Here's the latest information on getting to Lyon on Sunday to see Ireland beat France
Are packages available?
- Abbey Travel, the FAI's official travel partner, has a daytrip including flights, tax and transfers from €739pp. Times TBC.
- Stein Travel is announcing a day trip and a two-night package from Saturday to Monday shortly.
- Club Travel has a daytrip from €739pp.
- Killester Travel is also likely to have packages.
- Marathon Sports Travel had a daytrip to Lyon from €669pp including taxes. This is now SOLD OUT.
NB: Packages do not include match tickets.
What about flights?
- Ryanair has announced five special flights from Dublin to Lyon.
- The extra flights depart Dublin on Saturday, June 25 at 08.10 and Sunday, June 26 at 05.55. They return at 21.25 on Sunday, and 00.30 and 12.00 on Monday.
- Prices start from €262 each-way, with hand luggage only.
Otherwise, fans are going to have to get very creative for Sunday:
- Direct flights with Aer Lingus from Dublin to Lyon and Montpelier have sold out before the game.
- Here are alternative options for travel to Lyon - Dublin to Geneva (Aer Lingus): Geneva is a two-hour drive or train ride from Lyon; flights from €418.99 one-way on Friday. Return flights cost similar prices.
- Dublin to Paris (Ryanair, Aer Lingus, CityJet, Air France): Paris is just two hours from Lyon by TGV, with lots of direct flights from Ireland.
- All are expensive at the moment, with Ryanair from €256 on Sunday morning one of the weekend's cheapest options. CityJet has flights back from €200 on Monday.
- Dublin to Basel (Ryanair): Flights on Saturday start from €319. Basel is a four-hour drive or train ride from Lyon, with train tickets from c. €82 on traincaptain.com.
- Dublin to Nice (Ryanair & Aer Lingus): Over four hours by car or train from Lyon, prices on Saturday are coming in at around €323 each-way.
- Dublin to Montpelier & Toulouse (Aer Lingus): These are sold out before the game. However, Aer Lingus has flights home from Lyon to Dublin from €458.99 on Monday and Tuesday, while its flights from Montpelier and Toulouse to Dublin cost €152.99 and €141.99 respectively.
- Indirect flights: One or two-stop connections are available to Lyons through Birmingham, Madrid, Frankfurt, Zurich and Barcelona. Marseilles via Madrid with Iberia is coming in at €260 on Saturday, for example. See skyscanner.ie for options.
- Barcelona (6 hours) and Carcassone (4.5 hours) are other fly-drive/train options. Flights from Poitiers to Dublin on Monday are also available from around €62.
- NB: For Irish soccer fans already in France, flight change fees start from around €40 online, but are subject to availability.
What about travelling by train?
- Eurostar (eurostar.com) operates direct and indirect trains from London to Lyon, with prices from £159.50/€207pp on Saturday, June 25, as we publish. Journey times are 4h 41m (direct) and 5hr 38m (indirect, with one change in Paris Gare Du Nord).
- Trains are the best way to travel between major French cities, with a two-hour TGV trip from Paris to Lyon on Sunday morning (07.53am) priced from €54 on captaintrain.com. See Paris flights above.
- The main rail website in France is voyages-sncf.com, but captaintrain.com is easier to use, and prices are exactly the same.
What about travel by Ferry?
- Stena Line (stenaline.ie/euro2016) has a direct sailing from Rosslare to Cherbourg from €433 one-way, based on a car with four passengers (excluding seats or cabins), departing 8.30pm Thursday. Alternatively, it has indirect sailings via Britain from €148 for a car plus driver.
Any accommodation tips?
- Hotel prices in Lyon are likely to skyrocket around the crunch fixture date.
- Euro 2016 fans should look to campsites, Airbnb (airbnb.ie), Irish-run website homestay.com, friends and relatives to save on accommodation costs.
- Earlier this morning, Airbnb.ie had rooms from around €33pp, while hotel rooms were available from around €110 per night. These will rise fast, however.
- Hotel search sites like booking.com, hotels.com, trivago.ie and hotelscombined.ie are a good way to compare prices across a range of properties.
- Camping options include Indigo (camping-indigo.com) on the outskirts of Lyon from €22 per night, and about 40 minutes out, Camping Le Nid Du Parc (lenidduparc.com) from €18pp.
Tickets went on sale at 1pm on Thursday:
- As one of the standout ties of the round, demand is expected to be extremely high and the FAI says it is currently in negotiations with Uefa over securing a further allocation of tickets for Ireland.
- Despite the Parc Olympique Lyonnais Stadium seating just under 60,000 people, it is expected that home nation France will secure the vast majority of tickets.
- Before the tournament, fans were given an option to purchase conditional tickets should Ireland progress to the last 16.
- Ger understands that the Irish allocation inside the stadium will be 4,500 - the vast majority of which were purchased by fans before the tournament.
- An additional number of tickets for the game were sold through the UEFA fan portal today with just under 1,000 snapped up by Irish fans.
- As things stand, there are no more tickets available for Ireland fans from official channels unless the FAI succeed in their dealings with UEFA.
- Fans who did avail of the conditional tickets will receive a voucher to go on and purchase their tickets for the last 16. It is stated on the voucher that only the named fan can purchase the last 16 tickets and must produce ID when doing so.
- However, it was also stated on the group tickets that fans must produce ID but this was not enforced.
