twoflower

This is a long shot, I know, but has anyone had experience of car parking at the Effia Parking facility by Vernon rail station? We are driving around France mid-Sept/mid-Oct and plan on doing a day trip into Paris from Vernon. (Yes I know Paris warrants more time than that, but this will be our 6th time there and we have much else to fit in to our trip)!

Having booked our rail fare, we thought it might be wise to also book our car park - especially as Effia offer a reservation and pre-payment service (with a company called Espace). But when I tried booking online, registering as a customer with password etc and specifying my requirements, I came to a dead end. Left of screen they quoted a price (9.20 euros from 7:45am to 8pm), but right of screen listed the same details with zero euros. There was no indication of what to do next or where to click to accept the quote and proceed to payment. Nothing I tried worked.

There was space for a message, so I sent them one explaining my problem in English but with some easy French words as well (greetings and thanks etc) to show I was making an effort. I also asked if I needed to pre-book at all. After all, a Tuesday in late September may not be an especially busy time for rail services from Vernon to Paris. I got a reply that was ambiguous to say the least - possibly because they (like me) tried to mix French with a smattering of English! Basically they said (I think) that I couldn't pre-book (I couldn't work out why), but if I wanted to be sure of a parking space I should pre-book! My attempts to clarify this confusing advice have drawn no more replies.

So I'm hoping someone reading this might have personal experience of this (or any similar) parking facilities. Is it likely these places get full early in the morning anyway? Should I not worry, and just take my chances on the day? What might be going wrong with my attempts to book? (Things I've noticed on their website are references to long-term parking, but I don't know if what I'm doing is classed as long or short term; a question about make of car, which I can't answer because it'll be a rental; and a booking procedure which says select your physical parking space first, but I can't find any screen that allows me to do that - efforts to book ask date and times only).

kerouac

I just put an arbitary date into the website and it told me "no reserved parking available on that date." This of course does not mean that the lot is completely full, just that the reserved spaces have all been reserved. I'm quite sure that there is space at 07:45.

Christina

I haven't done that, but did you fill out the account information on resaplace.com? It's possible you can't proceed because you don't have an account.

janisj

>>It's possible you can't proceed because you don't have an account.<<

The OP says she did create an account . . . >>registering as a customer with password etc <<

My guess is similar to kerouac's that perhaps the quota of pre-booked spaces is full.

twoflower

Thanks, everyone. Yes, I guess that explanation (that only so many spaces can be reserved, and they're all taken on that date, but it doesn't mean other spaces won't be available) is probably the most likely. I hope so anyway.