Dipping at toe in the water...

[stitchlover]

...of planning, so to speak. We are beginning to seriously consider a trip to Paris in the summer of '09 to see Disneyland Paris and the end of the Tour de France. We really have no clue how to even go about planning this. If any one can be of ANY help we would love to hear your advice.

Here are my thoughts so far (beginning stages remember) and the questions these thoughts raise.

1. We have a tour company that we can get guaranteed seats for the final day/stage of the tour. But that is all it would be: seats on that day. So we have to plan the rest.
2. Our goals for this trip are the following:
*see Disneyland Paris
*experience the final stage of the Tour de France
*take a driving tour to be able to see Alpe d’Huez, Col du Galibier, Col du Telegraphe and Col de la Croix-de-Fer (not DURING the race but after). Which I believe all these mountains are in the Alps.

So here are my thoughts/questions:
*coming from Texas I would assume that we would want to arrive a minimum of 2 days before the final day of the Tour to beat the crowds arriving in town and to shake off the cobwebs
*Could we use a Disneyland Hotel as base location? How far outside of town is Disneyland? Would it be feasible to visit the parks and then take a day or two of driving tours to go and see these mountains?
*How many days should you allow to experience Disneyland Paris?

As I said we are just in the beginning stages of this and have no idea if it is really doable. I would appreciate any input or knowledge anyone has.

TIA!

 

[Cyrano]

Hi stitchlover and welcome to DLP DIS board
We are a friendly bunch here so please join in on any other thread or if you have a number of questions then just start a new thread for each

If you have not had a look yet, DLP posting rules are here, DIS posting guidelines can be found here.

Can't help with details about the Tour de France, but it is a massive spectical.
Disneyland Hotel will not be a good base for the Alps as it is about 700Km away. About a 6/7 hour drive

 

[A Small World]

We were in Paris last year on the last day of the Tour de France - we hadnt gone especially to see it but had planned a Paris day that day anyhow and thought we might as well still go. It was really exciting but so busy. We also left Paris earlier than planned to try and escape before the crowds did and we reckoned the metro/RER would be heaving.
There are some photos in our trip report if you want to have a sneak preview-

July 07- Small World Summer trippie Silver Celebration part 3

 

[stitchlover]

My husband and I are huge cycling fans...not just the Tour de France. So I figure if we are going to go over to Disneyland we might as well schedule for a time when the Tour will be going on. We would really prefer to participate in one of the packages that takes you along with the tour for about a week but we don't think our 12 year old daughter would enjoy that!

Can you tell me how far out of town is Disneyland? Is it easy to get into town?

 

[pommfrites]

My husband and I are huge cycling fans...not just the Tour de France. So I figure if we are going to go over to Disneyland we might as well schedule for a time when the Tour will be going on. We would really prefer to participate in one of the packages that takes you along with the tour for about a week but we don't think our 12 year old daughter would enjoy that!

Can you tell me how far out of town is Disneyland? Is it easy to get into town?

Get a metro pass or paris pass if you plan to see stuff in the city and they come with a travel pass. It takes about 20+ min in and out of the center of the city on the Metro and the train station is right in front of the parks so its not a walk to go there. We stayed 3 days at the hotel and only went to DLP one day. We did Paris two days to see the sights. I wish we would have spent extra time to see DLP and Paris, but it just wasn't feasible for us, as we had to fly out of Heathrow.

Any other ?'s...ask away...I was a 1st timer this Jan. and had a blast