Day Trip to Paris - Itinerary

[pokerbanter]

We are trying to plan an itinerary for our day trip into Paris. Myself, Wife a 4 yr old DD & 8 yr old DS - has anyone any tips ?

I know we will be buying the Mobilis 1-5 zone for each of us for the day so travel will be free after that.

With young kids i dont think they will be happy just trekking round a few of the usual places such as the Louvre or other museums, but we definitely want to do a few things. Here is our list so far.

Eiffel Tower
Champs Elysee
Arc De Triomphe
Moulin Rouge
Gallerie Lafayette
Boat Trip (maybe)
Notre Dame (maybe)


Not a huge list but we won't be rushing and will also spend a while just walking round Paris, and stopping somewhere for a bite to eat, nothing too fancy but not a fast food joint etc.

The thing i am finding difficult is planning a route to go where and which metro stop etc to go to for each place etc.

We definitely want to end up at Eiffel Tower in the early evening around about dusk which i think will be 7-8pm when we go 20th-25th March.

Does anyone have any other thoughts on where we could/should go which wouldn't be boring for the kids (well not too boring lol) but is a MUST SEE ?

Also if anyone has any advice on a route or plan for getting too and from places via metro i would be eternally grateful. We will be getting the train into CDG etoile at around 10-11am and leave Paris probably about 10pm so plenty of time to do/see things and just have a leisurely day.

In my research i've just learned that the clocks go FORWARD an hour on the last night we are their :/ What a shame, but will just mean an hour less in bed so we dont miss any Disney time on our last day lol

 

[Carrie_Cat]

We are trying to plan an itinerary for our day trip into Paris. Myself, Wife a 4 yr old DD & 8 yr old DS - has anyone any tips ?

I know we will be buying the Mobilis 1-5 zone for each of us for the day so travel will be free after that.

With young kids i dont think they will be happy just trekking round a few of the usual places such as the Louvre or other museums, but we definitely want to do a few things. Here is our list so far.

Eiffel Tower
Champs Elysee
Arc De Triomphe
Moulin Rouge
Gallerie Lafayette
Boat Trip (maybe)
Notre Dame (maybe)


Not a huge list but we won't be rushing and will also spend a while just walking round Paris, and stopping somewhere for a bite to eat, nothing too fancy but not a fast food joint etc.

The thing i am finding difficult is planning a route to go where and which metro stop etc to go to for each place etc.

We definitely want to end up at Eiffel Tower in the early evening around about dusk which i think will be 7-8pm when we go 20th-25th March.

Does anyone have any other thoughts on where we could/should go which wouldn't be boring for the kids (well not too boring lol) but is a MUST SEE ?

Also if anyone has any advice on a route or plan for getting too and from places via metro i would be eternally grateful. We will be getting the train into CDG etoile at around 10-11am and leave Paris probably about 10pm so plenty of time to do/see things and just have a leisurely day.

In my research i've just learned that the clocks go FORWARD an hour on the last night we are their :/ What a shame, but will just mean an hour less in bed so we dont miss any Disney time on our last day lol

If you want to go up the ET reserve your tickets asap as queue times without them are just mad

http://www.eiffel-tower.com/

If you are going from DLP to the Etoile you can start your sightseeing there by visiting
Arc de Triomphe - great views from up the top but lots of stairs
from there walk down
Les Champs Elysées - not much to see nowadays sadly -to the Rond Point des Champs Elysées (which is roughly half way)
then either walk down the Avenue Montaigne to the river and take a Bateau Mouche for a river trip
or take the metro at Franklin Roosevelt to Havre Caumartin (it's line N°9 direction Mairie de Montreuil)
and go to Galeries Lafayette and or Printemps

If once you've walked down the Champs Elysées and you'd like to carry on walking you can do the 2nd half and walk right down to Place de la Concorde

You can also take the metro at Franklin D Roosevelt and go down on line 1 to Hotel de Ville cross the river and go visit Notre Dame

If you wanted to go after the dept stores you'd take line 9 again (still direction Mairie de Montreuil) and change at Strasbourg ST Denis onto line 4 (direction Porte d'Orleans) and get off at Cité and from there it's a stones throw from Notre Dame

The Moulin Rouge is reachable either by Blanche which is on line 2 or Pigalle (line2/line 12). It's not a very pleasant area as there are many many sex shops, peep shows etc that are open in the day time that you maybe don't want your children seeing

If the above doesn't bother you from the department stores you could walk to St Lazare and then take line 13 to Place de Clichy and change onto line 2 (direction Nation) or take line 12(direction Porte de la Chapelle) to Pigalle and walk back over towards Blanche

From here you can go to the ET on line 2 (direction Charles de Gaulle-Etoile), change at CdG-Etoile onto line 6 (direction Nation) and get off at Trocadero. From here walk across the bridge to the ET. You have great views of the tower on the way down/across.

