Hi Gang - first time visit to France, and we did learn some interesting lessons. We flew in and out of CDG, and had 10 days in Paris area. Didn't get to see anywhere near what we wanted to, but had a good time overall, with exceptions as noted. I'll give the report in order of arrival to departure.
Arrival at CDG was a bit harried. We were to meet our traveling companions there (bad idea as none of us had ever been there before) and then take the TGV down to the DLP area. Problems occurred with no specific meeting place other than "Terminal 2 TGV station". This is a HUGE area, and very easy to not see folks in. I recommend in you are going to use this as a meeting point to make sure you have working cell phones (we didn't). It was also one helluva long slog to the TGV from where we landed. Thanks to CDG for the free suitcase trolleys.
Got our TGV tickets and the our reloadable metro pass (Navigo?) at the TGV station at CDG. However we got a train that was leaving in 15 minutes, and one of our party was still in process of getting the Metro passes. We ended up running to the train, and being misrouted. BIG lesson of the week - DO NOT RUSH IF YOU DON'T KNOW EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE GOING. We should have insisted on a later train, but didn't know to do that. We got bundled onto the train, couldn't find our seats (wrong train and the assigned seats had someone in them already) and missed the Marne Valley exit for DLP and ended up a few stops down the line before realizing what the hell had happened. Got a friendly ticket vendor who spoke english who explained, got us tickets heading back the other direction, and finally made our stop. TGV to Marne is almost instant, and the announcement over the intercom was hard to hear, so take notice that you have to be very aware of whats going on around you.
Got to the Marne railway stop, and picked up some one way tickets to the correct stop for our hotel on the RER (2 stops down, towards Paris) and then got to our hotel. Cannot say enough good about the Golden Tulip. Nice folks, rooms with AC, and free breakfast in the room price. They also sold the DLP pass, so we didn't have to stand in line at Disney. Had some further issues with getting tickets back and forth (French/English issues but eventually puzzled out) but we did have a day at DLP.
DLP - Don't Go. If you love Disney, you will not enjoy it. Having been to the US parks many many times, we had an expectation that was sadly not anywhere near satisfied. I can now understand all the previous horror stories and warnings. While it was a notch off on the Disney list, I won't ever feel the need to repeat my visit. I would love to see what that park could do if the cast members actually loved working there like I usually see at Anaheim or Orlando, but that's sadly not the case. I don't really have enough words, but it was very disheartening.
Paris (finally!). We ended up getting a car to take us into Paris after our woes with the TGV. Glad we did it. 90 euros for 4 people and all of our luggage, and dropped off directly in front of our Apt, 3 blocks north of Notre Dame. Did a taxi back when we left - just the wife and I, our friends stayed a couple of more days. More pricey, but our Apt. host had forgot to call the usual service, and we had a 60 euro taxi ride to CDG from the literal middle of Paris.
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