Paris - farewell dinner
We will be on the Normandy land tour in April ending in Paris. It is the small group, staying at Le Meurice hotel in Paris. We are there for 3 nights and dinners are planned for two of those nights - a dinner cruise on the Seine and the farewell dinner. My husband and I are opting out of the "bus tour and walking tour" of Paris on day 2 and creating our own plan. It's our only night to have dinner on our own and someone suggested the restaurant at Le Meurice. So my question is...is that the restaurant used for the farewell dinner? I don't want to duplicate restaurants. Thanks.
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Hi Surgie - I was on this small group tour in Oct. It was a wonderful trip. We also stayed at Le Meurice. We had dinner at Le Meurice on first night, on our own for night 2 and then the farewell dinner at Fouquets. Our tour did not include Seine dinner cruise, so it sounds like the itinerary may have changed a bit. Tauck website lists Fouquets for the farewell dinner.
I did this tour last year and the farewell dinner was at Fouquets. My tour included the Seine dinner cruise - had dinner on my own for one of the nights.
Yes, Le Meurice then Fouquets for the farewell dinner.The only issue I had with the restaurant at Le Meurice where we had the first of two Tauck meals, was that it was kind of right in the lobby. People would step out of the revolving door(?) and then almost need to walk through the restaurant to get to the desk or their rooms. That combined with the high ceiling kinda ruined any atmosphere there might have been and to me had such an impact that I don't remember what we ate which I'm sure was very good.
We bailed out near the end of the first bus/walking tour. Instead of a little more guided walk and subway back to the hotel we met a private guide who took us to Ste Chappele (Notre Dame was closed), Le Conciergerie, and the Louvre since our SG departure was not scheduled for the Louvre.. We also bailed out after the stop at D'Orsay Museum and went to the Rodin museum, strolled through the city to the Esplanade des Invalides, then to the Champ de Mars, and finally rode to the top of the Eiffel Tower before strolling back along the left bank to Le Meurice to get ready for the farewell. We packed a lot into our free time. I got tickets for everything in the weeks and months before the trip.
Alan S - that's exactly what I have been working on - getting tickets for what we want to do on the bus tour/walking tour day as well as the afternoon of the Musee D'Orsay day since it is scheduled from 9-noon. I think we can fit a lot in on our own, especially since we are repeat visitors. My husband has never been to the top of the ET which I could skip as I've done it, but he really wants to so that will take a chunk of time even with pre-booked tickets. I'm considering a tour for that which is expensive but supposedly guarantees tickets to the summit.
They withhold a certain number of ET tickets for daily release and a lot for ticket consolidators etc., for the ride to the top, but you gotta go early in the morning to get them. I didn't want to take the chance and really didn't see how I could get there anyway.
You can also get package deals if you book dinner at the ET restaurant (waaayyy too expensive, food reviews not great, etc. ) or by booking a trip to the top bundled with a cruise or other similar activity- we weren't interested.
If you go to the ET website you can track how often they release a day's worth of tickets, how many days before, and how soon they are sold out- sometimes within minutes. It took several days to figure it out using partial constructive bookings, but once I figured out the system I eventually was able snag tickets online when the time came. I didn't get the exact time slot I wanted but had a window of half hour time slots that would fit our schedule and managed to get the half hour slot past my desired one.
I have notes about this in a 2023 post www.forums.tauck.com/discussion/16935/bonjour-mes-amis-planning-considerations-and-trip-report/p1 where I also talk strategies how to see as much of Versailles as you can in the short amount of time available (we went only one day early.) We didn't use the free Tauck/Waldorf Astoria Hotel ticket but for only a bit more than what we would have paid for extras on a second day but with no entry time restrictions and entry any time, we got annual passes. It all worked out great. Except for one tram ride it involved a lot of walking, however!!!! Your mileage may vary, but it appears I actually posted my Fitbit mileage!
Thanks again Alan for the helpful advice. We are arriving a day early and if there is a Tauck Versailles ticket provided we may wander over in the afternoon of our arrival day. But I went ahead and booked our own tickets for the next day so we can be there first thing in the morning and hopefully scoot right to the hall of mirrors. I have been before and we walked a lot but also used a golf cart for the gardens. It was great!