The main hotspots we hit were Disneyland Paris, the Louvre, and the Eiffel Tower. We saw some smaller museums and wandered around Paris as well. Most of our sightseeing was probably in the Metro though!
There are a dozen different ways to take this trip, and it can be done on just about any budget. Do some research and you are bound to find a way to suit you. I'll share with you how we decided to do Paris...
Because we wanted to make the travel part of the trip as well, we decided to take a sleeper train to Paris from Venice. I ordered our tickets from Rail Europe. This site was so easy to use. I'm sure we'll be using it again for any future lengthy train travel. The only drawback to ordering the tickets from them was that they required a U.S. mailing address--no APOs. We happen to have a re-mailer with ShipitAPO so it was no problem for us, but if you do not have a re-mailer {or maybe a family member in the U.S. that will reship them for you}, it may be a problem. Some of the other tickets could be sent electronically for you to print, but these particular ones had to be mailed.
We rode on Artesian Nights. I was thinking about grandparents, not blogging, when I was taking pictures of the train and all of the pictures have the kids in them so I won't be able to share any. But to give you an idea of our sleeper car's size, no one in our household is taller than 5'6" and it was pretty tight.
I booked a 4-bed cabin for our family and it is the same as a 6-bed cabin, just we had it to ourselves so we paid a bit more than if we had booked a 6-bed car. We didn't want to chance having strangers in the cabin with us, and to be quite frank, I really don't see how 6 people {even if 4 of them are children} could fit in one compartment.
The travel time for the overnight train from Venice to Paris is about 12-hours. We traveled from 2000-0800-ish. The train employee picks up your passports soon after you leave the station and returns it to you just before you stop at your destination.
No stamp though. Bummer. I was really hoping for a France stamp.
The sheets and pillows were clean and packaged from the cleaning company. We were provided with water bottles at night, and in the morning a cart came by with coffee and pastries for purchase.
I'm not discussing the bathrooms. They were not a happy experience.
And there was no murder. Bummer. I was really hoping for a murder.
Kidding. Well kinda.
I don't know that I'd say, "We had fun," on the train, but it was certainly an experience that I'm glad we had and we will all remember.
So we arrived in Paris early on September 11th. As I'm sure you can imagine, there was quite a police and military presence in most of the train and metro stations.
Even at the happiest place on earth!
We opted to stay at a hotel on DLP resort. The metro station stops right in front of Disney Village and it was so easy to travel back and forth. The Gare de Marne La Valle Chessy stop is the last on the line {or if you're heading into Paris, the first of course}. The Metro is really easy to use, even if you are not familiar with train/metro travel and don't speak any French. It really seemed to be dummy proof.
We popped into a Tourist Information booth {HIGHLY RECOMMENDED} and purchased Paris Visite Passes for our family. This was such a savings for us! You can purchase 1, 2, 3, or 5-day passes. The prices range for adults from 19,60E to 51,20E; and for children ages 4-11, 9,80E to 25,60E. Purchasing tickets for each trip you take would be much much more expensive! Taking one trip from the station where we disembarked our sleeper train to the Gare de Marne La Valle Chessy station for our family of 4 was over 50E alone, so the passes were a big savings!
Paris Visite Passes are valid for zones 1-6 and work for any public transportation, i.e. public buses, RER, and Metros. Basically, they'll get you to pretty much anything in Paris and the surrounding area. It even goes all the way out to Versailles.
Another money {and time} saver that we took advantage of is the Paris Museum Pass. This pass gets you into over 60 museums and sights in Paris, including the Louvre. Now...there are a lot of things that the pass doesn't get you into because they are actually private sights, namely the Eiffel Tower. If you are not going to many of the sights that are listed, monetarily it may not add up for you to buy the pass. So take a look at the website when you are planning your trip to determine which you plan to visit.
I'm going to insert a big butt, er but, here though. The line at the Louvre on a nondescript Tuesday in September was unbelievably long. That is to say, the line to buy a ticket and get into the Louvre was long. However, since we had our handy dandy pass, we entered through a side door that had no line at all. We just walked right in....well, we went through security, had our bags searched, and then walked right in...but there was no line. You get the idea.
The prices for the Paris Museum Pass range from 35E to 65E for 2-day to 6-day passes. Anyone under 26 gets into theses sites for free. I think that's pretty awesome!
So, get your passports and let's go...
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