Detailed Photo Review of Paris and London Trip in June 2019

[deladane]

The crypt is located on the lower level, and there are so many people buried here that they have interactive computers where you can look people up to find out the location of their tomb.  When you first get down there, a few of the prominent people have large displays for their graves.

 

Voltaire

 

Jean-Jaques Rousseau

 

As you continue down the corridor, there are smaller rooms with stone caskets stacked two high and 3 deep along the walls.

 

Victor Hugo’s grave was in one of these rooms

 

Marie Curie is also buried here but we didn’t see her grave.  Unlike most of the other places we visited, the air conditioning in the Pantheon was strong and felt wonderful on this extremely hot summer day.  We would have loved to stay here longer, but we had to get going if we were going to stay on schedule for the evening’s activities.

 

That was the last time we used our 4-day Museum Pass.  I was curious if we got our money’s worth in buying the pass for €62 per person, so let’s add up the admission charges had we paid for everything individually in advance via the official websites…

 

Sainte Chapelle = €10

Arc de Triomphe = €12

Louvre = €17

Musee de l’Orangerie = €9

Versailles = €20

Musee d’Orsay = €14

Pantheon = €9

 

That totals €91 so we definitely saved money by buying the pass.  Had we not bought the pass, we probably would have skipped going to the Pantheon and Orangerie, but we found both of those to be a surprisingly good experience and worth our while.  It was also nice having some flexibility with the pass- had it rained while we were in Paris, we could have visited more museums instead of doing our outdoor activities and it wouldn’t have cost any extra money.  We originally planned to visit the Army Museum on Tuesday night after returning from Versailles because that is their late night and we wanted to see Napoleon’s Tomb.  We decided to have dinner with DH’s coworker that night, so we didn’t make it to the museum, but we could have had even more value from the pass had we gone there (and had we been able to climb the towers at Notre Dame as originally planned!).  I know there is a lot of debate on if the pass is worth the money.  For us, it was a great value, but I would recommend adding up the costs of all of your must-see attractions and decide for yourself if it would be a good value for you.

 

Also, I found out after returning home that the Paris Museum Pass had some major changes starting in July.  They now require a time and date reservation to enter the Louvre, so you can’t just stand in line and enter when you want to like we did.  They also changed the rules so that now you can only enter each attraction one time.  I read some reviews prior to the trip where people said they liked going to the Louvre for just an hour or two at a time, but they went back several different days while their pass was still active so they wouldn’t get overwhelmed.  That is no longer an option and you can only enter the Louvre (and all of the other museums and attraction) one time. 

 

[CarolandNate]

On 7/17/2019 at 10:54 AM, deladane said:

Hi Cruise Critics!  Some of you may “know” me from reading the very long and detailed photo reviews I have written about my cruises for the last 9 years.  In fact, every major vacation I have taken in that time has been on a cruise ship, and I have written a review for every one of those trips.  It made me kind of sad when I realized that my big vacation for the summer of 2019 would not be on a cruise!  As much as I love cruises, I wanted the opportunity to explore two of Europe’s greatest cities, and that was better suited for a land trip to give us the most time possible in those cities.  One of the reasons this made me so sad was because it meant I would not have a reason to write a review on Cruise Critic.  I know this is meant to be a forum about cruising, and while I did plan to take a one-hour “cruise” along the Seine and Thames Rivers, I did not think that really qualified me to write a lengthy review on this forum.  I do have a blog and I could have posted a review of my land trip on that blog, but it has very limited traffic.  One of the reasons I take the time to write my reviews is because I want to help people plan their own vacations and experience different parts of the world that they might not otherwise get to see.  What would be the point of writing a review if only a handful of people would read it?  When I post reviews on Cruise Critic, hundreds of people read it and post comments and questions, and that really helps motivate me to keep writing. 

 

It occurred to me that there is a forum on this site geared towards cruises in Europe.  Southampton is a very popular cruise port, and many people who sail from there also tack on a few days to visit London before or after their cruise.  Similarly, the port of Le Harve in France is featured on many Northern Europe cruises, and is located about 3 hours from Paris so many people opt to make that journey at that port of call.  Both London and Paris are big hubs for the airlines, so many people taking cruises in Europe fly through those cities and may even extend their layover to stay in those cities for a few days enroute to/from their cruises.  With that in mind, maybe me writing a review of a land-based trip to these cities isn’t so inappropriate after all!  I considered just posting this review on Trip Advisor since they do have a forum specific to both Paris and London, but you cannot include photos in those reviews and we all know that photos are my favorite part of my reviews!  In the end, I decided to take the risk and post my review on Cruise Critic in the Europe ports of call forum.  I sincerely hope that my planning, research, and experiences will be helpful to anyone reading this who may want to spend some time in these incredible cities, either before/after a cruise or just as a land-based trip like I did.  Please feel free to ask questions and post comments along the way... I welcome your feedback 🙂

 

