2 Kids, 2 Countries (Slight Return)

[MattA]

From my experience walking on the high line those toilet signs didn’t necessarily mean that they were not locked or not accessible

I guess that explains the signs on the door then: that's what you look like when you can't get in.

 

[VPS]

I guess that explains the signs on the door then: that's what you look like when you can't get in.

Exactly and same with non functioning lifts

 

[MattA]

I am going to finish this TR, I promise. We’ve been back in Oz for a week now but time, jetlag and life gets in the way sometimes.

Where was I? That’s right. We were wandering Paris’s High Line. We didn’t make it all 4kms to the Bois de Vincennes, obviously…



When the kids expired we exited the line and caught the train back to the Novotel, where we were rewarded with free soft serve in the lobby. Nice touch.



After a short rest and some googling we emerged from our room with a few nearby dinner options. But first we took advantage of our Accor welcome drinks in the Novotel’s virtually empty restaurant (we were offered anything from the beers, wines or soft drinks on the menu).

That did mean that when we headed out for dinner we were a bit more into normal Parisien dining hours than some of our previous meals. Our first pick was Le P’tit Bistro, opposite the Tour Saint-Jacques. We arrived to find it absolutely heaving and were turned away with a shake of the head, even to my hesitant “plus tard, peut-être?” “Non, monsieur”.

Ok, no bother. Our second choice, Au Bourguignon du Marais, was a little further but looked equally good. But there too, there was no room at the inn.

“Next time, make a booking” was the helpful advice. I mean, yeah, thanks but I didn’t know you existed until an hour ago and I’m leaving Paris tomorrow… It did look and smell good though, so you never know. Maybe there *will* be a next time.

Our third choice was further still, just over the river on the île Saint-Louis. But we arrived to find it stiflingly hot with broken air conditioning. We were offered an (admittedly slightly cooler) indoor room, but it wasn’t quite the atmosphere we wanted for our last Paris meal.

Now we were 20 minutes walk from the hotel and out of ideas. I resorted to the time honoured technique of randomly clicking on nearby restaurants on google maps and hoping for the best.

And somehow we found a gem in the form of Chez Mademoiselle, tucked away down a quiet backstreet. We had a delicious meal: steaks, risotto for the children and a beautiful Bordeaux to accompany it, followed up by a divine chocolate mousse served with a disproportionate amount of cream.



Night saved.

 

[MattA]

So we’re nearly at the end of this one, even if it’s taken me a while to write it up: our final destination was a treat for the small and big kids in the family. We’re off to spend the last three days of our trip at the house of mouse, conveniently located just 40 or so minutes away on a direct RER A from Châtelet.



We’re not massive theme park people, or Disney people for that matter, but we’d all been to the LA Disneyland back in 2019 and enjoyed it so were keen to see how Paris compared. And hopefully the kids remember this one (they were just 10 months and 5 years old last time).

It wasn’t quite the seamless arrival I had hoped.

We alighted the RER to grey skies and light drizzle. I’d been sent digital entry passes, so told Mrs MattA and the kids to go off into the park while I dragged the cases around to drop them at the hotel.

We’re staying at the Marvel hotel—not that I’ve seen any of the Marvel movies, it was just a lot cheaper than the Disney hotel, without being too much further away. Unfortunately it’s *a lot* further away if you completely misread the Google Maps directions and drag your cases all the way out to the car park, only to realise the road Google wants you to take is overhead and there’s no way to get up to it from where you are.



So you drag the cases all the way back to the park, go through security, drag them through the Disney Village, ask multiple people for directions because there’s no signs anywhere, before finally finding the hotel.

30 minutes of my life I’m not getting back. Partly my fault, but the signage could definitely be better. I did spot a sign to “Hôtels Disney” much later, but by the time you get to this, you’re almost there…



The hotel itself is perfectly fine for what we needed. Weirdly slippy floors though.



Almost a car park view:



Better views on the other side:

 

[MattA]

The parks themselves are certainly smaller and a bit shabbier round the edges than I remember LA Disney being. But there’s still plenty enough to keep our family entertained.

We spent quite a bit of time on these:



Rode the classics:



Partially traumatised our children by dragging them onto Thunder Mountain…



The grey skies cleared up for us after that first morning:



And we saw the fireworks and drone show:

 

[MattA]

Let’s talk about the food at DLP. It’s… not great.

I’d researched ahead of time whether it was worth pre-booking any of the park restaurants, and come to the conclusion that they were very expensive and not good enough to justify the price tag.

Probably the best food we had in the parks was the baguettes and ham we had brought with us from Paris and ate in the queue for the Ratatouille ride on day one. That ride was one of our favourites (we rode it twice), but it does seem somewhat ironic to be lining up for it in fake theme park Paris when the real thing is just 40 minutes away on a train.



