NCteacherlovescruising

I think we’d prefer another mode of transportation. Can do. It would be great if we could find a private tour guide, like in Rome, that was reasonably priced. Thanks! I don’t know that anything can live up to our last one, but I should never say never. However, I still feel like it was the trip of our lifetime! Good idea about the Olympic coverage.

Would our luggage be unsafe in 1st class? Thank you very helpful! I also watched a couple videos after reading this. It reminds me a bit of an airport with the screens and terminals. We're thinking about booking a guided tour of the Louvre. Any recommendations? And possibly at Versailles Palace. Do you think it would be worth it here or just enjoy it on our own? The rest we plan to DIY. I’m very much looking forward to it. Nothing will top the one we just had, but this may be second best.

Looking at the train schedules from Bordeaux to Paris, I see several options. Is this something we would need to book in advance or just buy tickets when we get there? I also see it’s much cheaper to take a 3 hr train ride than a 2 hour one. I assume one is high speed and the other isn’t since they both show zero changes. It seems confusing. Is this a huge train station where we could have difficulty finding the correct train?

This is a possibility. All of the location I’ve selected would have narrow streets getting to them? I don’t think dh would like that. They made us nervous just as passengers. Lol We both know how to drive a stick and parallel park. I’m 57 and dh is 60. Once we book our flights and accommodations, I will let y’all know and see what you think would be best to do with the vehicle. If we rent a vehicle, that’s not a certainty yet. The more I research Paris the more interesting it appears. I may want to take an early train there to get the most out of our first day, and skip the castles. Would it be a pain to take a train to Paris if we caught it in Bordeaux early in the morning? We can book assigned seats, right? With room for our luggage? We’re planning on just having a carry-on and personal bag each, but we shall see. I found on my trip this summer, I really just needed dresses and they don’t take much room. And I traveled in linen pants and my Brooks. Issue is, I came home with way more than I went with, as I’m sure most women do.

I agree with Bruce. I would come two nights early to allow time to tour. It’s a beautiful little city! We stayed at the Hotel Rialto which was super convenient to everything and our room was large for Italian standards.

Your second honeymoon sounds wonderful! We booked our boat tour through Get Your Guide but it was ran by Positano Boats. It was one of the best days of our trip. Can’t recommend them enough! I’m glad you enjoyed it!

I've been trying to do this for quite some time. We don't have our tickets numbers so I can't get it to go through. I've tried calling twice and have got disconnected both times. edited: it finally went through without our ticket number. Now it’s a waiting game.

I believe it would have been considered a through ticket but I’m not sure. It looked like it on my app. It was booked by NCL air.

Our flight from Venice was delayed 2.5 hours which cause us to miss our connecting flight in Chicago. The new flight they put us on in Chicago was delayed 6 hours. Yeah, he won’t drink and drive there. That flight was only delayed 2.5 hours. Our flight from Chicago was delayed 6 hours.

We always book direct with the hotel, but will also check out the Chase portal to see what they offer. I agree about Marronniers looking nicer but we can afford a bigger room there. I can’t seem to relax in a small box. I haven’t shown dh my hotel selections yet but if we choose Marronniers I would most likely want to upgrade to a deluxe which is quite pricy. He usually doesn’t like to go over $350 or so per night. But Paris is an expensive and I may just not show him the other option. He hated our tiny room in Naples as much as I did! I will also look at Castille. Dh would hate staying next to Chanel. lol Edited to add: Woman, you have fabulous taste and I now have a 4th option for Paris!

So true! They are both special and beautiful! He has agreed to an extra night in Paris once I pointed out the flights there don’t arrive to early evening. Now we’re considering renting a car to drive to the castles from Bordeaux and wouldn’t arrive that much later. Where was it you said to turn the rental in if we do this? We have no intentions of keeping the car in Paris! We like to be chauffeured around on vacation. I see the answer to my question above. Which would be easier? Driving it to Paris to turn in or to Chartres, then train and taxi? We like easy so small group tours may be what we want. I just hate not having the flexibility to wonder off and look at shops and such.

We always get off the ship in every port, but I love a beautiful beach. There was one we stayed on the ship, and it was amazing having it practically to ourselves! Neither of us recall which port it was though. Perhaps Bahamas. We have yet to take a small ship.

They replied to my email saying it was too soon to book. She said she didn't know when they would open, but to try back in a month or two. It appears to be similar priced to the others I'm looking at. I was on their pricing on their website. While the dates appear to be bookable, when you try to do so it says there is no availability.

