Celebrating my 30th Disney style Day 2 - a trip to Paris

I had put a lot of planning into this day ensure my parents got the most out of it – they had never been before and they may never go again (although I think they will now)

We got up and went for breakfast at 07:15 then we left the hotel a little before 8. We bought our tickets from the machines at the terminal and paid €16.60 each for the RER ticket Mobilis zones 1-5 – this was chosen as we had intended to use the metro. Spoiler alert - As it turned out we didn't actually use the metro once. However, I think I would always buy this option in the future as it isn't hugely expensive and it's nice to have the metro option. If we'd had time to make it to Moulin Rouge and Montmartre we would have definitely used it!

We went down the stairs and there was a train there so we were on our way by 08:30. This is where I let myself down (and everyone else although they would never say it) for all my planning we got off a the wrong station!! My intention was to get off near the Arc de Triomphe. We ended up 3 miles away! We could have gotten another train to where we wanted to be but my dad decided on the walk – it ate up a good hour or so of our morning but hey we got to see the financial district which had some interesting buildings. There was some very light rain when we arrived but nothing to put us off (we’re British after all)​

We also had a great view of both the Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower (if a little foggy so early)

DH had woken up with a bit of a blocked nose this morning and wasn’t feeling great so I had to stop by a pharmacy. Between my poor French and the Pharmacists better English we were able to buy some Vicks VapoRub – good news is it’s called the same thing over there if any of you ever need it. We then stopped in a coffee shop - a strange story here After our coffees a few of the party needed the loo which was downstairs – at the bottom of the stairs was a cubicle for Men, a cubicle for ladies and in the corner a urinal. The Urinal and mens cubicle were free to use, Ladies was 20cents?? My mum paid it (I would have used the mens – it was free and no one could have walked in or anything haha)

We finally made it to the Arc de Triomphe –

The weather had cleared up a little by now but the sky was still a little moody. It was, at least, still very warm. From the Arc we headed toward the Eiffel Tower.​

My mum and Brother don’t like heights and I was apprehensive they wouldn’t do it…

When we got there the queues were huge! As it was around lunch time we decided to eat first whilst they decided if we were going up or not (DH and I had done it before and whilst we wanted to do it again this was their day)

We bought hot dogs from one of the vendors under the Tower – it was just over €11 for a huge hot dog, some fries and a drink. It was too much really but yummy (sorry no pic – it was windy so it was hard to hold and photograph at the same time) and really great value for Money when you consider we were at one of the biggest tourist locations in the world!

After lunch mum and Luke had decided they were happy to go for it so we joined the queue, dad decided to not join us it actually didn’t take that long – 20 – 30 mins and we were on the elevator going up up up

Do you remember me saying it was windy? Obviously it was a LOT windier at the top so much so these 2 wimped out

Well that’s what they said but I happen to know they don’t like heights…

DH and I stuck it out and got our champagne at the top

Then suddenly we were enveloped in a black cloud with extremely heavy rain and it felt like hail – we made a hasty retreat but still got quite wet​

And as soon as it came the rain went and we were left with clear blue skies so we headed out on the second floor –

…Close enough haha

We decided to walk down from the 2nd floor. By Walk I mean my mum moved faster than I have ever seen her move holding onto the handrail the whole way

We spotted dad –

When we got down mum was holding dads hand as if to say “please don’t let our horrible children ever do that to me again!” haha I think she actually enjoyed it but doesn’t need to do it again in a hurry!

Whilst were we up the Eiffel Tower my dad milled about a bit and managed to stay dry! With the downpour we had we were amazed. He had been people watching and a caricaturist (may or may not be the right name but you know what I mean right) came up to him and just started drawing a pic of him. He kept saying you don’t have to pay me decide at the end. My dad kept telling him he didn’t have any money (my mum had it all) anyway he let my dad keep it for free and this was the outcome

My dad was kind of glad he didn’t have to pay for it!

Since it was so warm and sunny now we decided to have an afternoon treat and grab an ice cream from one of the vendors under the tower. There were reports the vanilla tasted a little odd but the pistachio was tres yummy

Then we walked along the river toward Place de la Concorde

See that black cloud? It didn’t amount to anything thankfully and moved fairly swiftly!​

From there we headed through the beautiful Tuileries Garden toward the Louvre

We then sat it a lovely sunny square for a drink break – we all had beers apart from mum who had a hot choc.

Then we took the 5/10 min walk to our dinner reservation

Where most of us had burgers so only 1 pic

In hindsight I wished we just wandered and found a nice little French restaurant to eat in. The reason we ate here was that I wasn’t sure how my parents would be feeling about being in Paris and I wanted something I knew they would definitely want to eat! Next time I will know they can handle it.

We had one thing left on our “have to do” list – a river boat cruise on the seine. DH and I had done one at sunset on our last visit and it was so beautiful with people dancing on the river bank. It took us about 15 – 20 mins to walk there

I had pre booked this with Vedettes du Pont-Neuf at €10.00 per person. We arrived around 19:40 so would be on the 20:00 sailing. The boys decided to have a beer whilst we were waiting and me and mum shared one – let me warn you they were the same price as the tickets!!

Unfortunately there had been so much rain they had to change the route, instead of going by the Notre Dame (which we were originally going to visit first) we had to go up a little further passed the original statue of liberty.

As with most of my report I will let the pictures do the talking (as usual I took tons so I am just going to narrow it down to my faves (still quite a few mind ) The first one shows just how high the river was – this is a bench along the bank…

Unfortunately the sunset was going on whilst we were getting off the boat so I sadly missed out on the sunset pictures I was hoping for! This is the closest I got​

We realised we were pretty close to the Notre Dame and as that was one of the places on the list we decided to walk down there. It was closed so we didn’t get to go in or up the bell tower which I had hoped to do – always next time though right

It was then time to head toward the train station – about a 20 min walk from where we were and we were pretty tired at this point so we allowed for a little slower walking and pics

I really love a City all lit up at night. I wish we had longer really, maybe next time I will make it a longer trip and spend a couple nights staying in Paris.

We were at (the correct) train station around 21:45. According to my research the next train should have been 22:35 but thankfully that was wrong and we were onboard at 22:05 arriving back at Marne-la-Vallée just before 11. Incidentally this was the ONLY time DH and I caught the resort bus – it seems to take a little longer.

We just headed back to our rooms when we arrived back and watched a little TV until we were ready for sleep which didn’t take long.

Up next… and then there were 7​

Part 4