Hth and it's the sort of thing you are looking for. If it's not clear or you have any other ?? just shout

:

 

[chmurf]

I can't emphasize enough on the need to reserve for Eiffel Tower, as Carrie_cat said.
If you think Disney crowds are mad, then think again, they're nothing compared to ET on busy days.

You can visit ET with 2 options. 1st & 2nd "floors" and 3rd floor.
So be sure to know if you want to go all the way up and book accordingly.

Note that you'll have to queue at the bottom of the tower, and then queue again on the second floor to wait for an available lift to the 3rd floor.

So advanced reservations are indeed very important, because if you don't you'll need to wait in line 2 times to get to the top.

Reservation is merely an advanced ticket purchase. The queue at the entrance is merely a queue to the ticket booth, so buying in advance will get you to cut through the line.

Also note that advanced tickets are not like fastpasses in Disney, if you ain't on time they might just deny you access. So take that into consideration for your planning and allow enough time to provide for transportation/delays in order to arrive at your allocated time-slot

 

[pokerbanter]

Thanks guys and Carrie i cant thank you enough, that is a superb reply and just what i was looking for. I will talk with the better half tonight and tweak it and see where we will go then i will have it down to a tee !!

 

[Carrie_Cat]

Thanks guys and Carrie i cant thank you enough, that is a superb reply and just what i was looking for. I will talk with the better half tonight and tweak it and see where we will go then i will have it down to a tee !!

Thank you

If you come up with any more places you'd like to go I'll add them in for you

 

[pokerbanter]

Decided that Moulin Rouge is out seeing as we have the kids with us :/

Tell you what Carrie, what would YOU recommend as a day including the things we have said without Moulin Rouge area. You can add in anything you think we SHOULD see. I have been to Paris a few times but wife and kids never have.

 

[kizzabel]

Great thread! Im subscribing!
I was about to post a similar thread when I spied this one!

We have a morning in Paris. Arriving in G du N at 9.30 (leaving luggage) and then off to explore Paris until about 4pm.

We were also wondering where someone in the know would go for a day soaking up the sights and atmosphere?

I would like to see the EF but I dont know if I would ascend as Im not great with the heights.

Also is there a direct way to get from G du N to MLV?

Sorry for hijacking

 

[chmurf]

Depe:nds on what you want to see, as Paris has a wide range of sightseeing opportunities.

Buildings, parks, museums, etc.

Paris is also a rather big city, and things to see are spread out, so you may want to focus on some areas rather than trying to see it all in one day (which is close to impossible)

From 9:30 to 4pm you'll only be able to do a few things.

Here is an example of itinerary

From GdN take RER B to "Saint Michel-Notre Dame".
North of the station you will find Notre Dame Cathedral, and the "Ile de la Cité"
Crossing the Seine you will reach Paris Town hall (Hotel de Ville) where you'll be able to follow the yellow subway line (line 1) on rue de Rivoli. From this moment on it's all in a straight line
This will lead you to Le Louvre and Jardin des Tuileries.
Further ahead you will get to Place de la Concorde with its obelisk, and this will be your entrance point on Avenue des Champs Elysées.
from there on, follow Champs Elysées to Charles de Gaulle Etoile (Arc de Triomphe)
I would grab something to eat at one of the MacDonald's along Champs Elysées.
Then you may take subway line 6 for 3 stations and exit at Trocadero.
From Trocadero you'll get an impressive view of Eiffel Tower which stands just across the river.
You can walk across the Jardins du Trocadero to reach the ET and Champs de Mars.
Somewhere around that location you might find an opportunity for "Bateau Mouche" if you care to take a small cruise and see historic buildings from the river.

By the time you get to the ET, you'll probably consider going back to GdN
Or you might still have time to push forward to Invalides and Assemblée Nationale

Get yourself a plan of the subway, as most locations I mentionned are Subway stations and it will help you get the idea.
Take into consideration that this itinerary involves lots of walking (with kids it might be too much). so you may want to cut it short. But mostly I've given you the general points I consider to be doable and worthy of interest as per your time constraints.

The main focus, IMHO, are Louvre, Arc de Triomphe (and part of Champs Elysées) and ET

There is no direct transportation from GdN to MLV (aside from regional trains which are not avalaible for online booking)
Your options will be to take RER B down to Chatelet les Halles and then RER A to MLV. Some warning though Chatelet les Halles is a huge station, and has miles of corridors and concourses. It's easy to get lost, although transferring from RER B to RER A should be easy, I did not include that station in the day itinerary. That's a station you will want to avoid unless you absolutely need to transfer there.


