Paris Winter Family Guide

We arrived at night into Gare de l'Est after coming from Strasbourg and arranged a G7 taxi with car seats ahead of time. It was pouring rain, so I walked over to find the driver and he came into the station to help collect us, which made a stressful arrival feel much easier.

For the stay itself, we booked one room at Hyatt Madeleine with cash and points, then contacted the hotel in advance to arrange a connecting room at 50 percent off. The rooms were tight, which is not unusual for Paris, but they were very nice and felt properly high end.

We mostly used Ubers or just walked, which worked well for the way we like to see cities. The only train rides we took during the stay were out to Disneyland Paris and then the Eurostar when we left for London to wrap up the trip.

We went up the Eiffel Tower, spent time at Galeries Lafayette, did some high-end shopping, saw the outside of the Louvre, and otherwise did a lot of walking and just getting pleasantly lost in the city. The kids especially loved the Eiffel Tower, so going up was absolutely worth doing.

On the first night we ate at Relais de l'Entrecote, where my son fell asleep at the table, which felt very on-brand for a late-arrival family dinner in Paris.

We also did a Disneyland Paris day trip. It was nice and felt a bit like an updated Disneyland Anaheim, but it did not feel especially vast or all that spectacular if you are already used to the California parks.

Paris felt unusually easy with kids, and if anything our biggest takeaway was that we should have given it more time. Between the weather, the late arrival, and one full day spent at Disneyland, we did not get to do nearly as much as the city deserved.