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Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 748

Hi All.

Wingflaps2 and I headed off to Paris for the day with easyJet yesterday and I thought I'd post a wee trip report.

Our outbound flight was scheduled to leave at 06.10 and as we passed the fences of the apron at LTN, after parking the car, we saw 9 easyJets and 3 Monarchs lined up along the terminal and in front of the Monarch and Britannia hangars. A nice sight, but alas, Deano forgot to sick his camera in the rucksack. Bugger! A nice pic opportunity at the airport missed and one of Europe's great cities goes un-photographed. Bugger! Anyhoo, our flight left more or less on time - the aircraft being the ex-GO machine G-OFRA, a B733, still with the GO interior. The plane was about 80% full. When we landed in CDG, we taxied to the terminal, passing an Air France Concorde - good to see the old bird once again.

Once we got through customs, we walked to the train station at T3 and struggled to find out where the hell one buys train tickets in a hurry. We found some stand-alone ticket machines that took credit cards, but the notice on them stated that not all foreign cards were accepted, and, you've guessed it, none of ours were accepted!! Typical :mad: We then had to queue at the main ticket sales desk, where two people were serving. The queue easily consisted of 60 people. It took about 30 minutes for us to get tickets for our train to Paris Gare du Nord. Farcical, in my opinion. You wouldn't need to be in a big hurry to get anywhere! Eventually, we got to central Paris and we had about 8 hours to explore. I was really hoping that Paris would be my cup of tea. This was my first visit there and I had heard both bad and good reports, so I was unsure what to expect. I always judge a place on my own opinions and experiences only and, as it turned out, I absolutely loved it. Very much my cup of tea - atmospheric, stylish to the extreme and lots of very very attractive structures and buildings. Instantly, I knew that one day wasn't going to be enough. The weather was kind to us, so we decided to use the map and find our way round on foot. I find that you miss too much going around a city even by bus - I much prefer to explore a new city on foot. Anyway, 8 hours, lots of sightseeing, a superb steak, a nice session of people watching and two sore feet later, it was time to make tracks back to l'aeroport.

We checked in straight away at T3, with no queue in front of us and then headed straight through to departures. We were hoping to get a spot of spotting done, but T3 isn't exactly busy on a Saturday evening and there were no runways in sight. Never mind though, the terminal we left from was to prove to be entertaining in itself with the queue for a flight to Abidjan breaking into a massive agrument over something in French, which eventually attracted the attention of 5 policemen with batons. Looked a bit nasty. When easyJet's G-EZJE, B737-700, arrived about 10 minutes late, we were called to our gate, where we were quickly put on to busses and taken to the aircraft. We usually prefer to sit at the back of aircraft when we can and we were the only two people who boarded the aircraft using the rear stairs and immediately got seated whilst those who boarded at the front were held up by those people who wanted to sit near the front and were faffing around with their hand luggage and the overhead bins. Tee-hee! :) This flight was more or less full. The fun was just about to begin. We taxied to the runway, waited for an incoming Air Horizons B737 (I think) to land and then we were off. We were being warned by the Captain shortly after takeoff that we could expect some turbulence near Luton and then the annoucement cut off and never restarted. About a minute later, we were bouncing around the skies in a manner similar to Oblivion at Alton Towers! I think the Captain had changed his mind about where we could expect turbulence mid-speech. It lasted a good 15 minutes and the cabin crew got fed up falling on people's laps (seriously) and stopped the on-board service, just after they had served me! :D - however, the flight was so bumpy, that I had to put my food in my rucksack for afterwards. :rolleyes:

All in all, it was a great day out and a normal flight there and an interesting flight back. I think Paris deserves a good long weekend next time round.

Thanks for listenting.