Paris and London have been at the top of my travel to-do list for decades.  When my parents told me a year in advance that they wanted me to visit them in New York for their 40^th wedding anniversary, the wheels started turning.  Coming from California, Paris and London are not exactly “on the way” to New York, but if we are already traveling cross-country in that direction, it made perfect sense to tack on a few days in Europe too.  Or at least that’s how I sold the idea to DH haha  The first thing I needed to do was find out if this was even a possibility in terms of flights.  My plan was that we would be away for 2.5 weeks, flying to either Paris or London first, then take the train to the other city, then fly to New York in time for my parents’ anniversary, and then fly back to California.  Unfortunately, when this idea originally occurred to me, the airlines had not released their June/July 2019 schedules yet.  The schedules were finally released in October for most of the airlines.  After checking the options from every airline and at every airport in the Bay Area, I discovered Norwegian Airlines.  They are a budget airline offering a direct flight from Oakland to Paris, and they also offer direct flights from Gatwick airport in London to JFK airport near my parents in New York.  I loved the idea of a direct flight and not needing to change planes, even if that meant an extremely long 10 hours on the plane for the first leg of our journey!  The one downside was that we would be flying out of Oakland, which is a one hour drive from our house on a good day.  That flight was scheduled to leave at 8pm so we needed to drive in rush hour, potentially doubling the time to get there.  Another logistical issue was that our flight back at the end of the vacation was going to land in San Jose, so we would not be able to drive to the airport in Oakland because there was no way to retrieve our car two weeks later.  Hopefully an Uber ride from San Jose to Oakland in rush hour, plus an Uber ride from the San Jose airport back home at the end of the trip, would cost less than paying for two weeks of parking at an off-site lot near the airport!

 

Norwegian Air has 3 seating options with different price levels.  The cheapest option is very bare bones.  They guarantee you will have a seat on the airplane and you can bring one carry on item weighing less than 10kg (22 pounds), but that’s about it!  The ticket does not include picking your seat, a checked bag, or any food or drink during the flight (including water!).  The flight attendants won’t even collect your trash as they pass through the cabin!  That was not going to be an option for us for two long-haul flights, so I looked into the middle tier options.  These tickets cost about $90 more, and included picking our seats on the plane, a checked bag in addition to our carry on bag, and a meal during the flight.  Since Norwegian is a budget airline, the price for the 10-hour flight from Oakland to Paris for the middle tier tickets came to $329 per person!  I did check back on the pricing as the trip dates came closer and the prices went up by $200 per person, so it pays to buy tickets way in advance.  Norwegian uses the 787 Dreamliner planes, with a 3-4-3 seat configuration in the coach section.  The idea of sitting in a middle seat for a long haul flight didn’t thrill either of us, so we investigated alternate possibilities.  At first we seriously considered buying 3 tickets so the 2 of us could have our own row.  The seats were cheap enough that it wasn’t such a crazy idea, and if we divided out the price equally, paying less than $500 per person for a 10 hour direct flight was still a great deal! 

 

Our third option was to purchase seats in the premium section of the plane.  Norwegian does not have a first class section, but they do have a premium section which is similar to business class on other airlines.  The seats don’t go fully flat, but they do recline significantly more than the seats in coach, and the rows are in a 2-3-2 configuration so we could get 2 seats together with one of us at the window and the other on the aisle, and no extra middle seat between us.  The premium section also includes 2 free checked bags per person, which is helpful when they only let you bring one 10kg bag as a carry on so we could check the rolling carry on bags we usually put in the overhead bin on the plane and just use a backpack for our carry on bag.  Finally, the premium section includes 2 meals on the flight that are supposed to be better than the meals served in coach, free wine and beer during meal service times, access to the priority lounge at both Oakland and Gatwick airports, and fast track access for security at the airport (which is great for us because we don’t have TSA pre-check or Global Entry).  When I priced out the tickets for the London to New York leg of our trip, it was only $180 difference between the middle and premium tiered tickets, so it was a no-brainer and we immediately booked those tickets before the price difference went up!  The seats in coach were $500 per person, and we were able to book our premium seats for $680 each.  We thought that was an amazing deal for business class on an 8-hour international flight!  We needed to think through the costs versus benefits for booking the premium seats on the Paris flight because the price difference was $500 per ticket more than the middle tier tickets.  Since we were not going to want to risk being stuck in the middle seat with a stranger on the aisle, had we bought the middle tier tickets we would have purchased the third seat, bringing the price difference down to $336 per person.  This flight was going to be a red eye, leaving Oakland at 8pm and landing in Paris at 3:30pm the next day, and this was how we were kicking off a 2-week vacation.  To us, paying $336 per person was well worth it at the slight chance of being able to sleep on the plane (neither one of us sleeps well on planes in coach, but maybe we had a chance at falling asleep if we could recline our seats and have a bit more space around us?), and it seemed like a more relaxing way to start our vacation.  Before we had a chance to second guess our decision, we purchased the non-refundable tickets leaving on Thursday, June 20 and arriving in Paris on Friday, June 21.  We were officially going to Europe!

 

Let’s break up this text-heavy post with some pretty photos from Paris…

 

 

 

I was going to pose a questions about pre and post cruises in London and Paris to the general cruise critic crowd, but since it appears you were in both places in the past month or so, I figured that you may have some answers. 

 

We are planning to go to the British Isles in 2021 (the one with Liverpool).  The master plan is to fly from Hartford (or Boston or New York) to London a couple of days before.  Then do the cruise.  At the end, we want to stay in Paris for a couple more and fly home from there.

