Taxi Newport Bay Club ↔ Paris airports

The Newport Bay Club is an ocean liner of a hotel: one thousand and ninety-three rooms, two wings, and a forecourt that seizes up on changeover days. We know its habits — the wave of departures on Sunday morning, the arrivals in late afternoon when the Roissy flights deliver their passengers — and we set pick-up times around them rather than against them.

The meeting point is the main forecourt, facing the lake. When it is busy the driver rings you from the lower loop instead of joining the queue: fifty metres of walking, against a wait that can run to twenty minutes on the ramp.

Getting the departure time right

For Orly, allow fifty minutes to an hour and ten depending on the load on the A4 and then the A86: an 11am flight means leaving at about 7.45am. For Beauvais the scale of the thing changes completely — an hour and a half to an hour and fifty — and a morning flight implies a departure in the small hours, booked the day before.

Groups are routine here, and so are two connecting rooms turning into seven or eight travellers at the door. The 8-seat van solves that in one vehicle, at the same per-kilometre rate as the saloon; what it will not do is swallow eight people and twelve cases, which is why we ask about luggage when you book rather than when we load.

Where your driver waits

The Newport Bay forecourt is at its worst on Sunday mornings, the main changeover day. When that happens the driver parks on the lower loop and rings you: fifty metres to walk, rather than twenty minutes stuck in the queue. Tell us at the time of booking if you are travelling with a pushchair or a wheelchair.