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[Ohana]

Me again! *waves*

This time it's about a trip into Paris; since it's my first time abroad, I do really want to see the city itself as well as Disneyland, and yes it does take a whole day away from the Disney magic but we can't go and not see the sights!

So anyway I found this brilliant website where you can tailor make an itinerary for a day, it suggests where to slot everything in, how long it's expected to take to get to certain places and you can adjust the duration of each visit. I understand that this may not go specifically to plan but here are the items on my itinerary as it stands currently.

Notre Dame
Saint Julien le Pauvre
St Germain des Pres
Pont Neuf Bridge
Louvre museum
Eiffel Tower
Les Ombres (for dinner)
Champs Elysees
Place du Tertre
Moulin Rouge (just for a quick look and photograph)
Palais Garnier Opera House

This is all with the aim of getting to Notre Dame at 1145 and arriving back at Santa Fe hotel at 2345. I am going to be a bit of a mega tourist and pretty much hop from place to place, spend 30 mins-45 mins in each place then move on. Not the best way to do Paris I understand but it's the only way I'll see most of the stuff I want to see. Whilst there I also plan on going mad on macarons in Laudree and maybe treating myself to a little something from Champs Elysee.

I suppose what I'm wondering with this is, is it doable do you think? On tripadvisor I've had people tell me definitely not but I think they underestimate my determination and how little I mind if a day is hectic and rushed. The idea was get our cafe mickey breakfast at our stupidly early 0700 booking then go for EMH then head out into Paris, then at least we've had a bit of Disney time before the big city.

I was also considering taking the RER into Paris on an evening once the park has shut, which could potentially shorten my full day in Paris to give me more time at Disney, in this case I'd maybe do Champs/ Place du Tertre and Moulin Rouge in an evening.

To shorten down, my main questions related to all of this are:

1. Does my Paris itinerary sound reasonable if a little rushed?
2. Is the Metro easy to follow for someone with a decent amount of experience with London Underground?
3. What time can I expect Dreams to finish in mid November if the park closes at 1900?
4. Is it possible to go into Paris one evening after park closing, see a couple of things and be back before midnight?
5. How often is the train from DLP to Paris, where does it stop, how much does it cost and will this provide me with a travel card to access all stations like the London version?

Thanks, sorry it's a bit lengthy!

[Mileto]

Here are the opening hours for your days:


17.11. - Tuesday, 18.11. - Wednesday, 19.11. - Thursday, 20.11. - Friday
DLP (open 10-19; EMH 8-10) - closures BTM, Disneyland Railroad, Thunder Mesa Riverboat Landing, IASW
WDS (open 10-18) - closures Crush's Coaster


21.11. - Saturday
DLP (open 9-22; EMH 8-9) - closures BTM, Disneyland Railroad, Thunder Mesa Riverboat Landing, IASW
WDS (open 10-21) - no closures

For me what you've described would be a very rushed program. I would not make EMH and go directly to Paris after breakfast. RER A stops exactly at the Opera (your last point on the list), this is station Auber. It's very easy with Paris metro. You could go then to see Notre Damn and after that enter the Louvre. Till lunch time (it needs days, you know). Then at the most warm hours you could take a hop-on-hop-off bus and look at all the sights, this is something that you can't walk on foot in a day. You can use the bus as much as you need in the day. You could buy an etrance ticket to Eifel tower prior your arrival.

So that is what I would do in a day. For me personally - no reason for going in the evening, time would be not enough.
Ticket for 1 direction - EUR 7,50, takes about 45 minutes.

[MattR]

The schedule doesn´t seem realistic.

You can easily  spend 30 minutes waiting in line of a Laduree shop near a tourist hot spot or take the Eiffel Tower,  walking there from a nearby station, climbing to the top and going to the other side of the river to take some fotos easily takes a hour.

[stifle]

Your journey seems really rushed. Unless you plan to spend 30 minutes and take a couple of selfies at each stop, because that's all you will have time to do, and you'll be wrecked in the evening. Cut out half the stops at least.

As Mileto mentions, a one-way ticket into central Paris costs €7.50 (€15 return), but don't get that. Instead get a one day zone 1-5 Mobilis ticket (same as a London Travelcard) which is €16.60 and includes unlimited travel on the Metro, RER (excluding airports, which you won't be going to anyway), buses, and trams within those zones. Even if you only make a single Metro journey you'll be better off as a single Metro ticket is €1.80. Make sure you have a ballpoint pen as you are required to write your name and the date of usage on your ticket before use, and the inspectors are entitled to ask for ID that matches it to make sure tickets aren't transferred. Steer clear of the "Paris Visite" ticket which is more than €7 more expensive and it's very hard to make the difference back with the paltry discounts it offers.

The Metro is straightforward to follow – just remember to have an idea of the terminus in the direction you're travelling as lines are described as (for example) line 1 towards La Défense rather than line 1 westbound, and full lists of stations do not always appear until you reach the platform. Download the RATP app to your phone for an offline map.

Similarly for the RER make sure the train you get is going where you want. There are several forks in the RER lines so particularly if travelling further out you need to check you're in the train you need.

No idea about Dreams timing I'm afraid.

For train times and frequencies use the RATP app or www.ratp.fr.

Finally, if you want lots of macarons, consider McDonald's. Insane, right? No, the larger branches with McCafé counters have perfectly good macarons at around €9 for a dozen and they are as good as anywhere else.

