a Citroen C5 wagon (5 people) for $210 That's USD not Euro.

There is an alternative option, getting a private car or taxi to take you to a closer spot where you can take the RER into Paris, as it runs until about 1 am.

I've been to Moret sur Loing and there weren't any taxis at the train station. It is very small. Now I'm sure there are some around there somewhere or that you can call, and maybe you can ask at the station who to call or get the number to have that ready ahead of time something, but do expect that will take some time.

Take taxis from Moret-sur-Loing to Melun, the endpoint of the RER D2 line. That is about 30 km or 18 miles one-way. I would guess that shouldn't cost more than around 50 euro per car. Of course you won't find a car that holds all those people, you'll need 2-3.

Then take the RER into Paris. The last RER train leaves Melon around 11:49 pm for Paris. I would guess that fare would be around 5 euro each.

I can give you some names of taxi services or private drivers in Moret-sur-Loing if you need, but if you don't speak French well, communication could be a problem there. Maybe not, I just know some taxi drivers in small towns (or even Paris) don't speak English much.

Here is one:
Comforti Taxi
takes 5 people maximum in one car
mobile phone 06-08-84-05-84

Franck Theveneau, private car driver
mobile 06-07-35-37-43

They are both in Moret-sur-Loing.

Just go to the yellow pages (www.pagesjaunes.fr) and put "taxis" in the search box and moret sur loing in the location (or post code 77250) and you'll find more.

You can get the regular train to go to Moret-sur-Loing, it's not far past Fontainebleau, and then call a taxi or arrange that ahead of time.

Christina has a good idea - perhaps Malesherbes is closer than Melun, however and it's on RER C which runs similar times. Don't know, not looking at map but Malesherbes is quite close to Fontainebleau

Thanks all. Good suggestions for sure.

I will inquire with the balloon company about adjusting our flight time to make it back to the train station on time. We don't want to miss sunset though and I know in June it's nearly 10pm.

We're already spending one of our 5 days outside Paris at Versailles and another morning in Giverny so we don't want another day trip. Unfortunately both of those places are on the opposite side of Paris so we can't combine them with the evening balloon trip (we thought of that!)

Renting cars may be a good option. But what are the chances of renting 2 cars for less than one day, large enough to hold 9 people for much less than 585 Euro? and then we'd have to drive in/out of Paris. Not too appealing.

Maybe the private shuttle is just the price we have to pay for this particular outing.

Thank you so much Christina for the detailed information. I think that's a great option for us. Our group is 4 adults & 5 teenagers so there's just 2 families paying for this expensive outing. (Not 9 adults). We don't want to be cheap, but really 585 Euro just to get to and from the ~2000 Euro balloon flight.........whew it all adds up.

Oh and the balloon rep said the train station we need is Moret Veneux les Sablons. Thankfully one in our group speaks decent French, not great for sure, but hopeflly enough to get us a taxi!

Have you looked at schedules for both SNCF and RER? From all the nearby stations? Just curious...

Well, you don't have to as you could do what I suggested, but that's your choice. However, I agree the one-day car rental thing isn't really very feasible or attractive.

Although you could save money by what I suggested, when I think about it, 65 euro a person isn't really that bad for door-to-door transportation both ways. It just sounds a lot because you have nine people. But if you took the train/taxi going then taxi/RER returning, I bet you'd still end up paying about 40-45 euro per person for the transportation, so not sure it would be worth it for the difference. It's up to you.

Christina- Yes, ultimately we must decide what our time and the ensuing trouble is worth.....we just may have to splurge for the private shuttle service offered by the balloon company and save some $ somewhere else on the trip. Another plus for their service, I would assume they know where they are going!

I had only checked SNCF schedules. I hadn't thought of RER.

I've been rethinking this. The train to Melun would be about € 7 - 9 pp each way, and that is from the Gare de Lyon. RER I suspect is cheaper, but will take longer.

Add to that cab fare to/from the relevant stations, and Christina is right, for the hassle the shuttle starts to look a lot more attractive.

Best of luck.

If you are not concerned about driving out of Paris (and you really should not be) your best bet is to rent a 9 passenger van (or MINIBUS as it is called in France). There is a rental franchise in France www.rentacar.fr that offers these vehicules. They are category F. I just looked and they have several locations in Paris. The price including tax for a 24 hour rental is 129 euros. Of course this will be a manual transmission. I have rented this type of car with them but in Toulon, not in Paris. I know some of the larger more well known agencies also rent minibuses but you will probably have to call them to book.

Thanks everyone for all the input. After weighing our options, we've decided to go with the transportation offered by the balloon company.

There were a few non-monetary factors that affected our decision. In particular, the fact that we have to be flexible with the flight date depending upon the weather on the actual date of the flight. The pilot decides the day of if the weather conditions are right. If he decides against then we have to be able change to an alternate date or cancel completely. (Last year this happened to us, due to high winds in the Loire Valley).

Plus, since we're doing this as a sunset flight, if we chose to rent a vehicle, we'd have to drive back to Paris at night. Which we'd rather not have to do on our own.

We think this will be an awesome once in a lifetime experience so it's worth the splurge for the conveniences.