Setting Expectations? Nah! You've heard that a million times before. Read on to find out what my one and only piece of advice is for surviving long flights with kids, and whether or not it would work for you.
Read MoreWe all slept in til 9:10 AM...Honestly we could have slept longer, but the hotel stopped serving breakfast at 9:30 and we were hungry.
After a very expensive breakfast (this is France after all), we decided to check out the pool and spa, since we had seen some fancy pictures online when booking the hotel. The kids really wanted to go swimming and we figured after yesterday they deserved some time to stretch out and play before we put them back in the car for some more driving.
We took a taxi to pick up our car a bit after noon. We are going to have this car for 3 months, now through Spain. It is a manual Renault Captur, much fancier than the Skoda, and has built in GPS which actually works well! This car isn't really a rental, it's actually a short term lease directly with Renault. It's a brand new car, and is part of a buy-back program we had read about as a cheaper alternative to renting if you will have the car for more than a month or so. The process of getting the car was amazingly fast and smooth, and it was nice to not try to be sold extra bells and whistles and insurance like they did in Ireland. It was just pick up the keys, a quick demo of the car, and on the road we were. We had to remember how to drive on the right side of the road again, but that didn't take too long:)
If we wanted to get car seats through Renault, it would have been ridiculously expensive, so I buckled the kids in with the seatbelt just over their laps and I sat in between them at first. We had done our homework on where to get car seats for a good price, and we headed to a store called Auchan to buy them. Auchan is a very large supermarket, it is a bit of a mix between Target and Costco in the US. The trip to the store was successful, except for when we ran into a problem with the credit card machines not accepting our credit cards (a lot of credit card machines in Europe now require the card to have a chip, either chip and pin or chip and signature) and no one in the store spoke English, not even at customer service.
Eventually a girl who understood some English and worked at the store came to our rescue and told us our cards would not be accepted, but that we could use the ATM. Problem solved :)
We ate lunch at Auchan too and bought a prepaid SIM card so we could communicate with our host in Nimes.
We then began our drive to Nimes, which we expected would take around 7 hours.
Kids strapped into their new car seats
Alas, we found out the hard way that apparently August 1st is the day the entire country packs up and goes on vacation! At the very beginning, thanks to bumper to bumper traffic, it took us 2 hours to drive 12 miles (20 km)! Eventually we were out of the traffic and drove deeper into the countryside where the highways are still grand, but you see lots of farmland, cows, and very old, historical buildings on either side.
We only stopped to get gas and grab a very quick dinner before hopping back in the car. At this point our arrival time was going to be near midnight according to the GPS! Yikes, but at least still before midnight. That was all good until we hit the craziest thunder and rain storm! I even saw lightening just spark in mid-air right by us...gulp gulp. I was glad I was not driving. It was almost impossible to see where we were going.
Mother nature's madness added to our time of arrival. Thankfully, our host is extremely kind and she just told us to be careful and drive safe and that she would wait up for us.
We finally arrived around 1:30 AM! Our host, Roselyn was waiting for us, and every time I apologized she just said, it's not a problem :)
She showed us the house and give us some instructions, a bit in French a bit in English, and then we said good night.
The entire family was out like a light a bit after 2AM.
We left our lovely cottage and Louisburgh behind around 9:30 AM. We all talked about what our favorite part of Ireland was. For me, it was petting the sheep. For the hubby, it was Croagh Patrick. For Kian, it was Clare Island. And of course, for Hannah, it was Sam the dog!
The drive to Dublin airport, which is 173 miles (279 km) away, was very smooth. We ate lunch on the way and my brilliant husband (no sarcasm this time :)) had the wonderful idea of just reserving a taxi online to pick us up at the Beauvais airport [More on this later].
We returned our darling Skoda at Europcar, and said farewell to driving on the "wrong" side of the road for now. In total, we drove 1,549 miles (2,493 km) in Ireland, not too shabby. Thankfully, after a little complaining, we were able to get a refund on the GPS that came with the rental car, because at no point during the vacation was the GPS even remotely useful, since the maps don't have most of the roads! If you find yourself traveling to Ireland, a word of advice, just skip the GPS. There aren't too many roads, and the signs are pretty good, so an old fashioned map will do the job just fine.
A shuttle brought us to the terminal around 3:30 PM. The check-in process for Ryanair at Dublin airport is much, much smoother than at Stansted airport in the UK. They also didn't hassle us over 2 extra kilograms in our luggage. Hurray!
We had lots and lots of time, so we decided to take the kids to the McDonalds play area before going through security. Since it was neither lunch nor dinner time for us, I was grateful the kids could play there without us having to buy any food.
The kids played for a while as I uploaded a ton of pictures for the last 5 days of blog posts. The internet at Dublin airport is mighty speedy!
After playing in the little obstacle course for a while and helping Hannah through a variety of up and downs, Kian joined us at the table to play a little bit on the Nintendo 3DS.
Kian playing the 3DS
Hannah was happy playing with a balloon she had found.
Hannah and her yellow balloon that she left for "other kids" after we left the play area
We went through security and ate dinner at Burger King. During dinner, we were entertained by our silly Hannah making up and singing a France song that went something like this: France France, Francie France.... well, just listen for yourself :)
Our flight was supposed to be at 7:30 but it was delayed 1 hour. We all stayed in good spirits.. playing, chatting, and recharging all our devices for the next leg of the journey.
Hannah feeding baby ginger while we waited to board
Eventually we all boarded and were on our way. The flight was quick and smooth and before we knew it we had landed at Beauvais airport.
Beauvais airport is a very tiny airport. At terminal 1 (I think there are 2 terminals there), you walk off the plane, and into the doors where a line of people is formed to get passports checked/stamped. Immediately behind passport control is where you pick up your luggage and you walk out of the door.
Remember I mentioned my husband's brilliance earlier on? Thank goodness there was a taxi driver waiting outside holding our name on a piece of paper, because at this airport there is no line up of buses or taxis. It is true that you can take a shuttle for 17 euros per adult from Beauvais to Paris, 20-25 mins after your flight lands, but that shuttle takes you to Porte Maillot in Paris. From there you will need to take a taxi or some other form of transportation to your hotel unless you have a hotel within walking distance.
Either way, since it was 11:00 PM, and the hotel we had booked wasn't in central Paris, but rather near where we will be picking up our next car, I was extremely grateful for the kind taxi driver who picked us up and gave us giant bottle of water.
The drive to our hotel took about 1 hour, and we were all in bed shortly after midnight.
It is definitely worth mentioning that despite the long, long day, the kids kept it together the entire time, we heard no whining or crying or fussing. At bedtime I was probably more cranky than them!
Bonne Nuit ... Zzzzzz
Our family of four is chased summer around the world. Now we are a family of 5, back in the US, and planning our next great adventure.