 

I am not going to deal with the pre cruise in this posting, as that is pretty straightforward.  The post cruise part seems like it could get a little tricky.

 

Again the plan is to start in Southampton, UK, which round trips back to Southampton after a day in Le Havre.  If we are going to Paris, it seems a bit silly to finish the trip on the ship only to go back to France the next day.  I have heard that it is possible and actually pretty common to end the trip early, meaning getting off in Le Havre.  It is a process, but the cruise lines will do it.  In fact, I have seen that as many as 200-300 will disembark at Le Havre and head to Paris.

 

I don't know if you did anything like that or had researched it.  If you have, great.  I need to pick your brains.  What I do know is that there are a couple of ways to get to Paris.  The train is the least expensive.  A bit more is something called get transfers which is putting bids out there for drivers who are willing to take one from point A to point B or even do it by the hour which leaves room for side trips on the way.  Ubers or taxis are possibilities as well.  I mentioned side trip, because what we would really like to do is stop in Normandy while we are on the coast and then head to Paris.

 

If there is a way to do this without spending a small fortune, it seems like we could get top Paris at a reasonable hour after an early morning docking in Le Havre and then spend two or three nights in Paris.

 

I see that you were in Paris, so that brings up the next question.  Where in Paris?  I have no idea of what is where.  I see by some of the maps, that the closer to the center of the city, the hotels get more expensive.  It is a matter of priorities as to whether we would want to be able to walk out our door and go to a restaurant or cafe and not be too far from some of the bigger attractions.  In the end, we will likely be amenable to spending a little more for convenience, especially if we can find a hotel where we can use our points.  For that the more time we have to build up points, the better.

 

We had looked for packages (like London), but I have had difficulty in finding them.

 

Any ideas, thoughts, etc would be greatly appreciated.

[pd7277]

9 hours ago, CarolandNate said:

I was going to pose a questions about pre and post cruises in London and Paris to the general cruise critic crowd, but since it appears you were in both places in the past month or so, I figured that you may have some answers. 

 

Any ideas, thoughts, etc would be greatly appreciated.

With all due respect, try reading this thread.  Many of your questions are answered, plus ideas galore.  While this review is posted on Cruise Critic (at the request of many of Dana's followers), it was not in connection with a cruise.

 

Hope you find the answers to your questions.

Edited August 15, 2019 by pd7277

[Walt fan]

So enjoying your last full day in Paris; you really checked off a lot of amazing sites.

[Cotswold Eagle]

10 hours ago, CarolandNate said:

I was going to pose a questions about pre and post cruises in London and Paris to the general cruise critic crowd, but since it appears you were in both places in the past month or so, I figured that you may have some answers. 

 

With the greatest respect, if this thread gets turned into a general one for queries about London and Paris, it will:

 

(a) ruin the narrative of the OP’s detailed trip report, into which she is putting an incredible amount of hard work

(b) rapidly get completely out of hand and unmanageable - that’s why there are these dedicated boards where such questions can be posed to the “general cruise critic crowd” (actually, there are a group of regular visitors and locals who are happy to give up their time to help)

 

So I would urge you to post your questions in the usual way on the relevant boards. In fact, the question about disembarking at Le Havre has recently been addressed.  

 

[deladane]

12 hours ago, Walt fan said:

So enjoying your last full day in Paris; you really checked off a lot of amazing sites.

 

...and the day isn't over yet!!

[deladane]

22 hours ago, CarolandNate said:

I was going to pose a questions about pre and post cruises in London and Paris to the general cruise critic crowd, but since it appears you were in both places in the past month or so, I figured that you may have some answers. 

 

 

We are planning to go to the British Isles in 2021 (the one with Liverpool).  The master plan is to fly from Hartford (or Boston or New York) to London a couple of days before.  Then do the cruise.  At the end, we want to stay in Paris for a couple more and fly home from there.

 

 

I am not going to deal with the pre cruise in this posting, as that is pretty straightforward.  The post cruise part seems like it could get a little tricky.

 

 

Again the plan is to start in Southampton, UK, which round trips back to Southampton after a day in Le Havre.  If we are going to Paris, it seems a bit silly to finish the trip on the ship only to go back to France the next day.  I have heard that it is possible and actually pretty common to end the trip early, meaning getting off in Le Havre.  It is a process, but the cruise lines will do it.  In fact, I have seen that as many as 200-300 will disembark at Le Havre and head to Paris.

 

 

I don't know if you did anything like that or had researched it.  If you have, great.  I need to pick your brains.  What I do know is that there are a couple of ways to get to Paris.  The train is the least expensive.  A bit more is something called get transfers which is putting bids out there for drivers who are willing to take one from point A to point B or even do it by the hour which leaves room for side trips on the way.  Ubers or taxis are possibilities as well.  I mentioned side trip, because what we would really like to do is stop in Normandy while we are on the coast and then head to Paris.

 

 

If there is a way to do this without spending a small fortune, it seems like we could get top Paris at a reasonable hour after an early morning docking in Le Havre and then spend two or three nights in Paris.

