"Impressions From The Seine" Trip Review April 8 - 17, 2024 (Part 1)
I would just like to preface that this Tour was amazing and definitely up to Tauck’s 5-star standards, however, prior to boarding the River Boat we experienced some “hiccups” along the way which gave us pause as to whether my husband and I had set our expectations too high. Some of these “hiccups” were circumstances beyond Tauck’s control, so I had to take that into consideration. This was a trip to celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary and I wanted it to be special so that is why I had booked Business Class fare on the plane and a Category 7 Cabin on the ship. Over the next 2 days, we would both reach a low point on our vacation which really left us feeling so disappointed.
FLIGHT
I document the following only as a warning to check your flights frequently as official change notifications are not always sent out, especially with co-shares.
July 2023 - I Booked our direct Business Class flight from Raleigh NC to Paris via a Delta co-share with Air France. I selected window seats for both of us for more privacy. We were flying on the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner.
January 23, 2024 – A change notification came thru with a slight time change of 20 minutes, no big deal.
February 27, 2024 – An equipment change to an Airbus A350-900 occurred and my seat changed from a window to the middle section across the aisle from my husband. At the same time, Delta’s website showed the aircraft as an Embraer 175, which was a “red flag”. We were not notified, my husband just happened to check the website.
March 19, 2024 – My husband checked the website again and noted another equipment change occurred back to the Boeing A787-9 Dreamliner, however, I still had a seat in the middle section. No notification from the airlines. I could have changed it back to a window seat as there were still a couple of seats available, but at this point I was concerned that I might end up without a confirmed seat, so I just left it “as is”.
The good thing is that Raleigh is a wonderful, small airport and our flight took off on time with no issues. We experienced turbulence during the entire 2nd half of the flight but we were warned about this by the Captain. I enjoyed Air France, the personnel were all super nice and attentive and the food was actually quite tasty and way plentiful. One of the attendants even took a picture of us as he saw me struggling to take a selfie. I thought that was very sweet. We landed in Paris 40 minutes ahead of schedule at 7:30am.
ARRIVAL AT CDG (PARIS) April 9
CDG is a huge airport and it was quite a long walk including multiple up and down escalators and one tram to finally arrive in Hall K. Passport Control was automated and once thru, there were two attendants that will stamp your passport if you wish. The whole process took about 45 minutes from plane debarkation to arrival at the area to meet our driver. We saw a driver holding up a Tauck sign but it was not for us. Then 3 more drivers arrived with Tauck signs but again our name was not on the list. Across the aisle there were an additional 2 drivers and again our names were not on their lists. There were no other Tauck passengers at that time in the morning, so we were a bit frustrated. One of the drivers then noticed our frustration and called the home office to find out where our driver was. After waiting for about 15 minutes, our driver was located but was having issues finding a parking spot, the airport was crazy busy. The Driver that helped us was so kind. He took us under his “wing” and we followed him outside to meet our official driver. The drive into Paris for our Pre-Tour hotel took 90 minutes due to the horrendous Paris traffic and an earlier accident. This was not an auspicious beginning to our tour. We were both so tired and jet lagged.
Hotel Napoleon
April 9
We arrived at the Hotel Napoleon at about 10:00am and, luckily, our room was available. Normal check-in was 3:00 pm. The Hotel is quite beautiful and situated about 1 block from the Arc Triomphe and 2 blocks from the Champs De Elysee. There are many transportation options near the Arc Triomphe, including the metro and Hop-on and Hop-off buses, plus you can always book a taxi or Uber to get to other areas of the city. Hotel Napoleon is in the 8th Arrondissement which is not the most interesting neighborhood just to wander around, in my opinion. I wish our Hotel had been in the Latin Quarter or St. Germaine area. Our room was very nice on the 2nd floor and faced the inner court yard.
We were both so exhausted that we dropped everything and slept for about 2 hours. Since it was raining quite heavily, we decided to have a light lunch at the Hotel’s restaurant. We shared a chicken and bacon sandwich listed under finger food which was more than enough for both of us. It was quite delicious. With 2 glasses of water and one glass of Rose for me, the total came out to about $27 euros. The rain finally stopped and the sun came out so we walked down the block to the Arc de Triomphe and took some pictures. There was no way we were going to hike up approximately 300 steps for the view. Even if you were able to take the small elevator, it was my understanding that there were still about 50-60 steps to get to the top. We then took a walk down the Champs de Elysee as I wanted to purchase some Macrons at the Pierre Herme shop located in the l’Occitane store and café. $29 euros for a box of 8 macarons in a cute keepsake tin. Mission accomplished. We were still so jet lagged, so we decided to head back to our Hotel. When we arrived, there was a notice that water would not be available for several hours in the afternoon due to an issue of some sort. This was so disappointing as we really wanted to take a shower and freshen up. It eventually came on a few hours later. The only other issue we encountered at the Hotel is that the bed was so hard, neither one of us could get a good night’s sleep, even though we were both exhausted. Other members of the group had the same issue, so if you like hard beds, then you are ok. If hard beds are an issue, I would suggest using the thick duvet as extra padding and check to see if there is a blanket available in the closet.
April 10
Breakfast was served from 7-10am and the breakfast was American style buffet and very good. The coffee was very good and came supplied with Hot Milk. Our bags would be picked up from inside our room at 10:30am. The Tauck Directors had a desk set up from 9-10:30 (we did not stop by the desk). The coach was scheduled to depart the Hotel at 2:30, but we had to check out by noon. We only wanted something light to eat for lunch before checking out, so we found a sandwich shop around the corner from the hotel. For $11 euros we each had a ham and cheese on a baguette and 1 water and 1 coke. The sandwich wasn’t that great and the bread was hard enough to cause my husband to break a front tooth from his denture. Luckily, he had packed a repair kit in his bag. This definitely put a damper on our vacation. We walked back to the Hotel, checked out at noon, and sat in the lobby until we departed for the boat at 2:30. It was during this point in time that we were having regrets about taking this tour with Tauck. We just wanted to get thru the week, make the best of it and get back home. We were both at our low point. We were loaded into two buses, 40 people per bus. We were scheduled to arrive at our boat at around 3:30. The lengthy time was due to the high-water flooding on the Seine which barred our River Boat from docking at its” normal position by the Eiffel Tower. We had a 1-hour bus drive to reach The Sapphire at the new Docking Location: 2 quai Saint Ouen, Saint Denis, which is outside the City of Paris. The bad thing about this is that over the next 2 days we had to return to Paris for our excursions which meant our relaxing River Cruise was turning into a congested City Bus Tour.