3 Generation visit to London and Paris
 

I am thinking of taking my daughter and 16-yr-old granddaughter on a week-long trip to London and Paris probably in June of 2015. Any recommendations for me in the planning stages? We would probably fly from Philadelphia to London, take the Chunnel to France after a few days and fly home from Paris. I am interested in well-located and reasonably priced accomodations that include breakfast. Thanks for your help.

Anywhere reasonable will offer breakfast in both cities and while it may not be included the total price is what counts. What we need to know is

1) what does "reasonably priced" mean to you, we just had a visitor to Fodors asking how to spend Euro 5000 in a week for play money and that will be a different reasonable to some one staying in a hostel. So how much do you want to pay and do you want two rooms, three rooms or one room

2) What do you like to do, both cities have great public transport which is the best way to get around but London is a big city (biggest in Europe)so do you have anything your girls love to do lots of times and would like to do on this trip, we can suggest areas, though you may also find Trip Advisor useful, do get advice here on areas

3) Any physical issues that need accounting for (elevator) and would you prefer a hotel or an appartment?

"Any recommendations for me in the planning stages?"

My recommendation to you is to do a google search under "London accommodations" and "Paris accommodations". Go through everything that comes up (hotel location, prices, included amenities and not) and come back and post here with questions about what catches your eye. Do similar searches for attractions in each city, to get a sense whether a few days in each city is sufficient or feasible to see and do the things you like.
Knowing absolutely nothing about you or your travelling companions, nor your likes, dislikes or abilities is useless to us in making any suggestions out of literally hundreds of options between the two cities.

A week in either city might be a better choice (mostly depends on if you've all been to both before).

A week is really not very long. Two full days are eaten up just getting to/from Europe. The you lose most of another day to jet lag and another half a day transferring from your hotel in London to the hotel in Paris. You'll end up w/ 2 or 2.5 days free to see/do in each city.

Now - IF you've been to both cities a few times before, sure a split week just as a sort of 'girl's break' could be fun. Otherwise, pick one.

And we really do need your budget - triple rooms or two rooms will come at a premium. Or you could rent a flat in either city to get more space for less $$/££/€€

If you have a full 7 days on the ground (that is, not counting the day you arrive and the day you depart) then splitting the time between both cities makes sense. If you only have 5 full days (6 nights) on the ground, then you really couldn't do justice to eithr city.

In any case you need to provide a specific budget in $, pounds or euros - and if you want to share a triple room - to get specific recommendations. (You're so far out you probably can;t get rates fixed at this point but can at least establish some options within your general budget.)

In addition to the good advice from the previous posters, my recommendation is not to choose a hotel because it offer an included breakfast. In Paris this will severely limit your hotel choices. And what if you want more of a breakfast than the hotel offers? You've actually paid for that breakfast in the room rate so there's no point going elsewhere for a cooked breakfast. Better to find a centrally-located hotel that meets your budget and pay for breakfast.

Try to increase the number of days for your trip so you have a full 4 days each in London and Paris. That would mean 9 days in Europe (one day for transferring between London and Paris) plus travel days (1 day on each end of the trip).

It is illegal in Paris for any hotel to force you to pay for breakfast, so if a breakfast is included, it is usually cheaper for you not to have it and accept a rate without breakfast. It really is a very limiting reason to choose a hotel in Paris as most don't do that. I'm not sure if any truly give it to you free, meaning the rate is the same with the breakfast as some special rate as if you don't get it, but there won't be many.

Included breakfast would never be a requirement for me in either city. Rural B&Bs are a different animal - the full cooked breakfast is one major reason to stay there. But not in London, and especially not in Paris.

(I also wonder at folks who insist on free wifi. Wouldn't the total cost be more important? A £100hotel w/ £15 for wifi might be loads better than a £125 hotel w/ free wifi)

I don't know if it's just fortuitous, but the places that make me pay for wifi seem to have slow and irregular connections.

We're planning a 3-generation trip for this June - my mom, myself, my 12-yo daughter, and my 11-yo niece, coming from the Pacific Northwest of the US.

What I've done is:
- Asked my daughter and niece (it's mostly their trip!) what they wanted to do in Paris. Answer: go to lots of museums, eat at an outside cafe, go to a fashion show, buy a French outfit.
- Watched Rick Steves's Paris shows with my daughter to get more sites of interest from her
- Went thru Fodor's forum trip reports, particularly those including children, and copied and pasted recommended sites into a shared (with my mother) Evernote notebook
- Added my interests to the shared Evernote files ("eat duck" was just below "art museums", LOL)
- Looked through the neighborhood (thank you, Google Maps streetview) with my daughter and found and researched stores and restaurants nearby

What my mother did:
- Remembered sites from her previous visits that she's wanted to share with the girls (this was a promised treat for them)
- Re-read Rick Steves's tour books for Paris
- Reviewed Evernote notebook for ideas from me and the kids
- Made apartment (much better room/bed situation than most hotels, plus we can arrange our own breakfasts - there's a boulangerie on our street ;-) ) and Eiffel tower reservations (for her and the girls - I'm not comfortable with heights). I'm not sure if she's buying the museum pass before we get there or not.
- Paid for everything (except flights and meals for my daughter and myself)!!! :-)

Together, mom and I have sketched out a rough itinerary for our week-long trip (not including travel days, though my daughter and I are joining Mom and niece from England (we're spending an extra 10 days in Cheshire, where my husband's family live, and in London - we're deserting the boys in the middle of our trip for this "girls" trip), so we won't be as jet-lagged as them - I guess we're buying groceries, LOL).

We have indoor and outdoor activities, including park visits for the girls (they still enjoy park apparatus, and it looks like there are some really nice ones in Paris), a reservation for the fashion show at Galeries Lafayette, a planned trip to flea markets (we've convinced the girls that an authentic "French outfit" is one previously worn by a French girl...), and some restaurant ideas.

We're looking forward to a fantastic trip. I hope your trip is enjoyable.