 

 

I see that you were in Paris, so that brings up the next question.  Where in Paris?  I have no idea of what is where.  I see by some of the maps, that the closer to the center of the city, the hotels get more expensive.  It is a matter of priorities as to whether we would want to be able to walk out our door and go to a restaurant or cafe and not be too far from some of the bigger attractions.  In the end, we will likely be amenable to spending a little more for convenience, especially if we can find a hotel where we can use our points.  For that the more time we have to build up points, the better.

 

 

We had looked for packages (like London), but I have had difficulty in finding them.

 

 

Any ideas, thoughts, etc would be greatly appreciated.

 

As pd7277 and Cotswold suggested, I too would recommend that you go ahead with your original plan and post this in the general forum where people with experience cruising from Southampton and Le Harve can see it.  The one thing I can help you with is the Paris geography question...

 

If you look at a map of the city of Paris, you can see a large circular road that encompasses the city.  99% of the tourist attractions are within the confines of that circle so as long as you stay somewhere in there, you should be good to go.  I picked my hotel based on it's close location to a metro station so we could get anywhere else in the city quickly and easily, even if it meant transferring lines.  I also made a list of all the touristy things we wanted to do and plotted that on a map to learn the city a little better and understand where things are located, and picked a hotel not too far from those places.  Sure, if I wanted to be super close to the Seine or the Eiffel Tower, it would have been extremely convenient, but also extremely expensive.  I opted for a happy medium and picked a hotel about a mile walk from the Louvre (to the south) and Montmarte (to the north), and saved a lot of money knowing I wasn't too far into the outskirts but also not smack in the middle of all the action.  Hope that helps, and that someone else on the forums can answer your other questions!

 

[deladane]

It was a bit of a long walk to get from the Pantheon to the metro station, but at least we had lots of pretty Haussmann-style buildings to keep our eyes entertained along the way!

 

 

 

 

We got back to the hotel at 4:45pm, so we got showered and changed as quickly as we could, and spent a few minutes packing our luggage because we were heading up to London the next morning.  We took the metro down to Champs Elysees because we had a fun night planned for our last night in Paris.  Several months ago, we booked tickets to the Lido Cabaret show!  There are several cabaret shows in Paris so I looked into all of our options to find what would work best for us.  I wanted something with a big production, lots of costumes with sequins and feathers, and lots of singing and dancing.  I looked into the Moulin Rogue because that is the most famous cabaret show (and the only one I had heard of prior to starting my research!), but the reviews were mediocre saying it is very crowded, overpriced, and the performance wasn’t very good.  The Lido Cabaret seemed to offer the best of all worlds.  They have a large theater and a big cast with lots of costumes and pretty much all of the things I was looking for, and their pricing was about a third less than Moulin Rogue.  They have several ticket options when you book on their website.  We could have eaten dinner there which would give us a table on the orchestra level, but I had a hunch the food at the cabaret would be sub par and over-priced so we didn’t want to do that.  The next level down is a ticket that also includes a glass of champagne.  The reviews said that these tickets get you a slightly better seat than the lowest tier of tickets which only includes the seat but no champagne.  It was only an extra €15 for the champagne tickets so we thought that was worth it, especially if it meant we might get better seats.  The theater has a balcony level so it looked like everyone eating dinner was seated on the orchestra level, and people with champagne tickets and the lowest tier regular tickets were seated up in the balcony level.  Seats are not assigned in advance, but rather on a first come, first served basis on the night of the show. 

 

[CarolandNate]

42 minutes ago, deladane said:

 

As pd7277 and Cotswold suggested, I too would recommend that you go ahead with your original plan and post this in the general forum where people with experience cruising from Southampton and Le Harve can see it.  The one thing I can help you with is the Paris geography question...

 

If you look at a map of the city of Paris, you can see a large circular road that encompasses the city.  99% of the tourist attractions are within the confines of that circle so as long as you stay somewhere in there, you should be good to go.  I picked my hotel based on it's close location to a metro station so we could get anywhere else in the city quickly and easily, even if it meant transferring lines.  I also made a list of all the touristy things we wanted to do and plotted that on a map to learn the city a little better and understand where things are located, and picked a hotel not too far from those places.  Sure, if I wanted to be super close to the Seine or the Eiffel Tower, it would have been extremely convenient, but also extremely expensive.  I opted for a happy medium and picked a hotel about a mile walk from the Louvre (to the south) and Montmarte (to the north), and saved a lot of money knowing I wasn't too far into the outskirts but also not smack in the middle of all the action.  Hope that helps, and that someone else on the forums can answer your other questions!

 

Actually what you said is very helpful.  I will post to a general forum with specific questions and hope that someone will pick up on it.  Although they said to do it with a Princess forum.  At this point, I want to just get a general idea about how such a process might work.  I am still almost two years away, so anything specific to Princess can wait.  Of course, if I don't get much response on a general forum, I can always get more specific.

 

The Paris info was very good as well.  Stuff I have read, basically said the same thing.  The big question will be how far is too far and what are talking about when it comes to difference in price.  Thanks again.

