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Leaving Your Trip in REIMS
This page offers help (concrete or informational) on leaving your trip. Topics include...
- Where you Leave Your Trip (see immediately below)
- Our “Access Packages,” designed to help you to do so.
- Suggestions on how to time your ongoing travel, whether you are having us arrange it, or doing it yourself.
- Service information regarding train travel from your trip end location.
- Suggested post-trip visits, especially when these are not geographically obvious, but are rendered economical and convenient by direct rail connections.
- Hopefully helpful hints for those setting up their own travel from the trip.
If you wish to arrange some or all of your travel through us, please tell us what by means of this response questionnaire, designed to collect all the information we need to be able to book your travel.
1. WHERE and WHEN Do You Leave Your Trip?
Your trip disbands in Reims, Friday at the end of the riding day.
If you wish to arrange your own ongoing travel (in other words, you do not want to set up any ongoing travel arrangements through us), a couple of hints regarding ongoing travel are offered at the bottom of this page. Otherwise...
2. Our ACCESS PACKAGES
as of February 15, 2008
Base (Starting) Access Package Price: 89 €.
If you are a North American traveller, the $ price (US or Canadian) on your price chart applies until 35 days prior to trip departure. Otherwise euro prices are transcribed to your invoice in its currency, converted at the exchange rate of the day on which the package is requested (rounded to the nearest whole dollar). Current “mid-market” rates can be consulted from the site we use for conversion. We use the mid-market rate on the day of conversion, and add 2% to cover currency broker exchange commissions (our conversion rates are thus as good as, or better than, any you could obtain, including via your credit card, unless you are a professional currency trader).
Availability is normally guaranteed until 35 days prior to trip start (payment received by us). Within 35 days, availability must be confirmed, and costs may be slightly higher. Some extra-cost options also have higher prices if ordered w/in 35 days.
Included:
- Dinner in Reims.
- A Friday hotel night in Reims, based on shared occupancy. Typically, most of your past weeks’ travelling companions will also be staying over.
Share price is guaranteed to singles willing to share until 35 days prior to trip departure. After that, you may share of someone else wishes to do the same, but must otherwise pay the single supplement (see below).
- Breakfast, if you have time / get up for it.
- Saturday TGV (high-speed train) tickets to Paris.
Tickets are in 2nd class, not refundable or exchangeable once ordered (see below for extra cost 1st class or flexible tickets).
- A printed schedule / itinerary, highlighting any connections.
Options Offered at an Extra Cost (subject to availability)
Prices are in addition to the “Base” Access Package Price. For a general discussion of train upgrades, see here. Topics include the relative comfort of first versus second class, and different types of accommodation available on overnight trains.
- Tickets to London. Via Lille: add 49€ if you are also purchasing tickets from London at the start of your trip, 89€ if not, or if you prefer a changeable ticket (in 1st class, add 89€ or 135€; 1st class tickets include meal service).
Add 12€ more for service via Paris, stopovers permitted.
- Tickets to other points: discount fares often available.
- First class train tickets (in lieu of 2nd class): 15€ to Paris, 29€ to all other points in France.
- Flexible (exchangeable / refundable) tickets: 15€ to Paris, 35€ to all other points.
These tickets are exchangeable at any station, on a space-available basis, at any time until the train’s departure, for free if the exchange is made prior to the date of travel, or for 10€ on the date of travel. Cost of either exchange is 10€ higher if you make it through us (as opposed to going to the ticket counter yourself). Tickets are refundable less 20% before the train’s departure.
- Single room in Reims on Friday night. If you also occupied a single during the trip: 21€. If you did not (a room change will be necessary between the two Reims nights): 32€.
- Tickets on the Paris airport train, to Charles de Gaulle or Orly from anywhere in the city. Follow this link for details.
Alternate Arrangements, in lieu of our usual packages (subject to availability)
Prices are complete (in other words, they are not in addition to the "Base" Access Package Price)
- Dinner, hotel, and breakfast in Reims (no ongoing train): 74€ shared occupancy, 95€ single.
Share price is guaranteed to singles willing to share until 35 days prior to trip departure. After that, you may share of someone else wishes to do the same, but must otherwise pay the single supplement (see above).
- Friday evening train to Paris with no Friday dinner or hotel: 25€ 2nd class, 35€ 1st class.
Tickets are in not refundable or exchangeable once ordered (see above for extra cost flexible tickets).
- Friday overnight trains (dp. Reims 8p) operate to Prague, Austria, and the south of France (Provence, the Côte d’Azur & Nice). Overnight trains operate from Paris to destinations around Europe. Discounts available based on other travel plans.