[Ohana]

Ok .. I was a bit worried that might be the response haha! Shame really, but I've struck off some places to make it a bit more do-able. St Germain and Opera House I only really wanted to just see, not too bothered, they can wait for another time (whenever that might be!). I only wanted Champs to take a peek at the Arc and it won't ruin my trip if I don't go, I just really wanted a Laduree - I suppose I could make a mad dash for it at the airport, since there's one there?

I thought Saint Julien was closer to Notre Dame. I must've been mistaken so sadly that's now off too. I believe the first 5 are all walkable between eachother so I can do that, then take metro to Place du Tertre. Visiting this place is pretty much non negotiable, seen pictures of it and it's basically everything I want from a visit to Paris; it looks a lot like what they've based Place Du Remy on, to me anyway. I'll try to squeeze Moulin Rouge in too as I really want to see it. No shows though!

Notre Dame
Pont Neuf (en route to Louvre)
Louvre
Eiffel Tower
Les Ombres
Place du Tertre
Moulin Rouge

I may also utilise one evening for a trip to La Valee instead of Paris, see if I can find anything nice here. Does this sound a bit more doable?

[Disneylove]

We're doing a similar thing to you and just spending one day in Paris and seeing as many things as possible. I don't see why that's an unreasonable expectation, it seems perfectly plausible to me, I've done it before in around 5 hours when I was younger.

If you look at this map, you can see the main tourist spots and work out what route you want to take to make your journey more efficient. I would recommend starting at the Eifell Tower, pre-booking and getting there as early as possible - https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_printable_tourist_attractions_map.jpg

Then from there, you can walk alongside the river, cross over one of the bridges to see sites on the other side of the river, cross over again for the other attractions and then get a train back to DLP after you've seen your final attraction.

However, Moulin Rouge and Place du Tertre are very out of the way, if you're planning on going there, the most time efficient way to get there would be to get a train either at the end or at the beginning of the trip as it's quite a walk with no where to stop at along the way like the other attractions. You can walk from Moulin Rouge to Tertre in 15 minutes or vice versa. I would also visit sacré-cœur while you're near it when you visit Tertre, it's very close and its a beautiful building.

[littlebitofpixiedust]

Just wondering if Disneyland Paris themselves can help in anyway? Not sure if anyone here's done this before?

I was kind of hoping to ask concierge when we arrive as all the visits we've done and never ventured out of DLP! I'm pretty sure on the "10 things to know" TV thing that comes on in the Disney hotels I'm sure it says about asking the concierge to help? Just a thought!

[stifle]

The concierge will probably suggest you take their organised coach trip.

[Ethan040]

I go into Paris for the day Ive been to Paris a few times now, the last time i went we had to que for 3 hours to go up the Eiffel tower, that's about all we did that day, i would say you might be able to see 3 things on your list depending on how busy it is, if you cant speak french ask the help desk at the train/metro station to mark where the attractions are that you want to see on the free maps then its just matching the line on the map with the train, its a bit worrying at first but its quite simple to be honest, its definitely worth it, i love Paris.

[samuelvictor]

Bare in mind that if you want to actually go into the Louvre and look around (rather than walk around the grounds and take pictures of the building and the famous glass pyramid etc) it will be a minimum of an hour's queuing to get in, and can easily be up to 3 hours. Also once you're in there, you can just run around and see everything, it is always busy, especially for the more famous paintings - Mona Lisa always has a queue from my experience...

[littlebitofpixiedust]

The concierge will probably suggest you take their organised coach trip.

So they do a coach trip that sounds better than trying to flaff around on the trains I will look into this 

[samuelvictor]

Yes there are I think 2 coach trips that DLRP can organise specifically for you. They aren't particularly cheap though, and as far as I can remember they don't give you much time to get out and actually see stuff (it wouldn't be practical as many things have long queues). There is a "hop on hop off" one, but you wouldn't get your money's worth if you were to spend multiple hours queuing for one thing. Great for sight-seeing though - similar to the London bus tours.

Here's a little info:
http://www.disneylandparis.co.uk/tours/paris-essentials-tour/
http://www.disneylandparis.co.uk/tours/magical-day-tour-of-paris/

[myburgeoning]

In spring we spent a day:
took the train in (it happen to be free due to smog- which I saw/smelled none) but used the metro train (no bus) the whole time.
with 2 kids in tow (age 10 and 3, in a carrier) we:
arrived at the Lourve, walked around outside, at the fountain, architecture etc. The line was sooo long, so we kept on  roaming outside. we walked to the Arc do Carousel. from there we made our way over the lock bridge (by foot) walked tot the Pantheon and through St. Germain-des-Pres. You could choose the Notre Dame instead (we had that or another day).
From there we walked to Luxembourg Gardens, and to the amazing park or kids there.
We next went to Les Invalides, which was stunning (my hubs is military),
Then on to the Eiffel Tower, we played and hung out for a period. Then ate at a small restaurant around the corner (called the Eiffel Tower I believe). It was amazingly reasonable (tea and crepe for maybe 10 euro), beautifully done. And then we went back outside to watch the tower light up.

We did a lot by foot, you can definitely fit a lot in by day, we were back to Disney side by 10ish. We also meandered about streets and alley ways and stopped to eat and take photos of just everything in the city.

[Ohana]

Thanks for all the tips guys, I'll be taking the train, the DLP excursions sound too restrictive and I know exactly what I want to see. And that I have to get macarons haha! I will definitely include a Paris section in my inevitable trip report

[Brainlesslittleaurora]

This thread has been a great help.

We were hoping to go to the Palace of Versailles, has anyone else done this?

Thanks.