[deladane]

There were 2 shows scheduled on Wednesday night at 9pm and 11pm, so we booked the 9pm show because there was no chance we’d stay awake through the late show!  I read some reviews that suggested arriving at the theater as early as 8pm when the doors opened to get the best seats, so we made our dinner reservations at 6:30pm at a restaurant close to the theater so we could get there around 8pm.  We looked at the menus of a bunch of restaurants near the theater and we decided to go to a place called Washington Poste.  Although it seemed like a strange name for a restaurant in Paris, they had a lot of options of French dishes that we wanted to try, and it was easy to make a reservation through Open Table.

 

When we arrived at 6:30pm, we checked in with one of the waiters because there was no hostess at the front door.  He seemed to have no idea what we were talking about and thought we meant that we wanted to make a reservation, not that we were arriving for our pre-arranged reservation.  He did speak English, but it was clear that he was not quite fluent.  Once we got that sorted out, he seated us at a quiet table towards the back of the restaurant. 

 

 

 

We ordered a couple of glasses of wine, and then took a moment to look over the menu.  There was no question about what we were going to order for our appetizers.  If you’ve read my past reviews, then you know how much I love escargot.  I was super excited that I would finally get to try it the real French way… with the snails still in the shells!  I have only ever ordered escargots on a cruise ship and they always serve it in those special dishes without the shells so I was excited to try something new.  The other thing you may remember from my past reviews is that DH loves cheese plates so he was excited to try some stinky French cheeses at dinner tonight.

 

Here was my escargots:

 

 

It was delicious and way more fun to eat it when you need to scoop the snails out of their shells!  When they brought over DH’s cheese plate, it was HUGE and way too much for him to eat by himself so I ended up having some of it too.  I wish they offered a half-size of the cheese plate because this was way too much for just the two of us, especially if we wanted to save room for our main dishes.  This plate could have easily served 8 people!

 

 

[deladane]

Just now, singinalot said:

 

when I hadn't seen Norris comment yet I knew I HAD to let him know 🙂

 

haha thanks for doing that!!

[deladane]

For dinner, I ordered the beef tartar and DH ordered the roasted chicken.  Both dishes were very good and we ended up sharing both of them.

 

 

 

Overall, it was a great last dinner in Paris and we left a few minutes after 8pm to walk around the corner to the Lido Cabaret.

 

 

I expected to see a long line of people waiting to be seated, but when we walked in, there was a long hallway but no one was there!  We just kept walking until we got to the hostess desk.  I gave her my name and a man wearing a tuxedo escorted us to a table for 6 people located in the middle of the lower level, but it was raised up a step above the tables in front of us.  This was totally not what I was expecting at all!!!  Not only was there no wait to be seated, but we were seated downstairs on the orchestra level instead of upstairs in the balcony section.  We actually had a better view than some of the people eating dinner there because we were elevated up a step.  We couldn’t have asked for a better table!

 

Shortly after we were seated, a waiter came over to pour our champagne.  We had the choice between regular champagne or rose champagne, but we both got the regular.

 

 

We were at our table by 8:15pm so there was still a while to go before the show started at 9pm.  Luckily, we were able to watch the pre-show that was on to entertain the people eating dinner.  This pre-show actually lasted the whole time until the main show started so we got a bonus 45 minutes of entertainment!

 

 

[deladane]

There was a menu on the table if we wanted to order anything else, but we had plenty of wine at dinner so we just sipped the one glass we had pre-paid for and that was plenty for us.

 

 

 

 

At 9pm, the main show began.  I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect, but I really enjoyed the show.  It was a series of songs and dances, but there was no plot or anything like that.  They changed costumes for each song, and there was a big cast of back up dancers plus the lead singers.  There were also a few unique performances like figure skating, aerialists, and a dance with shadows and silhouettes from behind a screen.  Some of the costumes did expose the women from above the waist (not sure which words are censored on CC!), but surprisingly, I found it very tasteful.  I expected it to be like gratuitous nudity but it wasn’t like that at all and it just felt like art.  The women were so graceful and elegant, even in the more revealing costumes. 

 

I couldn’t resist taking a few photos during the show, but I always made sure that the performers were fully clothed!

 

Feathers!

 

These dancers were fully clothed in corseted business suits, but their dancing was strong and seductive.  The lady with short blonde hair wearing a red dress at the front of the stage was one of the lead singers.  We thought she looked like Katy Perry!

 

 

I’ve seen acts like this on America’s Got Talent where they play with perspective and illusions by standing closer or further from the screen and creating a silhouette effect with a bright light.  This was a creative version of that kind of act, set to a background of French music.

 

 

 

[deladane]

Not the greatest photo, but the guy up front was a sword swallower, backed by a team of male dancers.

 

 

Aerialist duo

 

This act featured the ladies dancing in a fountain with flowing water!

 

Something I was greatly looking forward to… the Can Can dance!

 

I have no idea where that ice rink came from, but the figure skaters did a great job doing their tricks in a very small space!

 

Overall, we both really enjoyed the show at the Lido Cabaret.  We see a lot of theater back home in the States (we just saw Wicked last night!!), and we have been to nearly every show on every cruise we have taken, but this show was like nothing we have ever seen before.  We thought the risqué costumes were subtle, and the show was tasteful and elegant.  The performers were talented and it was a very entertaining way to spend a few hours.

