Traveling with 4 children in London & Paris

In June we took our first trip out of Ireland. We flew Ryanair to London 1st. Lessons learned: If you are from the US, you must have your ticket STAMPED before boarding, so yes, you must wait in the long line for luggage check even if you are not checking luggage - same for stroller. Praise God, we were able to go into shorter line for this and it didn't take 1/2 the time is should have. This was HUGE! We all packed a backpack, carried our own, & that is all we had for luggage to simplify. 

This doesn't even cover all of the pictures but we went to the following: 

LONDON

Day 1: HMS Belfast, Hyde Park (Princess Diana's Playground), 

Day 2: Windsor Castle, Natural History Museum, Science Museum, Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly Circus, & M&M World 

Day 3: Trafalgar Square, Big Ben & Parliament, British Museum, Park, then off to the train to Paris!

We had to take our bags with us on Day 3, but some Museums will allow you to check bags, so we did!!

Boarding the Ryanair plane in Ireland. I have not ever experienced boarding ON the runway, this was actually fun, & different for all of us! It worked!

 Since we flew Ryanair (better priced tickets, check it out), we flew into an airport that is not so close to downtown London. We took the train into town!

 - Side note, we were going to stay in an apartment using Airbnb, we left our bags with them, so we could tour the city. Long story short, we had to go pick up our bags & get a hotel. But at least we were bag free for several hours.

 London Bridge behind us, this is the ramp to HMS Belfast Battleship. It was fun for all of us!

 Mail Room on HMS Belfast

 Kitchen on HMS Belfast

 Time to take the Underground! Getting tickets in London for the Underground was easy, and workers were very helpful at the gates letting all of us through as a family with the stroller.

 Hyde Park / Princess Diana Playground: This was THE BEST PLAYGROUND EVER!
There was a gate at the entrance, you couldn't come in if you didn't have kids with you, kids were not allowed to leave without their parents, AND it did have a great snack bar. - That was just an extra plus. ;)

 Playing Dictionary with the Burger King Happy Meal toys in our hotel room.

 Time to take the underground again!

 British Museum, it was fun with all of the different modes of transportation shown. This was our day 2.

 Buckingham Palace

 Natural History Museum

 C lost a tooth in the train station waiting to board for Paris! Always something going on! ;)

 Our seats to Paris on the Chunnel. This was 2nd class and it was perfect!

 Paris:
If you can purchase Metro tickets BEFORE you arrive at the Metro, DO IT!
That was the only problem we had, they only had atm like machines open to purchase
tickets, & they were not working properly. They were selling them on the Eurostar (Chunnel), but we didn't buy them. Oops!
We did use airbnb in Paris and our apartment was Fabulous! It was owned by a company & a lady met us as we arrived my metro, she took us to the apartment & showed us around. She met us again the day we left to pick up the keys. Couldn't have been better! Prices beat hotel prices & perfect for our large family.

PARIS

Day 1: Eiffel tower, carousel by the tower, Notre Dame, Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, Arch D' Triumph

Day 2: Buis De Bologe & flight back to Ireland

Our view of the Eiffel Tower from our apartment!

 Walking to eat supper at an Italian restaurant. The kids had pizza & it was THE BEST PIZZA I have EVER tasted!!

 Metro!      & The Louvre                                                                              

 HOT DAY! Lunch time!

 Ice cream after Musee  d'Orsay

 Louis Vuitton Centre, was next to the amusement park we went to.

 Pictures are out of order! Train station at Windsor in England

 Windsor Castle. The girls wanted to listen to EVERYTHING on the audio tour

 Science Museum - London

 British Museum

 British Museum

 London

 Piccadilly Circus

 Yes, we ate at Bubba Gump's Shrimp in London, check out the license plate behind B!
IT WAS YUMMY!

 Trafalgar Square

 Big Ben!

 London Eye, Ferris Wheel!

 Parliament

 All of the Carousel Pictures are from PARIS!

 Really bad lighting, BUT we were there!! :)

 Notre Dame in the background!

 Van Gogh paintings in Musee d'Orsay

 Hure for breakfast in Paris. LOOK IT UP! There is more than one, but it was yummy and fabulous SERVICE!

 This reminded us of Mary Poppins, it is carousel horses, but they are on a track, so you ride around on them!

 She was so excited to drive the go cart by herself

 H was excited to ride a ride by herself too! This one would go up & down so I stood there for the ride. :)

 Yogurt before our hike back to our apartment. -

We had a great trip, walked to the bus stop that took us to the airport in Paris. All went well until H, hurt her head while we were waiting to board the plane. Note to self - ALWAYS have band aids!