Struggling with itinerary
 

Hi,

We are a family (kids 13, 10) looking at award travel from Bos-Dub for 11 days in April, 2016. And yes, that's only 9 days on the ground. We would need to fly in (and probably out) of Dublin or Shannon, but would also like to take a cheap flight to Paris. I should say that flying into or out of France IS possible, but requires more miles + cash, and would only get us to JFK. Is this doable???

I'm a little stumped...Itinerary suggestions welcomed. :)

TIA

Have you looked for flights to Paris from Ireland? It will take a chunk of days out of your trip for travel. Obviously you want to go to Ireland. Maybe save the mainland Europe for another time.

Struggling to see the question, let's see if we can break it down

1) you can get to Dublin
2) you can fly Dublin/Shannon to an airport near Paris (note that cheepo airlines do not fly to CDG much)
3) you can fly Paris to JFK but not your city of choice.

Have you thought about flying out of Schipol or Brussels? yes a bit of an extra train jump but not much. Alt catch a Train to London and fly Gatwick or Heathrow (do it the other way around and you don't get hit by the London flight-out taxes)

Ok, to clarify...we would tentatively fly Bos-Dub-Bos. In on 4/20, and out on 5/1. Would like to fly Dub-CDG anytime after we get in to Dub, but thought that same day could be dicey if our TA flight gets delayed. So maybe fly dub-cdg on 4/21. Then 4/21-4/29 open for Paris and environs. Fly back CDG or another airport in France-Dub on 4/30...and Dub-Bos 5/1. I am stumped on how to structure our itinerary for France, and would love some suggestions!

Follow this link http://www.dublinairport.com/gns/fli...-airlines.aspx and you see that the options are Beauvais, Orly and CDG (4 companies in all). But CDG uses the expensive legacy carriers. I'd use Orly to get to Paris, then hang out some days and finally train to CDG and fly out.

Orly is just to the south of Paris and easy to access, while Beauvais is a bit of a pain.

If you've not been to Paris then you could do 3 or 4 nights easily. Base in Arrondissement 5, 6 or 7 and have great time. I'd split my time 50:50 as Dublin is a small old city (not even number 2 in the old British Empire) with some lovely old buildings. Paris was centre of the French Empire and hsa the buildings you'd expect plus parks/fun things to do.

Only area of interest/review is Disney which is NE of Paris. I'll leave it to you if you want to mention it to the kids.

Just another thought, while you will find both sites has people who speak English, Dublin is a good Europe Lite for first timers from the States. So go their first, have a couple of days in town and then a tour out for a day and maybe a trip on the Dart Railway to Howth (a little fishing village to the East of Dublin (gives you the idea of rural Ireland but on the train) eat at the King Sitric for fresh fish.

Paris; at least 2 days in town if not three (segway or bike tour) Musee d'Orsay, various parks, Disney then maybe a tour or train to Giverney for the gardens (dull) or Parc Asterix (yeah) http://www.parcasterix.fr/en

Great suggestions!

Why not fly back to JFK and take the train to Boston? Easier than backtracking in Europe if, as it seems, you do not actually want to visit Ireland.

Thursday,
It is considerably more expensive to fly dub-JFK-Bos, and the train is even more time consuming. Unfortunately with two kids who will have to go back to school, detouring away from Bos will be a monumental hassle.

Sorry, that should say Cdg or Orly-JFK!

Do you actually want to see anything of Ireland? Because it looks like you are flying to Ireland to get to France, which is also expensive and time consuming. Worse, you are burning vacation time, rather than time on a travel day, to get to Dublin just to catch a flight. If you book well ahead, it will cost about the same for the Northeast Regional Amtrak as for the flights from Paris to Dublin, and take a bit over four hours plus the time from JFK to Penn Station.

Just how much extra is it going to cost you to fly BOS-CDG and back, which seems to be what you want to do, compared to adding the cost of the flights to/from Paris/Dublin? What airline are you flying that charges more FF miles for France than Ireland?

I'm confused.

It looks like you actually don;t want to got o Ireland at all - since you have left no time to spend there. If that's the case - and you just really want to visit France - and have so few days I would avoid Ireland and just go to France.

Yes, it may be a little more expensive - but as it is you are wasting 3 to 4 days just foofing around waiting to and then getting from one country to another. Your time is valuable - just go where you want to.

GEE whiz. Flying to Ireland to get a good price and then spending all the money and time to get where you really WANT to go.
I suggest your really THINK about this trip.

If your goal is to visit Ireland, I would spend your time there during this trip. If your goal is France, fly to France.

Air France and Delta have quite a few non-stop flights from Boston to Paris (CDG.) US Airways, American, Finn Air, & British Airways also have non-stop flights from Boston to CDG.