 

We left the show around 10:30pm.  The Arc de Triomphe was just a short walk away up the Champs Elysees and the museum pass booklet said they closed at 11pm so we briskly walked up to the traffic circle, down through the underground tunnel, and up to the ticket booth at the Arc.  Unfortunately, the detail omitted from the museum pass booklet is that the last entry is at 10:15pm, and that everyone needs to be cleared off the observation deck by 11am… not that the last admission is at 11pm.  Fail!  It would have been cool to go up there after dark and see the views at night, plus it would have been great to get one last use out of our museum pass, but I guess it was not meant to be.  Getting there by 10:15pm would have meant missing half the Lido Cabaret show, so that was not possible. 

 

We settled for one last photo from the sidewalk…

 

 

We used up the last of our t+ tickets to take the metro back to Hotel Chopin one last time.  We needed to get to the train station kind of early tomorrow, so we packed as much of our stuff as we could.  We were able to organize everything so that one of our carry-on-sized rolling bags was filled with dirty laundry and we wouldn’t even need to open that bag when we got to London.  After another exhausting but exciting day in Paris, we crawled into bed, looking forward to starting the next phase of our journey in London tomorrow.

 

Fitbit Daily Summary… Steps: 21,459,  Miles: 9.58,  Flights of Stairs: 25

 

 

[deladane]

 

Thursday, June 27, 2019 ~ Travel to London, Thames River Cruise, Sky Garden, Nighttime walking tour

 

When my alarm went off at 7:30am, all I wanted to do was go back to sleep, but then I realized… We’re going to London today!  We quickly got ready and finished packing the rest of our bags.  I must say, it is much easier to pack when we don’t need to worry about weighing our bags or putting our liquids into 3-1-1 bags!  We piled our suitcases in the elevator with all 3 on top of each other so DH and I could both squeeze in there together.  When we got down to the ground floor, there was someone waiting to get in the elevator.  I can only imagine what he thought when the doors opened and we literally fell out into the hallway haha 

 

We got to Marks and Spencers right when they opened at 8:30am and I left DH out in the passage while I ran in to pick up a few croissants for breakfast that we could eat while we were waiting to board our train. 

 

Time for another transportation fiasco story… We wanted to take Uber to get to Gare du Nord, but that is kind of hard to do without an international data plan.  I thought the wifi from our hotel would reach out to the street, but since the hotel was way back inside the passage, the wifi signal only reached to about halfway down the hall.  I ran back to the hotel lobby, logged into the free wifi, and requested an Uber, dropping my location pin out on Grands Boulevards.  Once the app said our driver was on his way, I didn’t really need the wifi signal anymore.  It said he would arrive in 12 minutes, so I went back out to DH to help him roll the bags to the sidewalk and so we could wait for our driver to arrive.  It was now 8:35am, so needing to wait 12 minutes for the Uber cut things a little close with getting to our train on time, but we hoped for the best.  Our Eurostar tickets said we needed to arrive around 9am for the 10am train, and Gare du Nord is only about a mile from our hotel.

 

Fifteen minutes later, our driver still hadn’t arrived, but since the wifi didn’t reach out to the sidewalk, I had no idea where he was or if he cancelled on us or what could have happened.  I didn’t want to go back to the hotel because if the Uber driver came right after I left, there was no way for DH to tell me he was there.  I decided to just make a run for it, so I left DH to watch all the luggage while I literally ran through the passage back to the hotel.  Luckily there weren’t many people there at this early hour so I didn’t knock anyone over in the process!  I logged back into the wifi and checked the Uber app and it said the driver was one minute away.  Oh no!  Now I had to run all the way back out to the sidewalk, and then I saw DH down the street, loading our bags into the trunk of a car.  That was way more complicated than it needed to be, but thank goodness we were finally sitting in the back of the Uber and heading to Gare du Nord.  Normal hotels located out on the street wouldn’t have that issue because the wifi probably reaches out to the sidewalk, or if not, then it isn’t a big deal to stand just inside the lobby with the wifi signal and look out the windows for when the Uber arrives.  In all that time waiting for the Uber, we never even saw a taxi drive by so I’m not sure how else we could have gotten to the train.  Maybe the person at the front desk of the hotel could call us a taxi?  They knew we were checking out and going to the train station, but didn’t offer to get us a taxi so I’m not sure if that something they even do.

 

Ten minutes later, we pulled up to the front of Gare du Nord.  This is a huge transit hub, so I wasn’t exactly sure where to go.  I saw a sign for Eurostar when we first walked into the station, and it said to go up the stairs opposite platform 17.  Hmm, ok, where is platform 17?  We walked a little further into the station and saw the platform numbers, so we walked down to platform 17 on the far side of the building, and then we saw the stairs and escalator right near it, leading upstairs to a balcony level.  At the top of the escalator, there wasn’t any signage so we didn’t know where to go next.  We just kept walking and eventually saw a ticket window, so we handed the agent our papers that I had printed out at home with our ticket information.

