There has been lots written about how Eurostar handled its crisis before Christmas. Here is a personal user experience.

Like many fellow Frenchies, I tried to take the Eurostar to spend Christmas on the other side of the Channel – here’s a summary of my journey…and of Eurostar’s mistakes, customer side.

DAY 1 (Saturday) – St Pancras was a mix of thousands of angry and distressed passengers, French/UK film crews and photographers, policemen, and lost in the middle of this chaos, some Eurostar staff members.

The only information displayed on the Eurostar website announcing that trains were cancelled until lunchtime, passengers kept coming to the station. The situation became quickly unmanageable and an announcement was made asking passengers to ‘leave the station and go home as there’ll be no trains today’…whereas some other staff members claimed that it was only a health & safety measure and some trains might run in the afternoon. So we stayed.

No one really knew where to look for information: the Eurostar website didn’t display any update nor was their Facebook group or what I believed was their Twitter account (#eurostar wasn’t the official one but #little_break – easy to find, huh?)

Me and the lucky ones with Internet access got hopeful when we received an email from Eurostar…only to find out that it was a newsletter promoting special offers. This slight lack of internal communication made us a bit mad.

After waiting 8 hours in freezing temperatures (the Christmas ice sculpture in the hall didn’t move during this time) I finally got in the departure lounge with a ticket for an emergency train which was then cancelled a couple hours later. This time, no Eurostar staff members were at sight, only policemen and cleaners, and an announcement asked us to ‘leave the departure lounge immediately and check Eurostar.com for more information’.

DAY 2 (Sunday) – Eurostar customer service slightly changed their tact and tried to get rid of as many passengers as possible by saying that they didn’t know if there’ll be any trains before Christmas and strongly advising us to ‘find alternative travel arrangements’.

Eurolines coaches were full until 28 December; British Airways, Air France and Easy Jet didn’t have any tickets before 26 December and even then, a one-way to Paris was more expensive than a return to New York; Eurotunnel wasn’t an option as I didn’t have a car and P&O ferries came with a 14-hour journey and nine changes.

From 5pm, hope came back as customer service confirmed every hour that the tests carried out were good and that yes, trains will be running tomorrow, they were just waiting for a timetable. And then at 9pm the news spread that actually, there will be no trains tomorrow. Again.

DAY 3 (Monday) – Managing several communication channels was clearly too hard so the customer service was replaced by a voicemail message inviting customers to check the website for more information. Updates were solely available on their Twitter and blog. No news until 6pm and then, an announcement was made that passengers with tickets for Saturday and Sunday can travel tomorrow. Which meant me, ME! No details were given regarding the number of trains, where they would stop or go, at what time they would depart or arrive.

DAY 4 (Tuesday) – Wake up time: 3.30am, arrival at St Pancras: 4.30am to start waiting…with about 600 people, many of them had spent the night at the station. The first train finally left at 7.30am. We were given sandwiches and bottles of water at Paris Gare du Nord when we finally arrived at noon.