That’s the TGV train from Disneyland Paris to Charles De Gaulle Airport. What a story I have for you today. I decided to get the family to the train station early, about 2 hours to be exact. So how do you get from being so early to so close to missing your train? Well here it is.
Firstly I had to queue for about 40 minutes to get our pre-paid tickets confirmed. All I had was a print-out of our booking so I needed to get a boarding pass. Well the French tend to take their time after being in a queue for so long, and you can imagine an old guy in front of me and the frustration building. For those of you who know me, yes you can see me now can’t you? Tick tock the clock is on Pierre!
Apparently you have to wait for the station platform to be called 10 minutes before the bullet train pulls into the station. Then you rush down to the designated platform. Lucky break, 15 minutes before the train departs, platform 5. Beauty, grab the family and the bags, head on down. Just so happens, a train bound for Strasbourg is departing 4 minutes earlier than ours from platform 5. O.K you say. Wait for it… In zooms the German bound train into platform 5, “no Toni we don’t catch this one” (after she had to take Eli to the toilet) as she is running from the loo. Phew she says. I have a cursory look at the carriage numbers and it appears that our carriage is a little further back on platform 5. O.K. still all good. Take a precaution Michael, move down the platform a little to greet your train. Brian and Claire call us from Australia. They’ve been trying to call us. Bit flustered Claire, sorry, trying to catch a train, can’t talk much. I hand the phone to Toni, and she has a chin wag to Brian. The German bound train pulls away from the station and off it goes. All still good? NOOOOO.
Our train is parked BEHIND the departing train. WTF!!!!. I say to Toni and the kids “RUN”… Never seen the family move so quick. At this point, the train conductor is blowing his whistle to depart, I’m yelling out NOOOOO. That means no in any man’s language. How funny he must have thought. Looking back it was like a slow motion disaster happening before our eyes. Anyway we jump on the first available opening which happens to be in 1st class. Who cares, we’re only on here for 10 minutes anyway. This very nice bullet train moves along pretty quick. “Why can’t we fly home in this train says Kate?”
You would think arriving 3½ hours early at the airport that there would be a lot of sitting around time. Nope, you need every minute to get through immigration/security and have something to eat. Gotta say, I’m over France now, looking forward to visiting Greece now. Paris: sorted.