 

Remember how I specifically picked seats facing the front of the train?  I did not want to sit facing backwards for two and a half hours, and booking our tickets within days of them being released gave me that preference.  When we checked in for our train, they informed us that they had changed the train for our journey this morning, and we were automatically reassigned seats.  They were happy to tell us that we were still sitting together (not everyone was so lucky!), but now we were sitting at one of those groups of 4 seats with 2 seats facing backwards, then a slim table top surface, then 2 other people sitting forwards facing us.  Not only did we have to sit facing backwards, but now we had the knees of strangers bumping into us?  No way!!  That was a big downgrade in our seats and I was not happy about it.  The agent said I could speak with someone at the gate after going through security and ask to have our seats changed.

 

The next part went so quickly that I’m not sure of the exact order we did everything, but we went through passport control to leave France, another passport control to enter England, and security for Eurostar.  They tell you on your tickets to arrive 60 minutes early to leave time for all of those things, and I could see it taking a long time if there was a line, but somehow we got super lucky because there were only about 5 people ahead of us when we arrived.  By the time we were ready for each stage of the process, the people ahead of us had already finished, so we entered the Eurostar terminal by 9:15am. 

 

Our next stop was to find the gate agent to ask about changing our newly assigned seats.  We explained what happened to him and asked if he could change us to different seats that were facing forwards with no table and other people facing towards us.  He searched the computer for a few minutes, and then he quietly said “I am going to upgrade you because I couldn’t find any other seats.”  Sounds good to us!  We didn’t know what exactly was entailed in the “upgrade” because he wasn’t specific and I never researched other seating options besides the basic cheap seats we originally booked.  Either way, at least we could sit facing forwards for the 2.5 hour journey. 

 

We still had about half an hour until boarding so we found a place to sit and pass the time.  There is surprisingly limited seating in the waiting area here.  Instead of rows of chairs, they had a bunch of ottoman-like benches.  They were each large and square so people could sit around them on all sides with no backrests, and you had to share with other parties because there weren’t that many of them.  It just seemed kind of weird, like they didn’t expect a lot of people to be sitting and waiting for a train there.  We arrived on the early side and got one of the last spots, so many people had to stand.  Rows of folding chairs would have made more sense, if you ask me!

 

About 15 minutes prior to departure, the gates opened and we were able to board the train.  There was a huge bottleneck as everyone tried to pass through the same set of doors, and then slowly go down the escalator (actually, it was a moving ramp, not an escalator, so you had to put your foot in front of your rolling suitcases or they would roll down the ramp and get away from you!).  Our tickets said a coach number so we walked forward to find our train car.  There was an agent standing at the door of each train car to check everyone in individually, so it took a while until it was our turn.  There were a bunch of people on line for our coach but they had tickets for a different coach, so it was just very chaotic because no one seemed to know where they were supposed to go. 

 

When it was our turn to check in, the man found our names on his tablet and told us to climb on board and put our luggage in the rack.  There was space above our seats to put our smaller rolling carry on bags so we just put the larger bag in the shared luggage rack. When we got to our seats, I could tell that we were in a nicer coach than we had originally booked.  Our original coach had 2 seats on either side of the aisle, but this coach had 1 seat on one side of the aisle and 2 seats on the other side, so the seats were bigger than normal train seats.  We were seated on the side with 2 seats together.  Across the aisle from us was an older couple who were seated in front and in back of each other.  We saw them ask if they could be reseated together and the agent said that was not possible. 

 

The train left on time, and after a short journey through the Paris suburbs, we entered the countryside.  This was our view for most of the journey:

 

 

[deladane]

About 30 minutes into the ride, the agent who checked us in came down the aisle rolling a food and beverage cart.  He handed each person a tray of food and asked if they wanted coffee or tea.  When he got to our row, someone from the row before us asked for milk for the coffee so he paused to help that man, then continued serving trays to the row after us.  Hmmm, that was weird.  Did he skip our row because he got distracted and didn’t realize what row he was up to?  Or did he skip our row because he somehow knew that the gate agent upgraded our seats, but since we technically didn’t pay for seats with meal service, we wouldn’t get the tray of food?  Honestly, it didn’t really matter either way because we already ate our croissants from Marks and Spencer so neither of us was hungry, but we still wanted to know what happened.  After he finished serving all the trays, the agent walked through the coach again to see if anyone wanted a refill of coffee.  When he got to our row, he looked at us with a confused expression, then said “Oh! Did I forget to serve your tray?”  LOL DH and I looked at each other and tried not to laugh!  I guess we were questioning it for nothing and everyone in this coach gets meal service.  A moment later, the agent came back with our trays for breakfast.  The croissant was good, but the roll was so hard that I couldn’t bite into it, and the yogurt was plain (yuck!) so we didn’t eat much of it after all. 

 

 

A little after 11am, the train made a brief stop to let some passengers off, then we continued the rest of the way into London.  We arrived in St. Pancras station at 11:45am.  Since we already went through passport control in Paris, we were able to exit the train with our luggage and just walk straight out of the station.  I knew our hotel was close to St. Pancras station, but I didn’t realize exactly how close until we were there.  As long as we exited the station through the correct exit (there are A LOT of exits from St. Pancras and Kings Cross station!), we just had to walk across Euston Road and our hotel was right there on the closest side street.  It was a very convenient location when coming and going each day!

