June 27, Tuesday
I got up a little before 8 AM but it always takes me forever to get
ready because I can't find anything. I think Michael and the boys met up with
us around 9:15 AM. We had a family prayer and then we all went down for breakfast
at the hotel. Unfortunately, it was pitiful and there was hardly any food
there. It was worse than a cheap motel continental breakfast and they wanted
€18 a person. We quickly walked out of there and tried to find another option.
Michael walked down the street and found a bakery on the corner. I tried
looking on my phone and there were options in multiple directions. We ended up
going to the one that he found and it was perfect. They had burgers and
sandwiches and cheesecake and pastries and fancy desserts and all kinds of
great things.
Everybody found multiple things they wanted.
Andrew and Jonny got some fruit. I ended up getting a croissant and a cream
beignet which was amazing, and a raspberry macaron that reminded me of the ones
that we get at Disneyland. It was much better than the ones we tried last
night. We were able to find a place to sit inside and when the guy next to us
moved we were able to sit together.
After breakfast, we headed back to the hotel and
came up to our room. We read the Come Follow Me lesson that we should've read
yesterday and had a discussion about what we wanted to do about our hotel when
we get back from Normandy. I was worried about the location of the one we had
reserved and there was still time to change it. We also had to decide if we
were going to take all of our luggage to Normandy or try to find somewhere that
could watch it. It took us a while but we found a hotel that's right near the
Paris Lazare station, and that looked perfect. We were able to get three rooms
and I requested two twin beds each. What was nice is that it's within walking
distance from the train station, like really close. That's the train station we
need to leave from to go to Bayeux. It's also a good location for when we go to
Versailles and Disneyland. Michael's idea was that maybe they could watch our
bags while we go to Normandy and then they would be right there waiting for us
when we come back. That sounded like a great idea and I asked him to handle
calling the hotel and he tried calling and they didn't answer so he went up and
got ready and called again and they said they could do it so that would be
great. I went ahead and booked it and canceled the other one for the Hotel
Riviera Elysees. At about 1 PM, we all left to go on the Big Bus tour. I had
just bought the tickets and figured out where we needed to go. We walked over
to the Petit Palais.
The sign said the stop was changed so we quickly
made our way across the street and somehow we were able to catch the bus that
seemed like it was going to leave so that was lucky. We had fun riding around
town on the bus. The kids didn't want it to sit up front and the top level was
full so we all found seats on the bottom level. Emily and Jonny sat together
and Michael and the other boys sat in the back while I talked to the driver. He
had to print off my tickets for the river cruise right away and then we
could do that anytime. It took him a few minutes to get that done. He printed
them out and handed them to me and I sat in the back with Michael the boys.
After a few stops, seats opened up next to Emily and Jonny so we moved to
those. Michael really wanted to go up to the top so eventually we made our way
up there but none of the kids wanted to go up so they stayed down. It was cool
to ride up on the top but the only problem is it every time I pulled out my
phone to take a picture, I was nervous I was going to drop it. I was right next
to the edge. Anyway, it was wonderful and I got some great pictures of the
Louvre from up above. There were some manicured bushes in a circle and
yesterday when we were there we couldn't see the middle of it but from the top
of the bus you could see it so that was cool.
We drove right past Notre Dame cathedral. Emily
later said that that was good enough for her and I agreed because you can't go
in or anything, you can just look at it from the outside.
We drove past the Citadines hotel, which was an
apartment hotel that I had reserved but I eventually had to change it because
we changed our plans so I just canceled that reservation. When I saw how close
it was to Notre Dame cathedral, I was pretty disappointed because that would've
been a fun place to stay. There is a lot going on around there.
Video of Arc de Triomphe from the Big Bus
Crazy traffic around Arc de Triomphe
I took some great pictures of the Eiffel tower.
