STP-AMS Eurostar – Standard Premier

Operator: Eurostar

Headcode: 9I14

Route:    STP-AMC

Class:    Standard Premier

Seat:     C3 S25

Date:     Tuesday 4^th October 2022

It had been a while since I had to catch a Thameslink service as I was travelling before the first LNER, but back in October I was at the station in time for the 0419 to head into London. With Thameslink dropping me off at St Pancras, I had just two escalators to climb before reaching the next point on my journey, Eurostar’s check-in.

With horror stories of queues snaking around most of St Pancras’ undercroft, I had arrived at the station two hours before departure, despite Eurostar’s recommended deadline being 45 minutes before departure. Thankfully there was no queue at all and with automated ticket barriers and no requirement to remove liquids and electronic devices, check-in and security was really quick, with me joining the queue for passport control about five minutes after getting off Thameslink.

Unfortunately my speedy process through the various pre-departure checks was brought to a stand by some temperamental e-gates at passport control. After the person ahead of me getting stuck and a reboot of the system, I made it through to the other side and got my passport checked again and stamped by French Border Police (yay, Brexit!). Even with this delay, it only took me about 20-25 minutes to get from Thameslink to the departure lounge, so I really can’t complain.

Inside the departure lounge was very busy, with the 0701 service to Paris not having yet begun boarding and passengers for both the 0801 and 0816 (my one to Amsterdam) trains starting to arrive. In terms of facilities, there’s a Pret a Manger, World Duty Free and ‘The Station Pantry’ available for passengers to get refreshments or shopping, along with seating and toilets. There’s also a lounge available to Business Premier passengers, however on the whole there’s not that much to pass the time and once you’ve managed to get a seat, the key goal is to stay put and not lose it.

Watching the 0701 begin boarding I was slightly concerned about the process as 2 of the 3 escalators providing access to platforms 5 and 6 were out of order, leading to ridiculously large queues for boarding. Whilst boarding for the 0801 on platform 9 was a lot smoother, I had seen on Real Time Trains that my train was departing from platform 5 and so positioned myself close to the door to avoid the queue.

Whilst Real Time Trains also told me that the inbound empty train for our service had arrived an hour late from the depot, boarding began on time and my place near the platform access meant I was quickly onboard. With a Standard Premier ticket, I was seated in coach 03 which was split into two cabins, with 22 seats in the larger part. Having looked at pictures of the Business Premier coaches, the seats appear to be the same, with catering the main difference between the two ‘Premier’ options.

Onboard, every seat had a large table, a USB socket and either a UK or European power socket, with a tray below the sockets allowing you to store your devices out of the way whilst charging them. Whilst there is Wi-Fi onboard, it is powered by 3G/4G and so was quite patchy (and all together useless in the London tunnels).

Despite the challenges of boarding with limited platform access, we departed on time and were soon up to the 140mph speed limit of High Speed 1. Whilst I’d travelled on HS1 before on my way to Dover (read about that here), without stops at Stratford, Ebbsfleet or Ashford it was a much quicker journey, with us reaching the Channel Tunnel about 35 minutes after departure.

Just before reaching the tunnel, breakfast was served, with a continental breakfast being included for Standard Premier passengers. This consisted of a croissant, a bread roll with jam, a raspberry yogurt and a carton of orange juice. Tea and coffee was also offered at this point, with this on almost constant supply for the rest of the journey.

Less than an hour after departing St Pancras we exited the Channel Tunnel into France, with the tunnel itself taking about 20 minutes to pass through. Our time in France was quite brief, with us passing through the platforms at Lille Europe without stopping and then crossing the border between there and the Belgian town of Tournai.

As we slowed down to snake through the suburbs of Brussels, our crew said goodbye as Brussels Midi is where the British/French/ Belgian based crews swap with their Dutch colleagues. As a result of this crew change there’s a 10 minute dwell in the schedule at Brussels Midi, giving me plenty of time to watch the frequent Thalys services on adjacent platforms. Eurostar recently announced it was merging with Thalys to form a combined company under the Eurostar brand, so I’m looking forward to more through ticketing being available with Eurostar further into Europe.

Shortly after our departure from Brussels, our new onboard crew came round offering out a light snack of either chocolate brownie or mixed nuts, along with wine, beer and soft drinks, all of which is included in Standard Premier. Crossing the Belgian border just south of Breda, we worked our way through the Dutch countryside until our penultimate stop at Rotterdam. Looking out of the window as we pulled into Rotterdam Centraal, it was clear we were on the Dutch rail network as, sat on the adjacent platform, was an iconic Koploper ICMm unit with its unique shape.

The stop at Rotterdam should have marked the half-way point of our journey along The Netherlands’ high speed line, HSL-Zuid. However, owing to a train having broken down on the line between Rotterdam and Amsterdam, we were diverted onto the ‘classic’ lines via Den Haag and Leiden. Unfortunately, this added approx. 30 minutes to our journey time, and was in fact the only delay we encountered on our journey across northern Europe.

Given the number of times I’ve travelled by train, including across borders and long distance, I was weirdly nervous about my journey with Eurostar. However, despite the delay, I was blown away by the ease of it all, as once I was onboard all I had to do was relax. Flying to Amsterdam would have involved extra steps, more limitations in terms of luggage and I probably wouldn’t have arrived much earlier. Whilst the breakfast wasn’t one to write home about, the seats in Standard Premier were excellent and perfectly comfortable even after four and a half hours of travel.

Lounge              0*

Seat/Facilities     4*

Food               3*

Service             5*

Punctuality         3*

Overall Rating      15/25 (read about my rating system here!)