Going up ET is definitely worth it. But going up the 3rd floor is VERY impressive.
DW had to close her eyes on the way up and sit down for a moment once we got to the top. The lift goes fast and you actually see outside of the elevator, so it is indeed quite impressive. But then again it depends on people. Anyway it's safe.
The height is not really a problem, once you're up there the view is so great. Of course if you're afraid of heights, you need to avoid looking down. But the view extends for miles, so it feels quite ok

 

[Princess Clayre]

Can I just back up what everyone else has said and strongly advise pre-booking the Eiffel Tower. We got caught last year by not prebooking and ended up queing for 2 hours just to get the tickets We decided not to prebook as we weren't sure what time we would get there. I would defiantly make that mistake again.

Also if you children are into this type of thing there's a great little quiz booklet that they can do on the first level of the Eiffel Tower too. My son who was about to turn 7 really liked it. You can download from there website to give you an idea and they had plenty there, so no need to print it.

I would also recommend a walk through Tuileries Gardens if the weathers nice. It's a great place to let the kids have a run around and there's a couple of play parks there too. It's right next to the louvre pyramid so you would get to see this without doing the museum.

Clayre

 

[Carrie_Cat]

Decided that Moulin Rouge is out seeing as we have the kids with us :/

Tell you what Carrie, what would YOU recommend as a day including the things we have said without Moulin Rouge area. You can add in anything you think we SHOULD see. I have been to Paris a few times but wife and kids never have.

What do they like doing ? You have lots of parks in Paris with various activites if it's nice weather.

If you didn't want to walk all the way down the Champs Elysées (and I wouldn't perso as there is nothing to see these days besides fast food restaurants and chain boutiques) I'd take the metro line 1 from Etoile down to Concorde) and then walk through the Tuilleries to the Louvre.

It's a lovely walk through the park and you can even go into the public areas of the Louvre and see the old medieval walls that are there underground then walk through and look at the Pyramid(s).

There's a food court in here too so you could stop and have a drink and a snack


You could walk over from Notre Dame to Ile St Louis and get an ice cream from Berthillon. It's a very famous place and their ice creams are fab

http://www.berthillon.fr/

Ile St Louis is pretty to walk round too

From there you could cross the river and either go to Place St Michel with it's fountain and then walk up the Bld St Michel up to the Luxembourg gardens and wander round there

If you like from Place St Michel you can even catch the bus up, it's 2/3 stops and you have the 21/27/38

Or you could take the n°24 bus along the quais from St Michel to L'Assemblé National (Houses of Parliment) overlooking Place de la Concorde and then either walk along from there to the ET passing by the back of Les Invalides and the Ecole Militaire or take a metro from AN to Sevres Babylone (line 12 direction Mairie d'Issy) and change on to line 10 and get off at La Motte Picquet Grenelle.

Then either turn your back to the metro and walk towards the Ecole Militaire. You come to the Peace Monument and the Champs de Mars then you can walk up through and along to the ET

or You change onto line 6 (direction Charles de Gaulle-Etoile), it's above ground, and look on the right hand side of the train as you get great views of the ET as you cross the river and then get off at Trocadero

You could also do part of this in the other direction if after you'd been on the Bateau Mouches at Pont d'Alma cross over the river and take a 63 bus and go down to St Michel with it

Have a look at some sites like this one and see if there is any musuems or indoor things they'd like

http://en.parisinfo.com/museums-monuments-paris/families-1/

http://en.parisinfo.com/shows-exhibitions-paris/with-the-kids/

Grevin with it's waxworks is popular or the Science Museum at La Villette

Tell me what they like and I'll see if I can think of something

 

[Carrie_Cat]

For you and for Kizzabel there's also the HOHO buses that let you see loads of different sites

http://www.parislopentour.com/paris-accueil.php?lng=gb

or even cheaper as children go free is the Foxity bus tour around 40 different sites that lasts 1h45

http://www.foxity.com/en

You stay on the bus so it can be a nice rest for everybody and you'd see a maximum of things in a short time

I'm doing a tour next Wednesday with them so I'll report back if anybody is interested.

 

[Mndisneygirl]

We're going to be in Paris on March 8 and I'm wondering really how busy would it be for the Eiffel Tower? I have no idea what time we'd be there to pre-book tickets.
Is it a big long queue even in the offseason, mid week?

I'm really appreciating all the tips and ideas here! Thanks so much!

 

[Carrie_Cat]

We're going to be in Paris on March 8 and I'm wondering really how busy would it be for the Eiffel Tower? I have no idea what time we'd be there to pre-book tickets.
Is it a big long queue even in the offseason, mid week?

I'm really appreciating all the tips and ideas here! Thanks so much!

I'd advise doing it as even midweek off season you'll have tourists and tour groups wanting to go up it

If you really don't know which day you could go I'd say go early, very early before it opens and get in the queue.