 

 

We got to Central Hotel around 12 noon, and at first, the lady at the front desk said we had to come back later to check in to our room.  We had a lot of things planned today so we really just wanted to get into our room now and not have to worry about checking in later.  She went upstairs to check with the maid and it turned out she had just finished cleaning one of the rooms so we were able to check in to that room.  I thought there was an elevator when I booked this hotel, but we never found it.  Our room was on the first floor, which was really the second floor because the lobby is its own floor.  The hotel has a narrow staircase with a lot of turns, so it was a little tricky to carry the luggage upstairs, but at least we only had to do it one time and it was just one flight.  When we got to our room and opened the door, we were in for quite a surprise.  Our room was sooooo small! There wasn’t even enough floor space to open the suitcase on the floor!  I am fairly certain this room was smaller than an inside cabin on a cruise ship!  The bathroom was so small that it had a sliding barn door, and when you sit on the toilet, the sink hangs over your lap and your toes hit into the frame of the shower stall!  There was a closet along the wall, but it was all hanging space and no shelves, so it wasn’t very useful for the kind of packing we did.  There were 2 nightstands with 3 drawers in each, so at least we could use that to store some of our clothes.  We made it work, but it was definitely a tight squeeze. 

 

I took this photo later in the week, so apologies for the messy room.  I was standing in the doorway, the closet and desk space is on the left, and the bathroom is on the right, and that’s it!  It was seriously the smallest hotel room I have ever seen!

 

 

After we got settled in the room, we went back across the street to St. Pancras Station to get some pounds from the ATM.  We also needed to get our transit cards so we found the vending machines.  We decided to get the Oyster Cards for each of us because I didn’t like the idea of using my contactless credit in case it got lost in the hustle and bustle of the Tube station or whatever.  The machine was very easy to use and we were able to load the 7-day Travelcard right onto the Oyster Card before it was dispensed from the machine.  We were able to pay for the cards using a Costco Visa chip and signature card, so everything worked seamlessly!

 

Thanks to our double breakfast on the Eurostar, we weren’t hungry for lunch yet, so we hopped on the Tube to get to the Westminster stop.  Already, we felt more at ease using the metro system in London.  Everything was in English so obviously that made things easier, but it was more than that.  Instead of having to go up and down a bunch of flights of stairs, London had escalators in their metro stations!  Funny enough, we still averaged over 20 flights of stairs per day in London, just like in Paris, but it was just nice knowing we could ride the escalator and conserve some energy in the stations.

 

 

[Cotswold Eagle]

That was a nice upgrade on the Eurostar - for the record you went from ‘Standard’ to ‘Standard Premier’. You have accurately described the two differences - the Premier seating and a free light meal. For which, the tickets can often be twice the price of Standard. 

 

The Eurostar terminal at Gare du Nord has always been a bit of an afterthought!  

Edited August 16, 2019 by Cotswold Eagle

[JaniceB]

Can't wait for your pictures of London!

[Walt fan]

Your last night in Paris could not have been better; wonderful dinner and show.  What an experience.  

 

Your travel to London, whew, between Uber and the train I would have been having a meltdown.  Glad it all worked out.  

 

Cannot wait to see your adventures in London!  That is one tiny hotel room.

[ejnsb]

This is great reading.  We are traveling with 3 couples next month and after disembarking the Epic in Barcelona, traveling by train to Paris and tgen London.  Absorbing all your details.

[geoherb]

So glad you made it to London. In England, what we call the first floor is called the ground floor. We have had tiny hotel rooms before. Yours might beat our record for smallest ever.

[deladane]

23 hours ago, Cotswold Eagle said:

That was a nice upgrade on the Eurostar - for the record you went from ‘Standard’ to ‘Standard Premier’. You have accurately described the two differences - the Premier seating and a free light meal. For which, the tickets can often be twice the price of Standard. 

 

The Eurostar terminal at Gare du Nord has always been a bit of an afterthought!  

 

I actually just went back to the Eurostar website and did a mock booking to see the different seating options.  There is no way I would have paid out of pocket to sit in the Standard Premier seats, but it was a great upgrade given the circumstances!

[deladane]

22 hours ago, JaniceB said:

Can't wait for your pictures of London!

 

Tons of London photos coming up soon!!

[deladane]

20 hours ago, Walt fan said:

Your last night in Paris could not have been better; wonderful dinner and show.  What an experience.  

 

Your travel to London, whew, between Uber and the train I would have been having a meltdown.  Glad it all worked out.  

 

Cannot wait to see your adventures in London!  That is one tiny hotel room.

 

OMG, in the moment, I was totally freaking out with the Uber thing!  Had the gate agent not been able to change our seats, we would have delt with the backwards seats, even if it would be uncomfortable.  But the Uber thing was really a problem because if we didn't get to Gare du Nord on time, we'd miss our train!

[deladane]

16 hours ago, ejnsb said:

This is great reading.  We are traveling with 3 couples next month and after disembarking the Epic in Barcelona, traveling by train to Paris and tgen London.  Absorbing all your details.

 

That sounds like a wonderful trip!  I LOVED Barcelona when I was there in 2013 off the Carnival Sunshine.  There's a link in my profile if you want to read my review of that trip- we stayed in Barcelona for 3 days after that cruise 🙂  Let me know if you have any questions about Paris and London.