We got off at the Eiffel Tower stop and figured
out what we were going to do for lunch/dinner. We looked on our phones and
there was a place right on the corner. I saw the spot where I wanted to get a
good picture of us in front of the Eiffel tower. We chose the Bistro de Tour
Eiffel. I knew it was going to be a tourist spot and it was expensive, but they
had plenty of great choices for everyone. There was another restaurant nearby
but we chose this one. We asked to be seated inside and they got us in quickly.
Emily ordered a chicken sandwich, Jonny got a
chicken supreme, Daniel got a Croque monsieur, Andrew got the spaghetti
Bolognese, Michael got an omelet with everything and fries and I got a cheese
omelet with fries I did not like that cheese. My food was very disappointing. I
ate most of the fries, though.
We got three orders of crepes to share and
everybody chose a pastry. Daniel got a cookie, Emily and Jonny got eclairs,
Andrew got a raspberry macaron that looks exactly like a Disneyland macaron,
and Michael and I each got a chestnut cake. I thought it was a Mont Blanc, and
it looks like the one I have seen on Instagram, but he said it was a chestnut
cake so whatever. Andrew said his macaron was fantastic but not even close to
Disney. He said you can't beat the Disneyland one.
We didn't discover until the bill came that the
sodas the kids got were 10 euros each. And we asked if they only had bottled
water and he said yes but at the end he brought us tap water so that was a lie.
He also guilted me into giving him a tip because he said that didn't include
the service fee but I think he was lying and just taking advantage of the fact
that I'm a tourist. Oh well. We all used the bathroom and then left. We went to
the good picture spot and got a bunch of pictures of the Eiffel tower in the
background.
We discovered that Andrew was great at doing
selfies for our family so I've been asking him to do that a lot. Then we headed
to the river cruise. The line was really long but the guy said 600 people can
fit and we could get on in 10 minutes so that's what we ended up doing.
Thankfully, they had bathrooms on the boat. Michael and the kids found a good
spot on the boat for us to sit together. We couldn't ever get the speakers to
work so that we could listen to the audio tour so I just sat and relaxed and
enjoyed it. They told us some things over the speakers as we went but I
couldn't hear them very well. Michael was right, the trees are kind of in the
way of seeing the sights but it was such a nice thing to do. I'm glad I didn't
spend a ton of money on it. I got it as a package deal with it with our hop on
hop off bus tour.
When we got off the boat, there was a little
souvenir shop and I saw some Miraculous Ladybug merchandise so I told Emily she
should get something. I bought her a little keychain. It also had an Eiffel
tower on it.
There were some steps to get up to the bridge so
we took those and walked over across the street to the carousel near the Roman
soldier statue to wait for the tour guide. Her name is Anna. I feel bad because
she asked me for the tour voucher but I didn't have it. I forgot to bring the
printout and I couldn't download it on the app so she just took a picture of
the booking number. We were there right at 7:15 PM. The tour was supposed to
start at 7:30 PM but it took her and the other two tour guides until 7:40 PM to
get it figured out and then she walked us over to the Eiffel tower. We
got in a line for security and then another line for tickets. We didn't have to
wait hours or anything, but the time by the time we scanned our tickets in it
was 8:30 PM. She talked to us a little bit in line and told us about how they
are repainting the tower. She went up to the ticket booth to buy the
tickets and I was reminded about how cheap they actually are. An adult ticket
is only €18 and a child is nine euros. I paid $402 for the tour, so I paid
significantly more than the actual tickets. We saw a sign as we were
waiting in line that said the summit is closed, but Anna made it sound like
that just means it's too full and maybe when some people leave we can get up
there. That didn't end up being the case. Once we got the tickets, we had to go
through another security check. By the time we got through it, she had
disappeared. I guess she gave some story about how she had to give her ticket
to somebody else and then they just grouped us with another tour guide.
