A Weekend in Champagne, France

**Updated Info (as of 10 March 08) - we have chosen a hotel, we will be staying at the Holiday Inn Express at the following address:

BOULEVARD PAUL-DOUMER 21
REIMS, 51100

Please note!! There is another Holiday Inn in Reims, so please double check the address when you book.

The cheapest rate I found was on Holiday Inn's website (www.holidayinn.co.uk) and is 79 Euros/night (approx. £60). This includes breakfast and the rate is the same for a single or a double. Please feel free to post on the message board if you're interested in sharing a room (one woman already has a request posted to share with another woman).

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get any block rates because we aren't a large enough group.

In order to secure your place, please forward me your Eurostar booking so that I know you're definitely coming and can plan accordingly with the car. In order to alleviate last minute chaos, I will close the RSVP list on 31 March. If you decide you'd like to join us after that, we'd love to have you, but you'll have to organise your own plans.

I'm really excited, I think this will be a really fun weekend - I'm looking forward to it!

Our weekend itinerary:

1) Depart on Eurostar London-Paris on the 18:32 train on 10 April. Please note that Eurostar requires that you are checked in and physically within the boarding area by 30 minutes prior to departure. Current cost: £114 for standard class. I and two other members have already booked our tickets.

2) Pick-up rental van at the Eurostar station in Paris and drive to Reims. The trains from Paris to Reims don't run very late and we would have had to take the 16:30 Eurostar train in order to connect to a train to Reims. So we've decided to drive from Paris.

A few people emailed me to say that they would need to arrive in Reims on Friday - that's still an option, please let me know if you are interested in doing this so we can coordinate meeting up with you. But please note that you'll need to at least get yourself to Reims before we can pick you up! :)

I have reserved a van with room for up to 9 people with Avis, at a cost of £218 (not including fuel costs or the "extra driver" costs they always have).

3) Since it will be quite late by the time we arrive at the hotel Thursday night and get settled, the plan is simply to fall asleep and rest up! :)

4) Daily itinerary for Friday and Saturday:

Meet up for the day over breakfast, planning to leave for the day around 9am

Visit 2 vineyards in the AM, someone will need to drive (and therefore taste carefully!)

Everything in France closes mid-day for a 2 hour lunch, so we will have lunch during that time. I'm as much a foodie as I am a wine fanatic, so I'll do some research on yummy places :)

2 more vineyards after lunch (where a different person will need to drive)

The rest of the day: dinner and relaxing.

Sunday itinerary:

We should probably leave Reims by 5:30-6, so the only difference in Sunday's itinerary is that we probably won't have dinner.

5) After driving back to Paris, we will depart on the 21:13 Eurostar back to London on 13 April.

So, here are the updated costs:

Total cost per person (not including lunches, dinners, vineyard fees or petrol costs): £350 per person

Transport:
Eurostar to Paris: £114 r/t for standard class.

Shared rental car(s) to get around within Champagne: Approx. £218 per car (not including petrol), so the cost per person will depend on how many of us there are.

Hotel:
Holiday Inn Express: £60/night

Incidentals (meals, vineyard fees, etc):
Meals: Approx. £35 per day, per person, for 2 meals
Vineyard fees: not sure? We will only be charged fees at the larger vineyards. However, it is customary and polite to purchase a bottle at the ones who don't charge us for the tastings, so maybe £5 per vineyard?