Normandy/MSM/Loire/Paris-15 days with 4.5 year old

What was your particular interest in the Chateau de Vincennes? It'sa magnificent structure and well worth seeing as part of a visit to the Bois de Vincennes , zoo, parc floral, but the Bois de Vincennes itself is huge.
Perhaps considering all, a better bet might be the Parc de la Villette and possibly a canal boat ride back to central Paris. See what you think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parc_de_la_Villette

Some of your days are going to be very hectic even without a young child.

Day 1. When I went to Giverny, I was there at opening and left around 2pm. We didn’t stop for coffee or lunch. You then have around 3 hours driving ahead of you plus stopping in Rouen and trying to find somewhere to park there.

Day 5. It’s about a 2 hour drive from Caen to MSM, then, as you can’t park anywhere near MSM, you will have to wait for the busy shuttle bus. And you want to be away from there by noon? You will need a very early start! Personally, MSM was a huge disappointment to me since they have built the access road, it has taken away its magic. You then have a 3.5/4 hour drive to Chateau de Villandry, then half an hour + to Tours then another 45 minutes drive after dinner to Noizay. That’s not a practical day, with too much driving.

With a 4.5 year old I wouldn't attempt much of your itinerary. When our children were that young (not too long ago) we accepted that we'd have to make sacrifices and much of our adult orientated interests had to go on the back burner. I see so many itineraries where people are planning on dragging their young children through museum after museum, art galleries, stately homes and so on. For most young children these are incredibly boring places. Kids want fun, animals, water and parks and if you have young children you need to be prepared to make these sacrifices. We now have a 14 and an 11 year old and they are now more accepting of museums and the like but still require theme parks, water etc. If we had undertaken your itinerary with our children at such a young age we would have regretted it.

Day 1 will be busy and long. I liked MSM, the access road did not impact my enjoyment in the least. But, that will be a very long and hectic day. I think you would fair better if you got yourself there the evening before and could arrive the MSM abbey about 15 minutes before opening. You will also find the shuttle less busy early in the morning. We stayed off the island, very close to the parking/shuttle at Auberge de la Baie Mont Saint Michel. It was a basic inn, but clean and the rooms were quite large. It was a nice price savings over staying on the island.

I have four kids and the spread was 6.5 years. For the most part, we would have been able to travel at your pace, especially when we traveled alone with #1. Some of the drives are long so it would depend how well she behaves in a car and you might want to map out "potty stops". Never seemed like kids at the age allowed much advance notice.

MSM and even more so, D-Day beaches, involve massive amounts of walking - possibly in sun and heat. Is a war museum (indoors, I mean, with graphic photos and weapons) suitable for 4.5 years? Vincennes alone is a long walk. The plant garden is wonderful, but also big distances. Most of your car days gloss over long distances and local traffic, like Day 5. This is too ambitious. Your Paris program is better. Are your AirBnB’s legal and reliable?

Tim, makes some good points. Are you bringing a small, easily folded stroller? I would find out in advance stroller policies. Also, perhaps look into alternate ways to carry the child. Point du hoc would not be at all conducive to a stroller.

I think this is a creative and imaginative itinerary, if perhaps too ambitious overall. Still:

Since no one else has said to so far, I will note that for many people jet lag would make difficult any driving the day of arrival. You have a lot of it planned. It will not be fun, and if passengers sleep in the car it will prolong jet lag.

As an alternative you could visit the Loire first. There are very good train connections to Amboise from Paris, and any first-day driving would be minimal.

For MSM, if it is a priority, I suggest spending the night. You will dodge horrible crowds and slow things down for yourself. I think everyone of all ages will have a better time than the quick visit you propose.

Your flexibility (expecting to need to skip some things as needed) is of course the right attitude. But if you plan better, then you, and not last-minute happenstance, can decide what gets left behind. Picking your real priorities is hard, but pays off for a better trip.

Giverney and Rouen make great day trips from Paris by rail (and, train rides are fun). If you are super organized and get an early start, you could even visit both in a single day.

