First time, not impressed
Where do I begin.
The trains seem old, the cafe is lacking, the seating is crap and the people are worse.
I took a London to Amsterdam train and I found that it took me the same time as a flight overall. The waiting area at St Pancras is TERRIBLE with its overcrowding.
The Amsterdam side is even worse and there’s barely any food options.
The first thing I noticed was how out of date the trains looked. They weren’t exactly clean either. The cafe has very little in terms of options which I was surprised given how long some of the journeys are.
Finally, the passengers. Most of them I found were rude, entitled and just a bit unpleasant. I’m not making some veiled comment about nationalities. I include allll passengers here UK and EU.
I know you can get the same in airports too of course, but I had bad experiences going out and in. I sat at a table (probably my fault) and both times the person opposite was kicking me. I’m so short that they really had to stretch their legs out. I found people were weirdly possessive over table space too.
I should preface I do long train journeys regularly around the UK and in Europe and I’ve never had these level of issues with seating. People were rude, kicking me, moving my stuff and generally unpleasant. I didn’t find the staff all that friendly either.
Overall, after considering the price and how much time the whole journey takes, it just doesn’t feel worth it to me and it’s a shame given the environmental cost planes have.
I wonder if I just got unlucky or anyone else has found this with Eurostar.