France trip report part 1: Overall observations about the logistics of the trip

Observations about the logistics of the trip: Planes, Trains and Automobiles, etc.!
Flights:
We booked our flights on American. We were able to choose all of our seats and get all two seat aisles for every flight. This helped with our comfort level since we didn’t upgrade to anything above economy. The planes had the nice screens with TV and movies and we both took advantage of that. We flew from El Paso to Dallas, Dallas to London Heathrow, then to Nice. We left at 10:45 a.m. on September 4th and arrived in Nice at 12:55 p.m. on September 5th. The experience at London Heathrow was different than anything we had experienced before. We were sent to a line to wait for shuttle buses which took us to another terminal. From there, we waited until about 20 minutes before our flight departure before the screen told us whether to go to A, B or C gates and which gate number. When we arrived in Nice, we exited the plane outside and were again directed to shuttle buses to get to the terminal for customs and then getting our baggage. Our return flight left from CDG Paris (more shuttle buses to get to the plane and we entered the plane from outside) and we flew directly to Dallas, went through immigration using Mobile Passport easily, then got our bags, handed them directly back to be put on our next flight, then went through security again to get to our gate. All of our flights were on time and we usually arrived early. One piece of advice I would give overall is to make sure you have a good layover between flights; every airport had different ways of doing things, we didn’t expect the shuttling to a terminal or to get on a plane and we were glad we had plenty of time to negotiate all of this.
Trains:
We booked train travel from Nice Ville to Avignon TGV and Avignon TGV to Paris Gare de Lyon through Oui-SNCF. I found it to be very easy, we could choose our exact seats and the app on my phone had our tickets stored. I also printed them out as well. The trains were very nice and we could go to a little café area and get drinks and snacks during the ride. One thing that confused us on the first trip was that we were looking for car 3 and there were big numbers on the side of the train but those were not car numbers. The car numbers are displayed digitally on a lighted screen. There seemed to be others who were confused about that as well. The second time we knew what to look for.
Automobiles:
The only taxi we took on the entire trip was from the Nice airport to our hotel in Villefranche-sur-Mer. The fare was $75. My husband practiced his French with the taxi driver the entire time which took around 45 minutes right to our hotel.
We rented a car for our time in Provence at the Avignon TGV. I had booked it through AutoEurope/Hertz. We had a very good experience in every respect. We asked for an automatic Renault and that is what we got. The agents were so nice and helpful. We asked for a navigation system which they activated in the car for $20 a day. We could not have gotten anywhere without it. The cell phone service was very sketchy the whole time we were in Provence. Even our B & B Wifi where we stayed was not working most of the time. With all of the country roads and roundabouts in that area, we would not have been able to find our way and having the system was such a great convenience. Don’t go without it! Otherwise, driving was quite easy.