Change at Lille

[Hannah88811]

Has anyone gone indirect to Disney and changed at Lille please? It says it quick and easy but how quick and easy is it, I don't want to have to run across a station with a child and suitcase in tow with 10 mins to do it in?!

[sammykitten]

very very easy, you come off the Eurostar at Lille, and take the moving staircase up to the concourse. About 10-15 minutes before your TGV is due to leave the station from Lille to DLP station, the platform number you need will come up on the monitors on the concourse. Our platform was the same one we'd come up from . So then you just punch your ticket in the little yellow machines you'll see everywhere in the station and take the escalator down to your platform to wait a few minutes for your train.

Lille international isn't huge, you'll be fine, and I haven't yet heard of anyone having to go from one end of the station to the other to catch their TGV after getting off the Eurostar .

[BevS97]

As above it was easy. I was nervous but there was no need. The station is small you won't have to sprint anywhere

We also went upstairs, waited and then returned to the same platform. I think there are only 2 platforms.

[Hannah88811]

How long did you have to wait for your TGV please? And is there a cafe or anything there? Also did you use Disney Express? Sorry for quizzing you, both 😁

[sammykitten]

Originally Posted by Hannah88811

How long did you have to wait for your TGV please? And is there a cafe or anything there? Also did you use Disney Express? Sorry for quizzing you, both 😁

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i think we were about half an hour - 40 minutes, I can't really remember. we had brought snacks with us so we just waited near the platform we'd come from, there are benches dotted about all over the concourse. The Disney Express isn't valid for the indirect service as far as I'm aware - as you arrive and leave DLP by TGV, not Eurostar.

[Peter H]

Yes very easy, though we had to wait 40 mins for our connection. It was the same platform we got off the Eurostar at. If you have a long connection time there is very little at the station but there is a shopping centre next door.

[clochette]

We waited about an hour in Lille. As the others have said, it was really easy. We did have Disney Express but we weren't aware of it until we got to the hotel to find that all our tickets and meal vouchers were at the station!

[Hannah88811]

Brill thanks guys I feel a bit better about booking indirect now 😁

[mrsbenny]

We found it very easy and we would do it again next year. We had 4 kids with us and managed fine. Not much at Lille but we sat and ate our pack lunch we brought with us.

[sky13]

I did this connection several times a few years ago. Things might have changed...

On the way out
Very easy change at Lille - as easy as changing trains at for example King's Cross. Just need to get onto the right platform and the right part of the platform (as the TGV tickets have a seat number).
I've had 1+ hour connections at Lille before and just gone into the shopping centre next door. This is a decent sized shopping centre with a supermarket so good to stock up on French groceries!

On the way in
This is slightly more complicated because you have to clear UK immigration and go through Eurostar security check at Lille. So you do need to be at the Eurostar part of Lille station 30 minutes before the Lille-London train departs, to allow time to clear UK immigration and for the security check.

Generally as long as your entire journey is booked on the same ticket (London-Lille-MLV and MLV-Lille-London) you shouldn't need to worry too much about missing connections at Lille if it was due to a previous train delay or other circumstances. I've had two occasions where I was almost stuck at Lille but was only delayed by a couple of hours if that - once when the TGV workers were on strike (they somehow managed to get us onto a very crowded Lille-MLV train after a couple of hours of waiting), once when the MLV-Lille train was delayed and a whole group of people missed the Lille-London connection (they stopped the next Eurostar train going through Lille to London to let us all on).