Actually the stalls around there seemed to have some of the better quick options: some pretzels that we tried and some raclette that we smelt but didn’t try.



Elsewhere the quick options were mainly terrible fast food.

In an attempt to avoid that, for our first night we headed for Brasserie Rosalie in the village.



It was ok. I had the duck. Mrs MattA a steak. Not amazing. Not terrible. Just ok. It arrived suspiciously quickly too, which is never a good sign.

And you are definitely paying a Disney tax: the previous evening we’d had a fantastic meal in Paris, with dessert and a bottle of red. Tonight’s pale imitation, with a dedicated kids menu and beers rather than wine, was only €20 cheaper.

And they presented me with a card machibe with pre-set tip options between 10 - 20%. The only way not to tip was to choose the very small text at the bottom that read “autre montant”.

Quite cheeky considering service charges are already included in France—clearly a UI dark pattern designed for unsuspecting tourists.

Probably the best food that we hadn’t brought with us was on our second night, at a branch of Italian chain Vapiano in the village. At least there you can see the food being made to order in the open kitchen right in front of you.



I don’t remember the food being quite so bad in Disneyland California, and I don’t know why DLP can’t get it right when there’s so much great food elsewhere in France.

They do serve booze in the park though, which is one up on Anaheim.

 

[MattA]

So all up we had three days and two nights at DLP.

Would I go again? Probably not. On the whole we had a great time and it was a nice way to round out our trip, but I think we did all the rides we wanted to do, and I don’t feel the need to rush back there any time soon.

 

[drron]

"Would I go again? Probably not. On the whole we had a great time and it was a nice way to round out our trip, but I think we did all the rides we wanted to do, and I don’t feel the need to rush back there"

Sorry wrong answer. Having taken our so on a number of occasions and our granchildren on a few more occasions the answer should be do the children want to go back there.
Children usually work out a way to get what they want.

 

[MattA]

Sorry wrong answer. Having taken our so on a number of occasions and our granchildren on a few more occasions the answer should be do the children want to go back there.
Children usually work out a way to get what they want.

Yeah, fair point. Although maybe I should rephrase that to be clear that I was specifically talking about the Paris park. I’d probably go back to Anaheim again, or try one of the others if the stars aligned (and the kids nag loudly enough…)

 

[MattA]

By Friday afternoon, our third day in the park, it was time to start thinking about the journey home. Handily, CDG is just 10 minutes away on the TGV.

Just time for a late afternoon ice cream, and one last ride on the teacups…



Then it was off to the station to be whisked away to the airport.





As we’re flying back in SQ J, we could use the “No 1 Access” fast track lanes and the Star Alliance lounge. A real oasis of calm, it’s definitely up there with the nicest lounges I’ve been in. We took advantage of the showers on arrival to wash away our day at the park, and settled in to wait out the time until boarding.

 

[MattA]

We’re back in row 20 on the long haul J config for both CDG-SIN and SIN-MEL. I’m in 20A again, kids in the middle, and Mrs MattA in 20D.



I had looked at BTC but it was a really minimal offering on CDG-SIN. Plumped for what turned out to be a very tasty chicken curry for the first selection:



The children were stuck with kids meals, as there was nothing on the BTC menu that would have suited them. I didn’t get any photos but these looked truly awful (one of them was a load of plain pasta with a dollop of what was reportedly ketchup plonked on top of it).

I had Pho for the other meal choice but barely ate any of it as we hit a prolonged period of turbulence for the second half of the flight. 11yo was quite ill with all the bumps.



But soon enough we were on the ground in SIN. One thing I find about flying J is that the time passes so much more quickly than back in Y when you can actually get some sleep.



But no time to rest with a short connection and a child recovering from air sickness—just long enough to grab a quick bite and soft drink in the lounge and then a dash through the terminal to get to our gate for SQ247.

A much bigger BTC selection here, being ex-SIN, but you only get one meal choice on this shorter flight (and I slept through the pre-arrival “refreshment” anyway).

But we did get satays for the first time on this trip. As good as ever.



And for my BTC selection, the Laksa. Best thing on the menu.



Before we knew it when were descending back into MEL.



With a 4:30am arrival, J priority luggage, and zero traffic, we were at our front door in inner Melbourne in under an hour from touchdown. Might just be a new record for us.

 

[MattA]

That’s it for this one. A thoroughly enjoyable trip and I hope you enjoyed following along.

Now to start saving those points again…

 

[VPS]

Thanks for the TR. It’s great to create some memories. Some good some bad but often the bad ones are the ones that you laugh about later.

 

[drron]

A very enjoyable TR. I agree it is often the bad times that end up being the most enjoyable to recount later.

 

[ellen10]

Thank you for sharing your great trip report.
I enjoyed following along. And I especially took notes about Paris , as we will be there in September.