Charles de Gaulle Airport (6 hours)

pugwall

Hi,

I'm flying into Charles de Gaulle Paris in a few weeks at 9.30am and my connecting flight doesn't leave until 4.00 pm.

Do I have enough time to make it into Paris for a couple of hours?

How long should it take to get to the city cetre?

Thanks!

Litcagral

pugwall wrote:

Hi,

I'm flying into Charles de Gaulle Paris in a few weeks at 9.30am and my connecting flight doesn't leave until 4.00 pm.

Do I have enough time to make it into Paris for a couple of hours?

How long should it take to get to the city cetre?

Thanks!

About 45-60mins depending on your method of transport. You are right to get out of there for a while as it must be on of the worst airports in the developed world (IMO).

babaduck

God yes - CDG is a sh*te airport with dire catering so if I was you... I'd either get the RER B train to Gare Du Nord or the Roissybus to Place Opera, to explore for a while. Give yourself plenty of time on the return though... I'd look to be leaving no later than 2pm

Either way, check out www.ratp.fr & click on the "international travellers" button on the top RHS of the page

**Timbuk2**

CDG is a bad airport. It is big and there are alot of people around that don't speak your language :mad: I'm not sure how long it takes to get into the city but if you have time, defintly go in and shop or something... far better than sitting in the airport tbh

p.pete

The airport reminded me of Logans Run for some reason... Apart from that I don't seem to remember enjoying being there

joolsveer

I have been to Beauvais and to Charles de Gaulle and the experience of CdG would make me choose Ryanair to go to Paris every time. It is a slum of an airport - worse than Dublin. Retrieving luggage is a nightmare which takes forever. I would take the train into the city as I think it is the quickest way of getting in.

Litcagral

joolsveer wrote:

I have been to Beauvais and to Charles de Gaulle and the experience of CdG would make me choose Ryanair to go to Paris every time. It is a slum of an airport - worse than Dublin. Retrieving luggage is a nightmare which takes forever. I would take the train into the city as I think it is the quickest way of getting in.

I was waiting at the departure gate in terminal 1 recently. My 4 year old wanted to use the toilet. There are no toilets at the gate areas. We had to go back out through the security check and take off belts, shoes, contents of pockets etc. They almost wanted to put the child through the scanner. One would imagine that a modern airport would have toilets at the departure gate areas.

penexpers

**Timbuk2** wrote:

CDG is a bad airport. It is big and there are alot of people around that don't speak your language :mad:

Cheek of them.

p.pete

Litcagral wrote:

I was waiting at the departure gate in terminal 1 recently. My 4 year old wanted to use the toilet. There are no toilets at the gate areas. We had to go back out through the security check and take off belts, shoes, contents of pockets etc. They almost wanted to put the child through the scanner. One would imagine that a modern airport would have toilets at the departure gate areas.

Amazingly, I think I had to go through the security checks there twice too. Whatever gate I was at was really badly laid out - everyone else had more sense then me so there was nobody waiting yet and I wandered into the wrong area (where people alighting come in) and they made me go back out and in again :mad:

**Timbuk2**

Litcagral wrote:

I was waiting at the departure gate in terminal 1 recently. My 4 year old wanted to use the toilet. There are no toilets at the gate areas. We had to go back out through the security check and take off belts, shoes, contents of pockets etc. They almost wanted to put the child through the scanner. One would imagine that a modern airport would have toilets at the departure gate areas.

Thats really bad planning tbh. What if you plane is delayed and you could end up sitting at the departure gates for hours, and needing to pee??

I was never in Terminal 1 in CDG (which I believe is the biggest terminal), I was only in Terminal 2, which handles Air France flights. All the Air France flights arrive and depart from T2. It is not as big as T1 but the less I spent in it the happier I was

nialo

Ah cdg airport... nothing to do in any off the terminals. if ur camping find a corner and sleep.. If u want to check out paris for a bit u could go to disney land. would take about 30 minutes on the rer. Then u would have to leave by 1. to be back in the terminal to get through security etc... if u really wanted u could do paris center. but u wouldnt really have time to do much. maybe see the eiffel tower and the something else before heading back to the airport..
alot off extra walking...

