Eurostar cancels 29 Feb 2008

No leap year luuurv trains to gay Paree

The unmarried gals among you who were thinking of availing yourselves of the 2008 leap year by booking a romantic train excursion over the Channel with the other half, and popping the question on the one day which, as tradition dictates, you're allowed to get down on one knee and whip out an engagement ring, are advised to make alternative plans.

That's because Eurostar's online booking system has evidently decided that Friday, 29 February, doesn't exist. Here's the result of entering said date into the system and requesting a champagne-fuelled luuurv ride to gay Paree:

According to our correspondent Ben Parr-Ferris, you'll get the same short shrift down at Expedia if you try and make the same booking, so it looks like we're on the verge of non-leap-year-compliant travel website anarchy. Our advice? Scrap the wedding plans for another four years, by which time Eurostar should have got its act together.

In the meantime, you can always go and have a gawk at the company's shiny new St Pancras terminal, due to open for business tomorrow as the new start/end destination of High Speed 1 - the long-awaited track which will cut journey times by an estimated 20 minutes. ®