Eurostar shows connections to Amsterdam with travel time at 5h, 5m and fares starting 89 GBP each way. A quick check midweek late April and return did not turn up this fare, or this short time, for me. Best I saw was over 200 GBP return and travel times closer to 5.5 hrs. For me, that’s about the threshold of whether I choose to train or fly, ~ 5 hours. Compare with flights:
http://www.cheapflig…
http://www.skyscanne…

Thank you Don,
Please clarify:
Website links only shows flights. I wanted to take the rails.

I checked on Eurostar site and it wouldn’t give me any schedule or fares to Amsterdam. How did you manage to do it.
Eurostar shows on London, Belgium and Paris so do they cover other countries?
Thalys covers Germany, Belgium, France and Netherlands, are they one and the same as Eurostar?
Does Eurorail pass cover all of these?
Need to take some decisions.

My understanding:

Thalys is fast service between Paris and Brussels, Amsterdam (some trains direct, most require a connection in Brussels) and Koln.
Eurostar is the chunnel train. Direct service is from London or Ashford to Paris, Brussels, Lille and EuroDisney. I thought you could also go to Amsterdam with a connection in Brussels on a single ticket available from Eurostar.com but perhaps you’d have to buy another ticket from Brussels to Amsterdam.

A Eurail pass covers the ticket for Thalys, but you need to buy a reservation. Special passholder reservations are 13 euros in 2nd class. Regular reservations are slightly more expensive and some travel sites indicate that passholder reservations sometimes sell out or are difficult to buy.

Eurostar is not covered by a railpass. If you have a railpass that covers either your country of departure or arrival you can buy a special “passholder fare” on Eurostar. If you’re an adult (26 or over) it can be a good deal if you’re traveling on a day when there aren’t leisure fares available or if you want to splurge on a 1st class ticket. You can not buy a “passholder fare” ticket from Eurostar.com, by phone or from most of the normal outlets for train tickets. You must either buy it in person at the actual Eurostar station or buy it from one of the railpass/rail travel agency websites — where you’ll probably end up with a shipping charge if you don’t buy it with your railpass.

So what I gather is one cannot really go to Amsterdam directly from London without a possible changeover, is that correct? Not just a stop over? In other words, it is not possible to go in the morning and come back in the night just like I do for Brussels and Paris.
Pity eh?

Based on Don’s note and I cannot seem to get that, it will take approximately 5 hours to get to Amsterdam. How did he do that?
Please advice

At Eurostar.com, I clicked “List all stations” in the From box, and chose from St. Pancras; same thing in the To box, and chose “Netherlands” tab at the top, then Amsterdam showed as a station that they can book.

On http://www.eurostar…. I clicked Amsterdam on the map. A pop-up displayed the “from 89 GBP and 5hrs, 5 mins.” info. However, in my 1 random check of midweek travel dates, I got the results I shared in my first post.

I made the links to flights, although that is not specifically what you asked for, because they might be a good alternative due to the amount of time involved, and costs. I made the links to the flights information for you to make an comparison of prices and travel durations.

Some additional information about Thalys reservations. If your entire route isn’t covered by the railpass (like your pass covers France but not Benelux or Germany) the cost for a passholder reservation is even higher — roughly 50 euros in 2nd class.

Thank you Don, appreciate that,
This is what your link provided: For the smoothest, most stress-free route to Amsterdam, hop on the Eurostar from London’s spectacular St Pancras International. It’s easy to reach Amsterdam with Eurostar; simply change at Brussels and travel on to Amsterdam with our partner, NMBS/Dutch Railways
Whole trip like you siggested is 5 hours.

Thank you OldLade, i see there is no other direct train to Amsterdam the way i was hoping for.
As Don is suggesting it is better to take a flight..but these trains are so comfortable, I am wondering if I take the night train, then it still dosn’t resolve my issue.
It will be even better if I can take the night train to somewhere, see the place, get the night train from the other location and then get out at Amsterdam a day or two later,
Thank you again, lets me just think….
Quite dissappointed though.

Is a flight really any faster, city center to city center, than a 5 hour train ride? I can’t imagine that flying would save you more than an hour at most…….

It takes me 60 USD and 40 minutes to get to Heathrow on a cab or 3 USD for 1.30 minutes on the subway to Healthrow.
Then it will be nother 1.50 hours in Amsterdam to the office.

Probably 2 hours on the flight, and I can get to St. Pancrease in less than 30 mins from hoome, so basically for me it comes to the same time either way.

Price way it comes to the same isn’t it.