Mother-Daughter Trip to Paris!
France
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Aug 10 - Aug 16, 2025
Our trip to Paris was absolutely incredible, and all of the arrangements that kimkim made for us were seamless. That said, we definitely felt the schedule was overly jam-packed toward the end, and if we could do it over we would *not* have tried to do The Louvre and the Jardin de Plantes (which included the Managerie *and* the Grande Galerie de l'Evolution) in the same day. It was an incredible amount of walking, crowding, and stimulation for the kids all in one day. As a result, we decided to skip all of the scheduled activities on the last day so that we could instead enjoy the day at our own pace. All in all, however, it was the trip of a lifetime, and all of the activities we did do were spectacular. The only additional note I'll make is that we tried for nearly an hour to find access to the RER C (which would have taken us from Paris to Versailles) only to find out some or all of it is currently closed for maintenance. Had we known, we would have just taken an Uber straight from the hotel, which is what we ended up doing in the end. As it was my first time taking my girls overseas, a lot of travel lessons were learned, but overall it was a genuinely wonderful vacation and an experience they will never forget.
Hotel Review
The Hotel Jeanne D'Arc Le Marais was really nice, with its best feature being its location. The Marais district is absolutely to die for and was centrally located for access to most of our activities. All of the staff were amazing and accommodating. I acknowledge it's a three-star hotel because of my tight budget, but the breakfast, "bar," and lack of central air took some getting used to. But otherwise, we really enjoyed it. We even found the beds to be unbelievably comfortable. If you do stay here, I recommend staying on the 2nd floor or above (which in France is the 1st floor or above) so that you can open the windows; the rooms on the bottom floor (Floor 0) have a large protective barrier over the window, so opening it doesn't help much.
Activity Reviews
This was one of my personal favorite activities and was a great orientation/introduction to Paris on our first day, but others in my group had varying experiences.
We loved it! We also appreciated going in the evening so we could see the light show.
If I'm honest, the best part of this experience was its location inside the Galeries Lafayette, which we spent *hours* shopping in after the baking class was over. The chef was about twenty minutes late getting started, after we had arrived about 15 minutes early, so we ended up sitting on the 3rd floor near the Concierge for more than 30 minutes. That said, the kids really enjoyed the class, and the parents were all relieved it was straightforward and not terribly involved.
