Uber to Tuileries

Happy DH

Market

Happy everyone

Eiffel Tower in distance

Big wheel

Bistro

Crème brulee

I swear I’m going to try to finish this.

The next day we were up bright and early because we had a lunch cruise on the Seine booked. We had breakfast at the hotel and then went to go find an Uber. We left a lot of time because we’d been having issues with not all the Ubers wanting three passengers and we wound up being quite early for the cruise. Normally, we would have walked around a bit, but it was very, very wet, and we found a bar on a boat and sat and had a drink until it was more or less time to report for the cruise.

Which was wonderful. Highly, highly recommend. It was a little expensive, especially since we did go for a couple of upgrades, mostly to a window seat with champagne, and we also got a half bottle of wine to have with our lunch, but well worth it. Food was very good, nice and relaxed, and really a different perspective on the city.

Paris in the rain.

DH and DS by the Seine.

DH on the bar boat.

Our lunch boat

Table set up with rose petals

Me on the lunch boat

DS

Champagne

Cruising on the Seine

Chocolate Eiffel Tower

Actual Eiffel Tower

After the boat, we went to Galleries Lafayette in an Uber, walked around a bit, had a snack in a cafe, and decided it was too wet to walk around more, so we went back to the hotel. Once there, we decided to have dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant, to keep being rained on to a minimum.

Outside galleries Lafayette

Slightly overwhelmed DH

The big tree

Walking aroundI’m

Snack in Café

That's quite the expression on your husband's face

I'm so glad to see that you are adding to your trip report. I have been hoping you will. I know from experience that it's easy to run out of steam to finish one. As much as I love Paris, it looks pretty miserable in winter rain. To me, the picture of your husband in Galleries Lafayette captures the shock (especially for a man) of stepping into that giant space teeming with people. And it's hot!

He was feeling a bit overwhelmed at that moment, although he enjoyed the tree.

The snack helped too, but it was definitely time for a moratorium on department stores.

Now, at dinner, DS seemed a little less hungry than he normally is, but we just figured he was tired, and he'd been eating all day.

After dinner we went to our room, and in Paris DS had his own room, so he went to his.

When we went to retrieve him in the morning he looked kind of rocky, and had been repeatedly unwell in the night. We were trying to figure out if he'd maybe eaten something that was a bit off, but one of his family nicknames is "digestion of a rhino" and this was unusual, to put it mildly. Then we remember that while I hadn't had a lot of digestive consequences, I'd been a bit off my food for a couple of days at the beginning of the trip, so we figured I must have had a little bit of a stomach bug and gave it to poor DS.

He wasn't super lively, but felt he could manage Eurostar, so we all got into an Uber for Gare du Nord. We left a lot of time, and while it was possibly too much time since the waiting options before security are very limited but the Uber driver had to leave us a block away due to construction, which was exciting with a droopy DS and all the luggage.

This was also one of the moments when I was examining some of my life choices, especially while balancing on suitcases and trying to feed DS a little bit of plain croissant (it helped). We had gotten a "bid on the upgrade" email from Eurostar, giving us the option to bid on Plus or Premier. Plus didn't really seem worth it to me, and while Premier did look good, the minimum bid was something like 85 pounds each and we decided it wasn't worth it. All the reviews claimed Standard class was fine, and in fact it mostly was.

However, standing before security with a not so well DS, not even allowed to get into the queue until an hour before departure, and then dealing with hellishly crowded security? This was starting to seem like a poor choice, when we could have had squishy seats in the lounge with snacks, an easier bathroom trip, and a dedicated security line.

However we finally got through to security, went through the lines, and got to sit down. And buy a snack for the train. And DS was holding up pretty well.

The Eurostar was fine, and we actually got a luggage trolley on the platform at St. Pancras. Then we briefly visited some of the decorations, and went to go find the Barrel Vault, since I like a nice Wetherspoons and the people who weren't sick wanted breakfast and we figured they'd give DS a nice cup of tea.

I'm assuming this was because it was three days before Christmas, but the Barrel Vault was absolutely jammed with people, many of them both drinking and wearing festive costumes, despite it being 10 o'clock on a Monday morning. So we gave up on the Barrel Vault and got in a black cab for our first hotel, the Tavistock.

Snack at Tavistock

Droopy DS
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Up to a little bit of sandwich and some sparkling water

Fortunately they had the room ready, and we went up, dropped our stuff, and had a little snack.

We left DS in the room to rest a little and DH and I took a walk, and then went back and rested ourselves for a little.

Then we all went out and walked around a bit, and then got into an Uber for Covent Garden, where we had a dinner reservation at the Punch and Judy.

Covent Garden was a lot of fun, and the reservation was a very good idea, since that got us a quiet back room. DS ate about half his dinner, and was still sticking to ginger ale, but held up pretty well. We did stop into a store and bought some Gaviscon and more ginger ale, and then went back to the hotel.

Russell Square

More Russell Square

DS

Either Russell Square or another square nearby I no longer remember

Street by Covent Garden

Covent Garden

Covent Garden

More

Chanel pop-up

DS at Punch and Judy
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Dinner

The next day DS was feeling a bit better, and we went to Harrods to check it out briefly and do a little shopping. Unfortunately, he really wasn’t up to much in the beloved food hall there and just wanted some fancy water with vegetables in it.

After Harrod’s we went into Harvey Nichols to look at De Mellier handbags for my sister. Sadly, they did not have the one she was really interested in.

There was also a little excitement when DS briefly got lost, since he was concerned about running out of data on his eSIM, and he kept putting his phone on airplane mode. We did sort of read him the right act over that, cause we all spent about half an hour running around Harvey Nichols trying to find each other.

After shopping, we had an appointment with a Tea bus at Victoria Station, and took an Uber to there. Now, on the whole the tea bus, which I have done before, was a success. DS didn’t eat his entire tea, but that’s fine and DH had brought some plain ham sandwiches because while we had an arrange arrangement to have them, give him some plain turkey sandwiches that didn’t actually happen.

What did happen was a packet of sandwiches marked no mayonnaise no mustard. Which was fine, although none of them were really anything DH would eat and I had a couple of them. What wasn’t fine was that someone had apparently not realized that egg and cress has mayonnaise in it. That could have been an issue if we were actually dealing with an allergy rather than a couple of weird sensitivities and probably ARFID.

However the staff was lovely, and we all enjoyed the bus.

Harrods

Harrods Food Hall

DS and his vegetable water

Handbags in Harvey Nichols

Tea bus


DH

DS

Not quite right sandwiches