Original post

Member for

20 years 9 months

Posts: 2,114

good report glad you had a ncie time in Paris it is a lovly place to visit did u go to notre damn and the eiffel tower and the sacre cur church on the hill wonderfull city one thing i noticed when i went there the underground/metro/tube have rubber wheels on some of the cariages did you experience the metro? anyway glad you had a nice time :)

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 748

We did go to the Eiffel Tower, Chris, and to Notre Dame but the Sacré Coeur will be on the list for next time. The Eiffel Tower was most impressive and I really wouldn't mind going to the top next time. Yesterday there were THOUSANDS of Perpignan rugby fans all around the tower, so a visit to the top didn't happen on this occasion. :rolleyes:

I did notice too that the Metro trains had rubber tyre on the wheels and thought it looked a bit strange :confused:

Member for

20 years 10 months

Posts: 9,401

Great report Dean, Paris is on my must visit list, especially with Jet2 now flying there from my local.

One thing missed out of the report........ What did you think of Easyjet?

:D

Member for

20 years 8 months

Posts: 3,539

Great report, sounds like a very interesting experience! I have been to Paris many a time before, my mum once lived there for about 5 years and I used to spend 3 or 4 weeks there each yeah all in all. A trip to the top of Eiffel Tower is well worth it, done it 5 or 6 times before and it is still just as interesting! :D

Also try a boat trip down the Seine, and the Moulin Rouge is quite good too ;)

Member for

21 years

Posts: 4,209

Nice report, I find it strange that EZY are the only LoCo to fly to Paris from London, and yet only from LTN?

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 748

Great report Dean, Paris is on my must visit list, especially with Jet2 now flying there from my local.

One thing missed out of the report........ What did you think of Easyjet?

:D

I always quite like flying easyJet. The cabin crew are allowed to be themselves, as far as a sense of humour goes and it does make a difference to how passengers take to them. On our return flight, they dimmed the cabin lights and mentioned that the reading lights should be used if needed. Within seconds, there were about 10 cabin crew bells pressed (instead of the light buttons) and one of the stewardesses announced over the p.a. system that they "should use the button with the lightbulb on it for the reading light". A big laugh happened throughout the cabin. Nice and light-hearted. Well done easyJet. :D

Member for

20 years 10 months

Posts: 9,401

Thanks for that Dean, I really should try Easyjet one day, sound like a good airline.

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 920

Thanks for the report Dean. :)

Member for

20 years 2 months

Posts: 2,495

Great can I ask how much a saturday flight to Paris costs?

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 748

Obviously, there is no set price, Shamrock, but we got easyJet's lowest non-sale fare of just less than £34 return including taxes, per person. Bloody bargainous in my opinion! :D :D

Member for

20 years 6 months

Posts: 1,776

good report glad you had a ncie time in Paris it is a lovly place to visit did u go to notre damn and the eiffel tower and the sacre cur church on the hill wonderfull city one thing i noticed when i went there the underground/metro/tube have rubber wheels on some of the cariages did you experience the metro? anyway glad you had a nice time :)

Argh, do you actually learned at school how to make proper sentences?
Great report there. Paris is great. I visited the Louvre for a few hours. Well actually we visited everything nice in paris in just three days! I was very tired after that.
The metro's cool, the doors slam open and close very wildly. Watch out! But don't get robbed.

Member for

20 years 1 month

Posts: 3,124

Argh, do you actually learned at school how to make proper sentences?

Rule no.1 when it comes to critising other peoples grammer is not to allow other people to find fault in your own! ;)
Great report too. :)

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 748

With the absolute utmost respect, Jeanske is Belgian and I think his English is excellent - especially given his age. I think his grammar (correct spelling) is very good and I believe he may have been criticising (correct spelling) the lack of punctuation. No punctuation whatsoever can make a post very difficult to read or understand sometimes. I would agree with him on this occasion.

Anyway, thanks to all for their kind words on this thread. Paris is indeed a great city and I hope to visit it again, but for longer next time.

Member for

20 years 6 months

Posts: 1,776

Rule no.1 when it comes to critising other peoples grammer is not to allow other people to find fault in your own! ;)
Great report too. :)

Rule no.2 be happy to have contacts out of the UK here who don't speak fluently English