EUROSTAR LAUNCHES NEW ROUTE: LONDON TO AMSTERDAM
Eurostar is one of the most well-known trains connecting major cities of Europe. I had my very first experience with Eurostar when I first visited Paris. I traveled on Eurostar during the peak season (best time, of course! Ha!) during December holidays and had a lovely experience. Even though, my friend caused us to miss our actual train, she also somehow managed to get us to board another train without being having to pay additional charges. That alone made me impressed with their service. I can’t say if Eurostar still provides those exceptions if you missed your train departure (don’t be tardy people!), but this was the case many years ago.
Now, Eurostar, years after many years of negotiation had added the train route to Amsterdam! Well, hey, Eurostar could have implanted this much earlier, but in any case, this will be quite an exciting route to be added to the departure destinations from Kings Cross Station in London, England (see above featured photo). As of April 4th of this year, Eurostar will run direct trains from London to both Rotterdam and Amsterdam. The schedule will be a direct route running twice per day during the weekdays and once per day on the weekends.
The route from London to Rotterdam will be 3 hours 41 minutes compared to the 3 hours of transit time from London to Amsterdam. If first class is an option for you, then free wifi will be provided as an additional “luxury” that will be a definite pro for those business travellers. It is also possible to book trains far in advance if there is a prescheduled business meeting for instance, it would be very useful to have that early-booking option of up to 180 days.
(via Eurostar site)
Many British are already fond and accustomed to taking trains considering the historic route of London to Paris and vice versa has been known to capture those that like to take long-weekend breaks. This new Eurostar route will also compete directly with budget airlines on price, with one-way fares starting as low as 35 GBP. The access that city dwellers in England have to train stations verse airport will likely be a draw for travellers to opt for train stations instead of airports. It will be interesting to see which mode of transport will stand strong in the United Kingdom as well as the competition in price between the budget airlines and Eurostar.
