Expat Travel Mom

Hopefully you read about the first part of this trip, which started in Munich! We took a few days carved out of our German Christmas market trip, to pop on over to Paris. This gave us time to meet up with friends, enjoy a lovely Christmas Eve dinner, have a Christmas morning surprise for the kids, and of course, see more Christmas markets! Since it wasn't an everyday stay in Paris, this post just glimpses over some things we did while there.

Arrival

Once again, we traveled by train, this time, from Cologne to Paris. It couldn't have been easier, and honestly, I think the kids are much preferring train travel to taxis and airports! After finding our Airbnb, we wandered around the streets for a bit, getting our bearings. 

Walking Paris to Exhaustion

We did the Eiffel Tower, we posed outside the Moulin Rouge, and we walked the grounds outside the Louvre (they were simply too young at the time to care much about what was inside). We walked, and walked, and walked. We loved it all, but I think we tried to fit too much into our couple days here! We'll be back to see more.

Christmas Eve in Montmartre

We spent Christmas Eve dinner at Le Saint Régis in Montmartre, the kind of quiet, candlelit evening that makes the whole detour worth it on its own. The kids had their first taste of escargot here, and we'll always remember that. But who can resist Crème brûlée!

Confusing Two Very Tall Buildings

Ice skating near the Eiffel Tower gave us one of my favorite memories of the whole trip. My youngest daughter, who at the time was living in the UAE, genuinely confused the Eiffel Tower with the Burj Khalifa. When your frame of reference for "tall building" is Dubai, apparently everything else measures up strangely.

A Reunion Years in the Making

We were once supposed to have a French au pair join our family when we lived in the US, and though it never worked out, we stayed in touch anyway. Not only did she come visit us in the UAE many years later, we ended up meeting again here in Paris for our own little "petit tour." Salut Cindy, thank you again for making the time and effort to come see us, we loved seeing you again and hope your own adventures are treating you well. (Update: she even met us for a day on our Italy trip!)

Disneyland

Ok, so the best part of the Paris trip (I know, I know...eye rolls are coming because Paris is Paris and this shouldn't have been the best part). Buuuuut, the kids were woken up VERY early Christmas morning, still dark outside, to the news that Santa had left them a day at Disneyland Paris as their present that year. That meant they needed to quickly get dressed, eat and get out the door! There were a solid few seconds of pure, silent, wide-eyed grins where nothing came out of their mouths, and then it set in that they were going to Disneyland. Merry Christmas indeed!

Paris Disney is small, easy to get around, and was surprisingly not very busy on Christmas Day (maybe I shouldn't have been surprised when I look back on it). But, we had a fantastic time there. They were little, so we were a little restricted in some areas, but that didn't phase them. One day is all we needed, really, and it was perfect.

A few days really was enough to fall for this city, on top of an already unforgettable German Christmas market trip. If you want the rest of that story, the trains, the markets, the mugs we came home with, head back to our full Germany Christmas market trip.

Coming back to update: Disneyland Paris has changed enormously since 2012, especially the second park. What was Walt Disney Studios Park back then was completely reimagined and reopened on March 29, 2026 as Disney Adventure World, part of a nearly €2 billion expansion, the most ambitious transformation in the resort's history. It now spans five areas: World Premiere, the Worlds of Pixar (Toy Story, Ratatouille, Cars, and Finding Nemo), Marvel Avengers Campus, a brand-new World of Frozen with a full-scale Arendelle and Frozen Ever After boat ride, and a new Adventure Way promenade circling a lake called Adventure Bay, complete with a new nighttime drone show. Ratatouille: The Adventure, one of the park's most beloved rides today, didn't even exist on our 2012 visit, it opened in 2014. A Lion King-themed land is confirmed as the next addition. If you visit now expecting the park we saw back then, you're in for a genuinely different, and much bigger, experience.