[Anonymous]

[TonyMP45]

I am in Versailles celebrating my Partner’s birthday and in order to ensure that we travelled in style we paid £980 to travel return by Eurostar Business Premier. On the positive side the lounge at St. Pacras is amazing and the train arrived on time at Gare du Nord. The positives end there. It took 45 minutes of a 2 hour journey to get served a drink and then it was with the starter. When I asked for champagne it arrived with the main course. A very poor service from Eurostar and I will not use them ever again.

[alwaysinclub]

I am surprised. I used Eurostar this week and found it good. The only issue was Gard du Nord! No tickets for the underground network, taxi queue of 1 hour. Lounge, as you said was very good

[MarkCymru]

About two years ago, a very nice staff member at Gare du Nord offered to upgrade me from Standard Premier to Business Premier. I didn’t know how to avoid sounding ungrateful so I accepted. My worst fears were realised: I was sitting at one of those awful tables. I would rather sit in standard (standard) that at those tables in the premier coaches. Twice since, I have had no choice but to book seats at the dreaded tables and the second time (after I had played footsie with a 6′ 4″ man for almost three hours), I decided that, given this choice, I would always book standard or go back to flying. (For the avoidance of misunderstanding: I have no inherent problems with playing footsie with tall men!)

[LPPSKrisflyer]

Eurostar is so easy to use but in premiere never fails to disappoint. As they have a monopoly there is no incentive to improve. Of course with DB’s planned entry to the market that will change and not before time.

[AMcWhirter]

Hi LPPSKrisflyer –

Eurostar’s monopoly on the London-Paris route will continue. DB has plans to operate out of London (hopefully from end 2015 provided a host of political and technical issues can be resolved) but Paris is one destination that DB will not cover.

[SimonS1]

A commons committee was saying last week what a financial disaster the high speed link has been with passenger numbers a third of those originally projected.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18733308

[Pierre]

The only advantage of Eurostar is the connection in two hours between city centres. The serive on board is friendly, and papers and magazines present a wide choice. Lounges are fine but narrow, and usually packed.
The meal service is a disaster. Why don’t they think offering a tray like in planes rather than running with scrambled eggs half an hour after the hot drink ?? They should ring Virgin train in the UK which offers meals onboard, with a friendly service, and you get all at once; may be could they learn something ??

[LPPSKrisflyer]

Have you eaten on a Virgin train recently?

I went to MAN a couple of weeks ago. On the northbound there was supposed to be breakfast, there was toast because of a fault in the kitchen, that’s the second time that has happened to me in as many months. They did seem to be able to produce hot food for sale but not for passengers in first who should have been offered it as a matter of course.

On the return there was what I imagine VS serve as afternoon tea in economy class, a box with three finger sandwiches and a scone full of jam and something that I think was meant to be cream. The sandwiches tasted of nothing, the scone was disgusting.

The crew were a mixed bag, on the northbound the only one who stood out was for the wrong reasons and she clearly disliked her job and anything to do with passengers. There was one man on the return who was excellent but other than that they really were nothing special.

The fare was £423 return. I think in any other circumstances parting with so much money for the service offered would be classed as robbery.

Like everything else with Virgin, much was promised, little was delivered. Service used to be good on their trains, now it is abysmal.

[RogEdwards]

I travelled from Edinburgh to Preston in First on a Virgin Pendalino and thought the breakfast service was pretty good – served by an excellent team. What I didn’t like was the train itself. It felt grubby and tired. There was a constant musty dirty smell. Although it was First class it didn’t feel particularly spacious or special.

[Pierre]

I travelled on a Pendolino some two weeks ago, and the service was pleasant.
The meals are simple & edible.
I think planes & trains are always dirty, but Pendolino are far from being the worst..

[tiggerbrown]

How did VT respond LPPSKrisflyer when you let them know of your disappointment?

[LPPSKrisflyer]

The usual, circumstances beyond their control, the afternoon tea was introduced as the result of customer feedback – the customers who gave feedback obviously wanted less service than they used to offer. Several points were not addressed but no surprises there!

[LuganoPirate]

I can’t get over the prices. Over £1,200 for a family of four (assuming kids go half price) makes it much cheaper to go by car or plane!

[TimFitzgeraldTC]

Hi Lugano

May I point out that it is highly unlikely that you would walk up with a family of 4 in peak hour and book train tickets for £1200 in First Class! This must happen in about 0.00001% of cases. If you walked up on the day, off peak (as is the case for most families) and went standard then it would be £250 return from London to Manchester. If you were travelling at the weekend you could upgrade to £15pp each way to First. Families are more likely to travel in one direction on a weekend than weekday. Also if you were travelling as a family it is more likely that this was known in advance so you could book advance tickets and make a major saving – it could be £250 return in First Class for the family (actually slightly less as based prices on adult fares) so your concern on prices is deeply misguided. You’ll find it is almost always cheaper by train than by plane (especially for off peak travel). Yes a car is going to be cheaper for 4 but that is almost always likely to be the case (uinless you book very cheap advance standard tickets!).

I thought I should respond to your comment as I don’t think it was fair and is misleading. Yes UK has some of the most expensive fares in Europe (and the world) for walk up fares but we also have some of the cheapest tickets in Europe in our advance fares.

With regards to Eurostar I think the service in general is excellent. They do lack in Premier – that does need to be improved and I think most people recognise that – hopefully Eurostar will – but I’d take them any day over flying – flying is a much more horific experience from London in any class of travel.

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