Feasts of Fools: a live-ish Trip Report from Paris + DLP (December 2024)

[chloe173]

Hi All - I hope you’ll forgive me for posting a DLP report to the World forum, but since there’s not a DLP forum, I thought you all might indulge me! Plus I know I’ve appreciated some of the DLP reports here while doing my own research. So…

We’re headed to France in four days! As detailed in this post, I may have kinda sorta accidentally booked this trip because I was annoyed with my in-laws after last Christmas

And now I get to go to Paris for Christmas! I should get mad at my in-laws more often!

Anyhoo - here’s the agenda:

• 12/21 - Depart from the US
• 12/22 - 12/25 - Staying in Paris in the Trocadero
• 12/25 - 12/27 - Disneyland Paris, staying in a Compass Club Level room at Newport Bay
• 12/27 - 12/30 - Back in Paris, staying in the Marais
• 12/28 - Day trip to Reims (the champagne region of France)
• 12/30 - Fly Home

While at DLP the plan is:
12/25 - Parc Disneyland, focusing on non-rides, with reserved viewing area for the parade, and dinner in the Manhattan restaurant at the Marvel hotel
12/26 - Rope dropping Parc Disneyland for early Extra Magic Hour, with Premier Access Ultimate, and reserved viewing area for the nighttime fireworks, plus lunch in Agrabah restaurant and a character dinner at the Royal Banquet.
12/27 - Rope dropping Walt Disney Studios Park for early Extra magic Hour, with Premier Access Ultimate, plus lunch at PYM’s kitchen

It’s going to just be me (40) and DH (42). Let us know if you have any questions or things you want pics of, and we’ll try our best!

[ezed62]

Hope you have a great time.

[motherofdaughtersthree]

Following! Hope you have a great time!

[DeepInTheHeartofTexas]

Sounds magical!!! Can’t wait to follow along!

[darkmite2]

I’m so excited! We don’t get enough DLP reports!!

[Nicky_S]

That’s probably because there isn’t a DLP section of the forum. So either you start a thread in La Cava, which I don’t go to often, or ???

I didn’t bother last year, mostly for that reason.

[chloe173]

Last minute preparations are in full swing here!

I’d say we’re 70% packed, with a final load of laundry going right now to finish things off. We’re forcing ourselves to only take carry on luggage this trip, to avoid the possibility of anything going missing, which has happened to us before. But it’s hard to pack winter clothes into such little space!

We woke up this morning to a lovely surprise email from our first hotel in Paris telling us that we’ve been upgraded from a standard room to one with a terrace, which sounds great!

Now we just have to contend with the possibility of a government shutdown going into effect tomorrow night, and hoping and praying it doesn’t affect our flights if it does - we have to first connect to Houston, and then fly Houston to CDG, so we need TSA and Air Traffic Control to be functioning on Saturday. Fingers crossed, I guess.

Also tomorrow, we’ll get to try our hand at getting at reservation to see the newly renovated Notre Dame. Reservations go online at midnight Paris time 2 days before your visit, which for us, would be 5pm CT tomorrow. I’m hearing the reservations are gone in seconds each day, but we’ll see.

[erinkippen]

Have the most wonderful time! We did Paris/DLP in the spring and it was fabulous. If you can I highly recommend breakfast at Laduree on the Champs Elysees - the hot chocolate will ruin you for hot chocolate forever. Everything my 10 year old son put in his mouth he declared the most delicious (whatever) he had ever had. Also if you’re in the Notre Dame area head to Shakespeare & Co, buy a book, and get a stamp in it - such a great souvenir! And Berthillon ice cream, no matter how cold it is.

re: DLP, the best food we had was from the food stalls, either in front of IASW or in the Remy’s area, depending on which park you’re in. Crush and Web Slingers were universal favourites.

[chloe173]

We managed to snag a Notre Dame reservation for the 23rd! And let me just tell you: if you thought the lightning lane booking system was bad, the new Notre Dame reservation system makes Disney’s tech look impeccable and flawless

[Flavita]

Following!

Would love pictures of the dragon !

[chloe173]

And we’re off! All boarded on flight #1 to Houston.

