Taking the Chunnel
 

I just purchased 2nd class tickets on the chunnel from Paris to London. Can anyone tell me how you get seat assignments? Is it automatic with the tickets, or do I need to do something else?

Thanks.

When you check in, they assign you seats, just like at an airport when you get your boarding passes.

You don't have to rush to get there either...I've been on the Eurostar twice and the first time we showed up more than two hours early, expecting airport-type security and waits, but we breezed through and ended up sitting for two hours.

The second time we went we went an hour ahead, and still had 1/2 hour to get a latte at the cafe.

BTW -- the Chunnel isn't the train, it's the tunnel under the English Channel, <i>The EuroStar</i> is the train you bought tickets for!

Happy travels!

Jules

We had a different experience. We bought tickets for Paris-London at the Eurostar Office at Gare du Nord. The tickets came with seat assignments.

Woody

I never heard of Eurostar tickets not coming with seat assignments - are you sure you don't have them? At least tickets bought in US thru RailEurope always have seat assignments - no such thing as an open ticket but may be different in europe i guess.

I've bought tiockets in the US and France and they have always had pre-assigned seats...check you ticket.

I've never &quot;checked in&quot; either and I've taken many trips on the Eurostar. You go thru security and board the train, the conducter cchecks your ticket on the train.

You've never checked in? That's odd - for us the first stop at Waterloo has always been that little booth where they match your passport and ticket. Showed the passes to the guy at the entrance to our car. Never been checked once on board.

Yes..we've passed by the little man that checks that you have a ticket and your passport but they certainly do not issue &quot;Boarding passes&quot; as they do at airline counters. And we have always had our tickets checked onboard on at least 12 trips on eurostar in the last 6 or 7 years.

Are we all talking about the Eurostar trains that go through the channel tunnel, rather than Italian Eurostar trains?
Tickets for cross-channel Eurostar trains come with seat reservations: the seat numbers are on the ticket; if your ticket doesn't have a seat number, then it's not a proper ticket. You have to check-in half an hour before departure. Tickets are not checked on the train because you cannot get on the train without a ticket.

Jules was right about the &quot;chunnel&quot; thing, but wrong about the rest.

Your Eurostar ticket will have seat numbers on it. Ther is a &quot;check-in&quot; but not for seat assignments. Just for passport control/security.

You do need to be there a bit early because the passport/security queue can be fairly long.

Re Geoff's response..our tickets have always been checked on the train..could it be because we always have taken first class?

We always ride in the '1' cars and never get checked. It would appear there are no hard-and-fast rules or procedures one can expect.

I normally travel in second class, and have only once used first class on Eurostar; I can't remember any ticket checks then.
The only reason for checking tickets would be to stop people with second-class tickets from occupying empty first-class seats in order to claim free food and drink. Perhaps they do checks in first class if there are empty first-class seats. There's no other reason for checking tickets on the train.

janisj -- now I'm going to have to go digging through all my saved ticket stubs and look to see if my seats were on there. I swear they wrote it on my ticket for me, like I was being assigned on the spot. And they've done it twice now. Hmmmmmm.

jules4je7: Every eurostart ticket I've had or seen has had the seat number printed on it. But the print isn't large - perhaps they just wrote the seat number on your ticket to make it easier to find. Maybe something like that - or by any chance were you on a tour w/ several traveling together? Maybe it was a block of seats and individual seat assignments given when the group checked in?

Otherwise I can't think of a reason to not have numbers on the tix.

ehg: How did you purchase the Eurostar tickets? Online? From which site? Just curious to see who issues Eurostar tickets without seat assignments?

ttt egh you there?