I think your plan to visit these places enroute to (or, as I suggest, from) Honfleur is also good, I am just mentioning the day trip option if it helps.

Thank you all for the excellent feedback. I plan to make edits to days 1 and 5 based on this feedback.

On Day 1, we'll probably skip Rouen, even though I'd love to see the cathedral! My daughter is obsessed with Monet, so I don't think the gardens/house will be a problem, even on Day 1. We'll just do that and then go to Honfleur for dinner/ice cream/carousel.

Day 5--the plan is to make a very early start, although I like the idea of staying on MSM, so perhaps can explore that possibility. I can skip Chateau Villandry if necessary. I just love gardens and that was the one garden Chateau that jumped out at me, but I realize that it's an aspirational stop. It will depend on whether and how long she naps in the car. She will want to get out and run around, anyway, and gardens are perfect for that. I'm not particularly interested in the Chateau itself. If we make it there, we can grab dinner nearby.

For DDay beach day, we're hiring a private guide so that one of us can be playing on the beach with her while the other learns, and then we'll switch. For her, it will be more like we're visiting some beaches. She probably won't go into the museums, as we can do a "switch" for that, too (we have each seen many places in 45 min-1 hr. with the switch technique--usually she's spending an hour at the playground and an hour eating a meal). The switch method makes it so that my husband and I each get quality time with her, and each get alone time to see what we want. It's a nice balance, although obviously not the way we used to travel pre-kiddo, seeing and doing everything together. But you'd be surprised at how much fun you can have with a small blow-up beach ball (easy to pack away and blow up/deflate), and I find that my girl will hang in there for just about anything if she knows there is ice cream in her future. She is also great at dining with us, having done so since she was very young. I bring wiki sticks or a 1oz jar of playdoh for her to play with at the table, and she can be occupied for hours.

As for Vincennes, we were thinking we'd zoo and maybe one other thing. I do like your alternate suggestion & will discuss it with my husband.

Yes, we always take a lightweight stroller. I don't think any of this would be possible without it. Most places have stroller access or allow you to check your stroller. Ours folds up and has a carrying strap, and weighs less than 10 pounds--totally worth it. Plus it reclines so that if she is napping, we both get to go sightseeing!

Again, the specific feedback is very much appreciated, as are the suggestions for alterations.

I think I'd hate for you to skip Villandry because it would be enjoyable for your daughter as well. My recollection was that one of the garden areas had a children's play area. My kids loved Monet, too. Has your daughter seen the book, Linnea in Monet's Garden? We own it, I can imagine it would have been fun to bring the book to Paris/Giverny and followed Linnea's path thru the sights.

Jules,
Yes, we do have that book! She loves it. We have another one, too, the Magical Gardens of Claude Monet. We also just go Leonardo and the Flying Boy, and a couple on Marie Antoinette and Joan of Arc. My daughter is getting really into the planning and seeing of everything. And of course, we've been talking about war...so hard with a girl her age but we've been focused on the teamwork aspect of the military to defeat the "bad guy" Hitler.

What about a puppet show? With her French this might be special fun.
http://mamalovesparis.com/puppet-shows-in-paris/

And this museum
http://www.coolstuffinparis.com/musee-des-automates-paris.php

Puppet show is a great idea! I think she would be freaked out by the other museum though.

Question: Is your Arrival Day and Day 1 on your schedule the same day? If so, you don't say where you're coming from, but if it's from the US, your Day 1 is way too aggressive and dangerous when having to deal with jet lag. Some would say Honfleur itself is just too far of a destination on the first day. I would pick ONE place with the most to do and go there for the afternoon/night.

And I agree with what others said about the MSM day. How soon would you have to leave to get to MSM and leave by noon? I can't remember exactly when the abbey opens, but DH and I stayed on the island MSM and were the first ones through the door when it opened. We still didn't leave until almost noon. And that was without having to find the parking lot and wait on the bus.

