studiojmm
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2017
My daughter (14) and I have just committed to spending almost 5 weeks outside of Paris starting at the end of May. (A little surreal given world events, but we've been planning this for a while so fingers crossed and really generous travel insurance purchased.)
This will be our 4th time visiting Paris and 2nd time visiting DLP but longest trip by far. My husband will join us for part of the time. We'll be doing some homeschool/remote work and don't need to tour every day but will likely do several sites per week.
We both have very limited French (mine was once decent, but suffers from 30 years of non-use; my daughter is in her 2nd year studying but is far from conversational). We're pretty patient about managing in non-English speaking situations and have happily muddled through in a lot of places.
We'll be about 40 min from many Paris destinations and about 1 hr from DLP. Open to day trips by bus/train and perhaps rental car. My brother lives in Germany and we may pop over for the weekend or meet him and his family somewhere.
DLP QUESTIONS
We visited DLP in May 2019 and stayed at Hotel Santa Fe. Found we did use early park hours but did not make it to fireworks. We've been WDW passholders for the past 2 years + pandemic extension (just let those go; we only renewed for a 2nd year because we figured international travel wouldn't be practical for us in 2021).
We kind of figured we'd buy passes and visit on several non-consecutive days. We love the idea of feeling no pressure to spend the whole day. However, we arrive May 26 and it looks like May 26-29 is Ascension day weekend (oops) and a Discovery and Magic-Flex AP blockout period. We'd consider a Magic Plus for the early entry, but not sure it's worth that Ascension Day weekend regardless. If we went, we'd go Thursday afternoon/evening to help us get on local time or Friday, probably. Not too worried about wait times since we wouldn't feel like we needed to do a ton, but wall to wall people isn't fun. Thoughts?
The last time we were there was Thu-Sun May 23-26, 2019. Sat May 25 was at 72% (orange) according to Queue Times. It was noticeably busier than Thu or Fri, but also the day we got there earliest and road BTMR 4 times in a row. As the day got busier, we noticed lots of random characters out and about with meet-queues everywhere, which we enjoyed since we'd ridden everything we wanted the previous two days. Not sure the same crowd management would be in effect this year. Accession Day 2019 the following week was 90% (red), btw.
PARIS AND ENVIRONS
She has not been inside the Louvre since she was a toddler. We were too tired the day we planned during her 8 yo trip and then the Louvre staff were on strike (or something, memory fussy) during our trip 3 years ago. So, she doesn't have a choice on that one. Palais Galliéra was also closed during our 2019 trip, so that's on the short list.
In past trips, we've visited:
Ideas? Favorite off-the-beaten path activities? Favorites for teens? For folks obsessed with animals/natural sciences? Best places for fun snacks?
Thanks!
This will be our 4th time visiting Paris and 2nd time visiting DLP but longest trip by far. My husband will join us for part of the time. We'll be doing some homeschool/remote work and don't need to tour every day but will likely do several sites per week.
We both have very limited French (mine was once decent, but suffers from 30 years of non-use; my daughter is in her 2nd year studying but is far from conversational). We're pretty patient about managing in non-English speaking situations and have happily muddled through in a lot of places.
We'll be about 40 min from many Paris destinations and about 1 hr from DLP. Open to day trips by bus/train and perhaps rental car. My brother lives in Germany and we may pop over for the weekend or meet him and his family somewhere.
DLP QUESTIONS
We visited DLP in May 2019 and stayed at Hotel Santa Fe. Found we did use early park hours but did not make it to fireworks. We've been WDW passholders for the past 2 years + pandemic extension (just let those go; we only renewed for a 2nd year because we figured international travel wouldn't be practical for us in 2021).
We kind of figured we'd buy passes and visit on several non-consecutive days. We love the idea of feeling no pressure to spend the whole day. However, we arrive May 26 and it looks like May 26-29 is Ascension day weekend (oops) and a Discovery and Magic-Flex AP blockout period. We'd consider a Magic Plus for the early entry, but not sure it's worth that Ascension Day weekend regardless. If we went, we'd go Thursday afternoon/evening to help us get on local time or Friday, probably. Not too worried about wait times since we wouldn't feel like we needed to do a ton, but wall to wall people isn't fun. Thoughts?
The last time we were there was Thu-Sun May 23-26, 2019. Sat May 25 was at 72% (orange) according to Queue Times. It was noticeably busier than Thu or Fri, but also the day we got there earliest and road BTMR 4 times in a row. As the day got busier, we noticed lots of random characters out and about with meet-queues everywhere, which we enjoyed since we'd ridden everything we wanted the previous two days. Not sure the same crowd management would be in effect this year. Accession Day 2019 the following week was 90% (red), btw.
PARIS AND ENVIRONS
She has not been inside the Louvre since she was a toddler. We were too tired the day we planned during her 8 yo trip and then the Louvre staff were on strike (or something, memory fussy) during our trip 3 years ago. So, she doesn't have a choice on that one. Palais Galliéra was also closed during our 2019 trip, so that's on the short list.
In past trips, we've visited:
- Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie
- Chatau du Chantilly
- Le Menagerie
- Musee de Cuny
- Musee d'Orsay (every trip I think)
- Musée de l'Orangerie
- Musee Marmottan Monet
- Musee Rodin
- Notre Dame (and gargoyle tour, so lucky)
- Pompidou Centre
- Parc Zoolologique
- Palais Versailles
- Sainte-Chapelle
- Tour Eiffel
Ideas? Favorite off-the-beaten path activities? Favorites for teens? For folks obsessed with animals/natural sciences? Best places for fun snacks?
Thanks!