Maybe you won't wait too long. Alternatively you could walk up to the 1st or 2nd floor. There are relatively few people who choose this option as compared to the lift goers

If you do go and the wait is too long for you you could always go to Montparnasse and go up the Tour Montparnasse. There are never queues and you get great views over Paris, plus it's only real place where you will get a great photo of the TE in your shots

http://www.tourmontparnasse56.com/index_EN.php#/home

 

[armoursinak]

This information is amazing, thank you, everyone!

I am wondering, if we stay at DLP (HNY), what is the best way to get to the Foxity tour? Their website says the start/stop point is in the center of downtown...with 2 kids, what's the cheapest/fastest/easiest method to and from the tour?

Thanks again so much...I'm SO glad I found this page and this thread. We've been to Disneyland in California plenty of times, and are planning our first trip to DLP next week...I can't wait!

 

[Carrie_Cat]

This information is amazing, thank you, everyone!

I am wondering, if we stay at DLP (HNY), what is the best way to get to the Foxity tour? Their website says the start/stop point is in the center of downtown...with 2 kids, what's the cheapest/fastest/easiest method to and from the tour?

Thanks again so much...I'm SO glad I found this page and this thread. We've been to Disneyland in California plenty of times, and are planning our first trip to DLP next week...I can't wait!

Hi,

You'd get the RER A from the Marne La Vallée-Chessy station (this is just at the entrance to the Parks and Disney Village) and go to Auber - It will take 35/40 minutes.

From Auber you either get out and walk to the pick up point, look on a map, it's easy to do and will take you no more than 10 minutes
or
Change onto the metro line 8, you follow the signs from the RER platform, direction Porte de Ballard and go to Madeleine where once out of the station on the street you are on the Place and will find Foxity

hth

ps-The cheapest way if you are spending the day in Paris travelling around would be to buy Mobilis passes at 14€20 pp

If you were just going there and back nothing else it would still be Mobilis for adults and children over 10 but for 4-10 years old you could get a half price return ticket so around 7,50€ per child

 

[armoursinak]

Hi,

You'd get the RER A from the Marne La Vallée-Chessy station (this is just at the entrance to the Parks and Disney Village) and go to Auber - It will take 35/40 minutes.

From Auber you either get out and walk to the pick up point, look on a map, it's easy to do and will take you no more than 10 minutes
or
Change onto the metro line 8, you follow the signs from the RER platform, direction Porte de Ballard and go to Madeleine where once out of the station on the street you are on the Place and will find Foxity

hth

ps-The cheapest way if you are spending the day in Paris travelling around would be to buy Mobilis passes at 14€20 pp

If you were just going there and back nothing else it would still be Mobilis for adults and children over 10 but for 4-10 years old you could get a half price return ticket so around 7,50€ per child

Oh WOW, you're AMAZING, thank you!!!

Any suggestions on driving? We'll be coming from Germany. I'm not worried about the drive to DLP, but could we drive to the Foxity tour, perhaps? Thank you so much! You are a wealth of information!

 

[kpatches]

Thank you for all the info, I will keep this all in mind for our upcoming trip!!!

 

[pokerbanter]

OK so after a few chats with the wife and kids we have come up with the things we want to do. Wife had wanted to see Moulin Rouge but with kids it looks like it might not be appropriate to take them their :/ There's still so much to see and do though !!

Definite places and things we want to do :

Arc De Triomphe
Champs Elysee (half or full length)
Traditional Parissienne street market ??
Gallerie Lafayette
Notre Dame
Eiffel Tower
Ice Cream shop (cant remember but its famous )

These are our favourite things to do and see and we would think we would have plenty of time to also just enjoy Paris and soak up the atmosphere. We want to do Window Shopping and generally taking in the French/Parisienne atmosphere. Walking is not too much of a problem as we dont have a car here at home and tend to walk lots so kids are used to that...... as long as they have something to break up the walk like stopping at a shop or McDonalds etc.


There you go guys, thats our plan, although in what order and how to do it etc is a mystery to me We are going on Friday 23rd March so hope there are street markets on that day somewhere. As i said, we will have about 8 hours so plenty of time. As long as we end up at the Eiffel Tower LAST at about 7-8pm to see the lights before returning home via CDG Etoile where we will be starting from.


So if anyone is willing to help with metro (dont want to bus it) or walking route (if under 30 minute walk between venues) and directions etc and approximate times then i would be eternally grateful


44 days til D-Day

 

[Carrie_Cat]

Ok aside from the street market it's all been covered pretty much route wise so it will be easy to tweak around.

I'll just look and see what markets run on Fridays and fit that in with the rest and get you a post up sometime this weekend

 

[pokerbanter]

Looking forward to it Carrie, you've turned a painful headache into a lovely pleasurable head massage