Further, about MSM, is that really something you want to do with a 4.5 year old? It's straight up and and it's lots of stairs. In addition, a lot of the stairs have no hand rails and I remember leaning over a wall and it was straight down to the bottom. So you'd have to have your hands on your kid 100% of the time. I just remember thinking at the time that there was no way I'd bring kids there because I'd be an exhausted nervous wreck. Just thought I'd mention that.

I hope you have a great time. I do think your Day 3 is totally doable, unless you plan to spend hours wandering Omaha Beach and the cemetery. And Pointe du Hoc was very interesting, but even with our long winded guide, it wasn't a several hour stop.

I personally don't think it is necessary to spend the night at or beside MSM. Your whirlwind schedule doesn't permit such a large amount of time for a location that is limited in size. And I don't see how sleeping there will improve a 4.5 year old's experience of a place that has little for her. OTOH, Villandry has open spaces to run around, and low-to-the-ground plants and flowers (did you give the month of the trip?)

My parents took me to Europe when I was about 1 year old, so I don't remember a thing about it. But I don't remember anything that happened when I was 4.5 either. I wonder if it might be better to focus on things you want to see, and on keeping your daughter amused while you do what you want to do. You have alluded to taking turns, and that makes sense. One important factor is whether you can rely on her falling asleep in any car at any time.

It appears that you have not taken Google Maps and added 15% to every estimated driving time for the transfers you want to make. The roads in France have fewer potholes than those in the U.S. (You have not filled in your home city in your visible profile for us.) But good roads (if only two lanes in each direction, and many entrance and exit ramps) can't make up for physical distances. And you are missing many good options (I mean, depending on personal interests) between the far-distant destinations you have imposed on yourself. Just as an example (I mean, you might not care about Eleanor of Acquitane or monasteries in general), we enjoyed a long stop at Fontevraud Abbey, on our drive between Chinon (three nights) and Dinard (three nights.) I would point out that there are (seasonal) steam trains and Troglodyte cave visits on that drive as well. I don't see that 15-minutes walking from the parking lot to a restaurant, with a whimpering child on your shoulder constitutes sightseeing in Tours. You also have to allow for European dining hours. (Have you been to Europe before? That's a really important question when asking for advice.) Wouldn't it be better to select, say, an out-of-town residential chateau (like Château de Marçay or Château de la Bourdaisière) where you can have outdoor runaround space and a non-famous restaurant on-site?

Arrival day is not the same as day 1. Arrival day is just fly into CDG, get some food/coffee, rent car and drive to Giverny to sleep/adjust. I'd never just hit the ground running on arrival day.

I agree about staying at MSM, we're looking into changing our reservations. I think it would be charming to roam around in the early morning. There is no way that we're going to hang in there for a 3-hour tour of the abbey, though. We'll last an hour at most if the Petite comes with us, and that's fine. That's just the reality of traveling with the Petite in tow, and it would support the goal of getting out of there by noon anyway.

We have traveled with her to Europe, although she was 2 and 3 the last two times. It always surprises me what she remembers, though. She remembers a bakery that we went to over a year ago in Sienna, Italy, but she doesn't remember much else from that trip. If she picks out a postcard or gets something really yummy to eat, she tends to remember a bit more, I've noticed.

I'm abandoning the idea of going to Tours for dinner, but I do think we'll stop at Villandry, see the gardens, get dinner nearby and do a late check-in that night. Thanks, all.

Trip is in late May/early June.

The mention of postcards reminded me of something I used to do with my kids. At the start of museum or other places of interest, we'd buy a postcard that interested the child. Then he/she would be searching for the item as we visited. Have fun! I loved taking my kids on explorations of their world. They may not remember any specifics, but I think it is great for a kid to grow up exploring different cultures.

You might want to get her a cheap camera or cell phone for the camera so she can take photos for herself.
Decades ago a 4 year old I knew was traveling to Italy with his parents and came home with pictures of the pigeons in Venice and the knees of various statues. ;-)
I would bet that your daughter would love to have her own photos from Giverny!