3. TIMING Your Trip
You will have already spent the previous night in Reims (Thursday) when your trip ends. We nonetheless recommend spending Friday night there, as well. We include it, along with a festive dinner, in the “Access Package.” We also offer an attractive 2-day add-on to Brugge, one of Europe’s most beautiful cities (see below for details).
While nothing prevents you from leaving Reims as soon as you have had enough riding / visiting on Friday, this is a temptation to be resisted. Departing Reims on Friday night means that you spend the last riding day worrying about getting back to town in time for your train. Which you must ride without having showered, because your hotel room is wherever the train is taking you, and not in Reims. Most of your fellow riders will typically stay on, so you will suffer the further indignity of feeling like you are missing something.
However... you must be careful in booking your flight if you are flying out of Paris on Saturday: the first morning train does not get to Charles de Gaulle airport until 9a. As a practical matter, this means that the earliest intercontinental flight you can “comfortably” book would have an 11a departure time. If you must book an earlier flight on Saturday, then leaving Reims on Friday evening is your only option.
4. Service Information
Schedules are approximate – exact timetables can be consulted at http://www.raileurope.com/us/rail/fares_schedules/index.htm.
Best trains are mentioned. Others are slower or have multiple connections.
- To Paris. Travel time is 50 minutes, service starts at 7:45a. The second train departs circa 8:15a, service is thereafter circa every 90 minutes.
- There is one earlier train, at 7a, but with a connection. Gets in to central Paris at 8a
- Last train on Friday night is at 8p. The previous one is at 6:45p, but if you opt for this, we suggest a changeable ticket....
- To Charles de Gaulle Airport. Services on this line are rare... but they are pretty slick when they fit your timing. 8a, 1:30p and 8p. An hour later, you are in the terminal.
You take a shuttle train from the downtown station out to the TGV-port, 5 minutes, and catch a TGV straight to the airport from there.
- Daylight trains reach Strasbourg in a bit over 2 hours; Brugge, Brussels or Frankfurt in 3 - 4, points in Switzerland or Holland in 5 or 6....
- To London. Typically 5 hours via Paris, including station change and connection time, but services via Lille at 8a and 1:30p take only 4.
5. Suggested POST-TRIP VISITS
Why not Brugge? A beautiful Flemmish city, criss-crossed by canals. We offer a package, subject to availability, including all of the following:
- A Friday night hotel bed in Reims
- An (early) Saturday morning train to Brugge, arrive by noon.
- Saturday & Sunday hotel nights there (other Marbles will typically be with you, as this is the start of our Northern Europe itinerary).
- Three dinners (one in Reims, two in Brugge).
- Three breakfasts (1 continental, 2 buffet)
Price: 299€ shared occupancy (rate guaranteed to singles willing to share), 389€ single. First class upgrade: 37€. We can help you organize ongoing trains from Brugge (the closest airport is Brussels, an hour away). Eurostar service available to London for the same price as from Reims.
6. Hints on TRAVELLING INDEPENDENTLY After the Trip
Guests subscribing to an “Access Package” need not read this section.
See also “Timing Your Trip” and “Service Information,” above, as either of these may additionally help.
We gladly provide travel consulting (schedule or routing information) concerning post-trip individual travel. In particular, we have invested a great deal to become railway experts. Our service fees are reasonable: a 20 euro charge for all but the most complex projects – or the most simple (for instance, only a 10 euro charge applies if the service is limited to the preparation of a routine rail ticket). You will generally find them well-justified by the time they will save you in research, standing on line, overpaying for your tickets, or all three.
But, for some, this type of research is fun. So, here are some hints, intended to start off hardened “do-it-yourselfers.”
Trains. Schedules for all routes can be consulted on this web site:
http://www.raileurope.com/us/rail/fares_schedules/index.htm
Reims is on the main line from Paris to Eastern France. Travel to either is easy, and connections to all points east (Germany, Switzerland...) are available in Strasbourg. Direct trains also operate south to Burgundy, though service is not frequent.
Planes. The only airport in the area is Paris. Charles de Gaulle is more convenient to your arrival train station than Orly, but the two are equally convenient to our usual Paris hotels. Going to Beauvais (Ryanair) takes as long as just taking the train all the way to London. Or to Sweden, for that matter.
If you wish to arrange some or all of your travel through us, please tell us what by means of this response questionnaire, designed to collect all the information we need to be able to book your travel.
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