Euro Disney - 10 tips

Great buskers on the way to Eurodisney.

Tips,
1)Easy to catch the RER from central Paris, we got a zone 5/6 orange card
2)we went later in the day ie arrived at midday to avoid morning queues
3)Go to the far left hand side to buy tickets away from the queues, there is a series of shared booths there and quicker to access entry.
4)It seemed pricey, but the character meals were good value. An extra 10 Euro per adult on the normal buffet price. No queuing and lots of photo ops.
5) A good place to get your bearings is the Lucky Nugget while having lunch, you can plot your course.
6) The express tix are really good, they do save on queuing time.
7) You can only get one express ticket at a time, so choose wisely
8) There are definitely peak times ie after shows etc, if you do activities while the shows are on the queues are shorter.
9) the shops get really manically busy later in the evening
10) Whilst queues are shorter later in the day some rides start closing around 9.00, ie we couldn't get onto Autopia

Louvre tips

Best times to visit without queuing is later on the late night openings ie Wednesday and Friday when the Louvre is open to 10pm.

We walked straight to the ticket purchasing desk, after we had our dinner then walked right on in. Of course the Louvre is massive, so you can either just target a few places you want to visit or wander randomly.

Personally I find museums of this size overwhelming and like to reduce my visit to bite sized chunks, especially when travelling with a 9 year old.

Museum Opening Hours
The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. (rooms begin closing at 5:30) every day except Tuesday and the following holidays: January 1st, May 1st and December 25, 2009. The permanent collection and temporary exhibitions will close at 5 p.m. on December 24 and 31, 2009 (Wednesday).

The museum is open until 10 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday evenings (rooms begin closing at 9:30 p.m.).

Admission to the Louvre is free on the first Sunday of every month.

The Pyramid and Galerie du Carrousel entrances are open daily from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., except Tuesday.
The Passage Richelieu is open daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., except Tuesday.
The Porte des Lions entrance is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., except Tuesday and Friday.

Address for the Louvre is a map on the website. So visit official site for more info.

Toy shops in Paris

We decided to check out toy shops and have only made it to two so far.

One being Jouie Club, which is a series of shops in an arcade, with a huge range of toys.
3-5 Blvd des Italiens
Metro Richelieu Droit, right next to the metro stop.

The other was the oh, so pricey, but absolutely charming Au Nain Bleu. Beautiful dolls, hand crafted tableux, costumes (lots of princess action happening in Paris). We drooled at Nain Bleu, but actually found some of the same stuff much cheaper at Jouie.
5 Blvd Malesherbes
Metro Madeline, also on the same circular line as the Metro, so relatively easy to find.

We were surprised to find out that letoyvan.com is actually an English company and that Lion Touch, which we could have sworn was English is actually Scandinavian.

Joanne Kee
www.placesandspaces.com.au

Eiffel Tower

The queues were phenomenal snaking around the Eiffel Tower. I have to say, why would you bother if you had to stand in a queue for an hour?

We took the up market option and had the most amazing lunch at the Jules Verne Restaurant. Expensive, but we really enjoyed it. Food was fantastic, view sublime and we felt extremely pampered. Not to mention we got our own lift on the way down.

Joanne
www.placesandspaces.com.au