Yeah 45 mins to Garre du Nord if i remember correctly.
So yeah do it.
Have a light Lunch on the champs and climb the arc d'triumph.

Check out if its possible to get your boarding cards for the connecting flight(if its the same airline or same alliance) in Dublin or whereever you start as this will save time later.
Also try to check your luggage through from Dublin so you dont have to worry about it in CDG-possible usually if its the same airline or alliance.

I would be back at the train station for 1:30 though at the latest, but you should have 2 hrs to lounge around central paris.

Ponster

Fly in at 9:30.

Bags in hand at 10:00

Grab metro and arrive in Chatelet at 10:50

That gives you about 3 hours to have lunch and a pint in town.

The train into town is the RER B (thick blue line on any map you have) and is the only train leaving CDG so you can't go wrong. The first stop in Paris is the Gare de Nord (Eurostar station) and next is Chatelet for the town center. It's about €8:80 to get into town.

embraer170

Ah cdg airport... nothing to do in any off the terminals. if ur camping find a corner and sleep.. If u want to check out paris for a bit u could go to disney land. would take about 30 minutes on the rer.

There is no RER from CDG to Disneyland.

nialo

embraer170 wrote:

There is no RER from CDG to Disneyland.

Not direct... but u can get there pretty quickly.

embraer170

Not direct... but u can get there pretty quickly.

Not really.
40 minutes of RER B to Chatelet and 45 minutes of RER A to MLV-Disneyland is the quickest (and that's if you're lucky) ...

There is a bus between CDG and Disney but it's not all that frequent.

parsi

embraer170 wrote:

Not really.
40 minutes of RER B to Chatelet and 45 minutes of RER A to MLV-Disneyland is the quickest (and that's if you're lucky) ...

There is a bus between CDG and Disney but it's not all that frequent.

Actually the TGV from CDG to Marne-la-Vallee (Disney) takes 8 minutes.

We did it last year - arrive in from Cork , collect the bags, collect the kids, get the bus to the TGV station, queue 15 mins for tickets (all the time cursing the muppets who get to the ticket desk and unfurl maps), dash down to platform, run over some dumb Yanks who think the escalator is for chatting, hop on train, arrive at Disneyland before you catch your breath.

embraer170

Actually the TGV from CDG to Marne-la-Vallee (Disney) takes 8 minutes.

We did it last year - arrive in from Cork , collect the bags, collect the kids, get the bus to the TGV station, queue 15 mins for tickets (all the time cursing the muppets who get to the ticket desk and unfurl maps), dash down to platform, run over some dumb Yanks who think the escalator is for chatting, hop on train, arrive at Disneyland before you catch your breath.

Interesting. I wasn't aware SNCF sold tickets between CDG and MLV (policy of the TGV not being used as a commuter train bla bla bla bla). Out of interest, how much was it?

parsi

AFAIK I was circa 38 euro for us all. One way. Cheaper than the bus.

Our man in Havana

Only 8 mins? are you sure?

parsi

Bond-007 wrote:

Only 8 mins? are you sure?

Yep.

If you got to www.sncf.fr and have a gawk you'll see that the next few TGVs from CDG to Marne-la-Vallee take from 9-10 minutes eg TGV5022 leaves at 17:04 and arrives at 17:13 (9 mins). Our one last year was scheduled for 8 mins and that's why we got it - thought it would be fun for the kids to go on a short-fast journey.

Our man in Havana

Is there an intermediate stop?

parsi

I don't remember one - I recall that we (me) had just stopped the heavy breathing when it was time to get off.

penexpers

Bond-007 wrote:

Is there an intermediate stop?

There isn't.