Eurostar to suspend direct trains to Disneyland Paris

Eurostar is to suspend its direct train service between London and Disneyland Paris.

The company said the route would be axed from 5 June next year for the duration of the summer.

It said the decision was taken to focus on "core routes" as it recovered from the pandemic and monitored plans for new European Union entry and exit rules.

Eurostar said it would "revisit options" for 2024 next year.

Direct trains between London St Pancras International and Marne-la-Vallee - a station next to Disneyland Paris, to the east of the French capital - take two hours and 24 minutes. The suspension of the service means passengers will now have to change at Paris or Lille.

The route has operated since 1996 though it was stopped for a time at the height of Covid restrictions.

New rules for visitors to the EU are due to come into force by the end of May next year.

The system will mean travellers from outside the bloc must have their fingerprints scanned and photograph taken, instead of having their passport manually stamped.

A Eurostar spokeswoman said: "Whilst we continue to recover financially from the pandemic and monitor developments in the proposed EU Entry Exit system, we need to focus on our core routes to ensure we can continue to provide the high level of service and experience that our customers rightly expect."

"This decision applies from 5 June 2023, and as tickets are not yet on sale beyond this date, existing customer bookings will not be affected," she added.

The BBC recently revealed that Eurostar services may not stop in Kent again until 2025.

The company cited financial reasons and the post-Brexit border situation, adding that it "must focus on our most profitable inter-capital routes".

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Eurostar was hit hard by Covid travel restrictions and last year secured a £250m rescue package from banks and investors.

In 2019 - the last time the company reported financial results - its sales revenue was nearly £1bn.

But at the height of the pandemic, Eurostar warned that it was "fighting for survival", after seeing a 95% drop in demand.

This has left the company with a large amount of debt to repay.

The Disneyland Paris connection is much less frequent than Eurostar's core routes from London, with only around four services a week, compared to as many as 14 services a day to the French capital.

Julia Lo Bue-Said, chief executive of Advantage Travel Partnership, a network of more than 700 UK travel agents, said the news would be "disappointing" for holidaymakers.

"Taking young ones and families to the famous park in France has been a highlight for thousands of British families for many years," she said.

"The reality is that Brexit has removed the ability for Brits to travel freely across Europe, and has taken away the seamless and frictionless travel that we all enjoyed prior to leaving the EU," she added.