Apparently, they’ve told that fake story on other tours where they say they
accidentally bought the wrong number of tickets. I don’t understand that part
of their ruse, but the fact is that Anna vanished at that point. They had
originally split us up into three different groups. The other guy's name was
Pedro. He took us up in the elevator to the second floor. Somebody was asking
him about the summit being closed and he said he would explain when we got to
the second floor. That seemed suspicious but I figured it was because it was so
crowded on the elevator. It turns out, it was all a well-rehearsed scam. We got
off the elevator and he immediately took us down some steps. The second
floor is actually two different levels. He brought us down to the lower level
so that we couldn't see that there were people in a line waiting to go up to
the summit. He had us gather all together out of the way but he kept getting
scolded by one of the workers for blocking a pathway. He seemed kind
of stressed and anxious. He kept asking us to move closer together so he
wouldn't get in trouble again. He talked to us for about five minutes about
some history of the Eiffel tower, but most of the time he was making excuses. I
can't even remember what he said. There were some Spanish speakers there and he
explained to them in Spanish to give him five minutes and then he would talk to
them. It really was only about five minutes. That's all we got. He
finished talking and by then it was 8:49 PM and he said that's the tour and now
we're on our own. He said that we couldn't go up to the summit because of
maintenance. That was a big lie. There were people going up to the summit. We
could see the elevators going up. We wanted to believe him, but it was pretty
clear something fishy was going on. One of the ladies came up and very angrily
but calmly said, if people are going up to the summit it's not maintenance. He
said I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do with maintenance. She said that means
you didn't get the right tickets in time because it can't be maintenance
if people are going to the top. I was pretty shocked at that point. Michael and
the kids seemed to believe the guy, but I knew that what that lady was saying
was true. I was pretty angry that we got scammed. I spent a lot of money
on that tour and the whole reason I bought it was so that we could go to the
summit. We could've got those tickets on our own for a fraction of the price.
Everything was very calculated, looking back. Tonight, when I got back to the room,
I looked up reviews for that tour and sure enough, tons of people described the
exact same experience we had. Even one of the reviews said that Anna
disappeared on them. There were many reviews that were very recent and I’m
annoyed that I didn’t have a chance to see them before we reserved the tour. I
have half a mind to go there tomorrow at 7:30 PM and confront her, but I don't
know if I'll bother. I at least need to get a refund or dispute the charge on
my credit card. (Update: after many calls and emails with Viator, they finally
refunded our money.) We decided to make the best of it and we took multiple
pictures of multiple different spots on the second level.
We walked around and tried to see if we could
find Versailles and other things. We saw some Olympic rings on the top of a
building. It looked like it was grass.
Zoomed in
Poor Jonny was tired and miserable and kept asking to
go back to the hotel. I told him I thought this is what he wanted to see and he
said he really just wanted to see the Eiffel tower, not go up it. Emily took
him to find a bench to sit on while the rest of us looked a little more and
took some pictures. I was able to put some euro coins in the binoculars so the
kids could see. I had to stop at the gift shop and buy an Eiffel tower magnet
at the Eiffel tower. We took tons and tons of pictures and then decided we
should go back down because it was almost 10 PM and we wanted to see the
lights on the tower.
We waited in line for the elevator for a while
and then took it down. We stopped at the bathrooms really quickly and then
walked out the exit to find a good spot to view the sparkling lights at 10 PM.
We took some more pictures and then started
heading out. We ordered an Uber. As Michael was ordering it, we saw a taxi with
a green light that was a van so I started running over there and then Andrew
took off to talk to the guy. I told him where we were going. Michael asked if
he should cancel the Uber and I said yes because we had a taxi. That was a
mistake because the guy said he wanted to charge us €50 and that was
ridiculous, so Michael had to order an Uber again. We got one fairly easily and
he took us to the hotel.
View of the Arc de Triomphe from the street our hotel was on
Zoomed in
Andrew wanted something quick so we went to the
Burger King on the next block. I got a fish sandwich but it was kind of nasty
and they put ketchup on it. I also got a doughnut and that was pretty
good. I ate about half of it and gave Emily the rest.
Now it's after 1 PM and I need to get to bed.
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