[NTEI]

We were in DLP last Christmas - looking forward to following along and living vicariously through you to relive the memories. Have a wonderful trip!

[chloe173]

Made it to Houston, where we now have a 4+ hour layover until our flight to Paris boards

Luckily, we’ve made it into the Amex Centurion lounge, where the mimosas are free and flowing!

[Flavita]

@chloe173

into the Amex Centurion lounge, where the mimosas are free and flowing!

Ooh! No better way to pass the time!

[chloe173]

Boarded and sipping on our pre-flight champagne!

We managed to snag a great points deal on AirFrance, 50k points per person, each way, for business class direct from Houston. (It’s why we connected to Houston in the first place…) the hubby is 6’6” so long hauls in anything but business class just don’t work well for us anymore.

I’ll post more pics from the flight once we are back in the land of wifi!

[Flavita]

Nice!

[chloe173]

Well, we’ve made it to Paris:

I wish I was reporting that our flight was super easy and I slept the whole time. But, in reality I didn’t sleep a single wink. DH only got a couple fitful hours. The turbulence was AWFUL throughout nearly the whole flight. Made sleep pretty impossible.

But, we got here, and made it to the city, but our room is unfortunately not available for check in until 3. So instead, we went to the Galeries Lafayette Haussmann and Printemps Haussmann to see all their Christmas decor, then a quick lunch at a casual spot inside Galeries Lafayette.

We were there right when they opened for the day, but even so it was a mob inside and out both stores. Cool to experience though! And we even survived our first Paris metro experience to get there!

Now we’re back in our hotel lobby manifesting that our room will be ready a tad early, as we both desperately need a nap. Fingers crossed!

[chloe173]

Wow! It literally feels like a week since I last posted an update though it’s just been a little over a day. Jet lag is real!

After my last post we did in fact get into our room, which even has a partial Eiffel Tower view!

And after a nice long nap, had dinner and were able to walk back along the sparkling Eiffel Tower and even saw the Olympic rings still hanging out:

Today, we were up early for a food tour with Paris by Mouth food tours which was…ok. We got to try several pastries, chocolates, a macaron, and finally some baguette and cheese. But I’m not much of a sweets fan, so most of it was not what I’d have picked to sample had I just been walking around myself. The guide was great though, and spoke excellent English.

In the afternoon, we visited Notre Dame which was indeed very bright and clean! But also totally packed - total circus!

After that, we had tickets to a “classical Christmas concert” at Saint Chapelle, another beautiful cathedral, though I wish I’d gotten to see the stained glass during the day with the sun shining through it.

Unfortunately, the concert was bad. No, not just bad - I’m gonna go with “laughably terrible”. Now, I’m not saying by any means that I’m a professional musician, but both the hubby and I participated in high school and college level choirs and orchestras. And these folks tonight…I’m pretty sure half of them had never seen the music before in their lives, which is surprising, given that half the show was Handel’s Messiah - a classic if you’ve ever been in a choir - and the other half was just popular Christmas carols. They sang songs in French, English, and German, but clearly no one had ever taught them the pronunciations for any of the non-French songs. And only about a quarter of the choir (and none of the string quartet) ever listened to the poor conductor, who looked like he’d never met a hairbrush a day in his life. So, all told - quite the experience! Moral of the story: go see Saint Chapelle in the day, but skip the concert!

Tomorrow will mainly be a foodie day for us, with a stop at the Champs Elysee, and then on Christmas Day…Disney!

[chloe173]

Today was our second full day in Paris, as well as Christmas Eve, and so we spent it doing lots of foodie things!

We started at Angelina Cafe for pastries and hot chocolate, followed by a stroll through the Christmas market at the Tuileries Gardens. It was pretty foggy today, though, so opted not to do the big Ferris wheel. Afterwards, we caught quick pics of the outside of the Louvre and Palais Royal on our way to lunch at Au Pied du Cochon, which as a foodie, was the restaurant I was most looking forward to to is trip and it did not disappoint!

Then, after a rest, we visited the Arc de Triomphe and strolled the Champs Elysee to look at the lights and impressive storefronts before dinner at Fouquet’s to close out the night.

Tomorrow, we’ll board the train to DLP!

[chloe173]

We’re heeeerrrreeee!

More to come soon!