I did and they are not open yet. At the moment we have 3 possibilities for Paris, including this one. The others are: Hotel Dauphine Saint-Germaine Hotel Des Marronniers

He's going to want to drink the wine! We don't do a lot of international travel. Until this year, our idea of vacation was taking a cruise to the Caribbean.

I just tried pricing this for next June and it says there is no availability. Could they be sold out already or do you think it's just too early to book?

If we rented a car in France, we would do so while in Bordeaux. I don't know if it's a good idea for dh to drive to the vineyards since he would be sampling wine. I assume their drinking and driving laws are similar to ours. I wouldn't want him to land in a French prison! So, perhaps just to go from Bordeaux to Paris, visiting a couple castles along the way. We had planned on skipping this and only staying 2 nights in Paris, but after revisiting the flights from Bordeaux to Paris, we wouldn't get there until evening so the first "day" is lost. I figure we might as well drive and enjoy the day. That is dependent on dh adding an extra night in Paris though, which he seems agreeable to under the circumstances. Back to Bordeaux, we have discussed hiring someone to take us to the vineyards, either a private driver or small group tour. And most likely a group tour for St. Emilion, unless we decide to drive there. Although I think I read somewhere that we can take a train there. Not sure. I've been researching so many different things in France the past couple of days that I'm mixing things up. The hotel search has been difficult! @edinburgher linked an older thread on hotels for @oceansandseas that seems very helpful! We did use our GPS in Italy quite a bit this summer, especially in Rome. We had to pay $80 per line with Verizon for a month, but it worked quite well and was worth it. The only time we had issues with it was in Naples, but we forgot to turn off Surfshark. Not sure if that was the issue or if the local carrier was down, but we got lost there.

I trust her too. She recommended the Albergo del Senato in Rome and we absolutely loved it! I just checked out this hotel and it looks perfect. Definitely on our list of possibilities! Weird thing is it says you get a discounted rate for more than a 3 night stay but when I changed it to 4 nights the daily rate went up.

Enjoy your trip! We will be flying from Barcelona to Bordeaux. We will take the train from Bordeaux to Paris. We were delayed on our leg from Venice to Chicago which caused us to miss our connecting flight home to Charlotte. We ended up spending the night in the airport thinking we had a 7AM flight, but it was delayed till 12:50. This was all with AA. Paris has never been on my bucket list so I’d be surprised if we ever return. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure we will love it it’s just not a must see for me. I’m think we could visit the Lourve, Notre Dame, the Effie Tour and then finish our day with a cruise along the Seine River. We could go to Versailles the other day. This is assuming we catch an early flight to Paris. We will plan a day here and just walk around the city once we return. We just spent three weeks in Europe so we’re well aware of the sun and heat. I have to admit, the only time we used any sunscreen was on our beach and boat days. We both tan easily. As I mentioned above, AA’s delay on our flight from Venice to O’Hare made us miss our connecting flight home and we spent the night in the airport. AA customer service told me they didn’t have to compensate us because she said the law I showed her on my phone wasn’t in effect yet. The one Biden supposedly passed.

Oh! And I see what you mean about the other two.

It’s 4.5/5 on TA, but only a 3* hotel. The other two are 4*.

Ok, thanks. I thought they were all in the same area. Shows you what I know! lol

Three potential hotels: https://maisonsaintonge.com https://www.hoteldesgrandsvoyageurs.com/?_gl=1*3xf18n*_gcl_au*MTQ3MDQzOTY2Mi4xNzIxNTA5NjY5*_ga*MTQwMDU4MzUyOS4xNzIxNTA5NjMw*_ga_2KHP02HQQL*MTcyMTUxNzAwNC4yLjAuMTcyMTUxNzAwNS41OS4wLjA. https://dauphine-st-germain.com Thoughts?

If we did the castles, we would do them on the way there and do the other stuff on the second day, skipping the palace. Oh. I bet that’s a major splurge! I hadn’t thought of that. It’s a good reason to do so. The prices didn’t seem much different in Paris. In Bordeaux the B&B’s were much cheaper. Although, if we did the castles on the way there we wouldn’t get there till late anyway.

Yeah, we had found direct flights to Bordeaux. We do plan to go to St. Emilion too. I didn’t realize everything was close together there. It looks so huge and spread out. I don’t know that we’ll go up the tower, I’m scared of heights. But I would like to get close enough to have pics with it. So you would prioritize Versailles over the castles? Do you like to stay in VRBOs or hotels in Paris?