The first international trip Joe and I ever took together was to London and Paris, back in the Spring of 1996. We weren’t even a couple yet; just close friends who were in the same position in that we were able to travel.
After we and 2 other friends spent several days in London, seeing the local sights and making side trips to Windsor, Longleat and Stonehenge (because “tourists”), we hopped on a Eurostar train to continue on to our next hotel, which was located at the Disneyland Paris complex. It was a very easy and convenient route. We boarded the train at St. Pancras International in Central London, just next to King’s Cross Station, and arrived at Marne-la-Vallée Chessy station, right next to Disneyland Paris, in just under 3 hours. We did the same route about a decade later, during another visit to the area.
L: Me in 2006, so excited to be on the Eurostar that I got my hair cut entirely too short. R: falling asleep, thoroughly exhausted from all the excitement (and because I always fall asleep in moving vehicles if I’m not driving)
Over a quarter of a century has passed since that original trip of ours, and the Eurostar has been shuttling thousands of people, mainly families from Britain, back and forth all that time.
Unfortunately, nothing gold can stay (From Joe: kudos for The Outsiders reference) and Eurostar has recently announced they are ending the popular route, citing continued recovery from the Covid pandemic.
In a statement released to its third-party travel agents, Eurostar explained its decision to ditch the long-running Disney route: “As the business continues to recover from the pandemic, we need to focus on our core routes to allow us to stabilise our operation and customer experience.
“Whilst we have seen travel demand return this year, we have financial commitments as a result of the pandemic which we will continue to face for a number of years.”
The statement continued: “We are also monitoring developments in the EU’s proposed Entry Exit System, and we want to focus on providing a reliable service with the experience that our customers rightly expect.
“We will still be offering connecting fares to allow passengers to enjoy the benefit of high-speed rail travel from London to Disney via Lille and Paris.”
Families from the UK who want to take the train will now have to disembark from the Eurostar at Gare du Nord, which is Paris’ main train station. From there they’ll board another train that will take them to Marne-la-Vallée Chessy. It will add over an hour to the total travel time, to say nothing of more complications for families traveling with children and luggage.
The London/DLP service is scheduled to end on June 5, 2023.
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