Paris for Thanksgiving 2024

I did Paris Thanksgiving 2022. Book an airbnb now, it’s not a Holiday for them so book far in advance and get something good. We had a really nice flat like 700 sq ft in the Latin quarter that was fantastic. We were there for 15 nights, 3 kids under 10. But we also arrived and did Disney for 3 nights, so 12 nights in the city.

A week is not a long time you won’t run out of things to do. Versailles is a full day, hour train each way. Your days are much shorter in November so keep that in mind.

Not sure your kids, but there’s a paid fashion show at the Galeries Lafayette like $15/ person that’s daily and I have girls so they ate that up. I would suggest a couple hours there they have a great spot on the roof to see the city and a couple decent lunch spots.

I would do a skip the line kids treasure hunt tour of the louvre. That sort of thing. With kids and a family I would plan one morning event and one evening event for the most part. With the shorter days and a museums and pretty much everything not opening until 9-10am that’s about all you have time for.

Carette was amazing for hot chocolate the kids will love it and surprisingly decent prices.

ETA: Instagram is used a ton in Europe so follow places there to find great spots. My wife found a lot of restaurants that way, because the local hip spots had a lot of locals posting (no different then the USA obviously just a suggestion that helps)

Eta2: the Notre Dame RER/ subway stop which is a major stop was under construction in 2022. Not sure the completion date, but it wasn’t close. RER is best way to get up and down the river so not having that stop which was right next to our airbnb was a bummer but there’s not a lot of RER stops so your other options are very limited

Great info. Much appreciated.

I have never done Europe outside of college or just outside college where every stop was 2-3 nights max.

Makes sense to not try and be on the move so much with the kiddos.

FWIW, I’ve tried to be active. It’s just harder. My kids are athletic so not fat and lazy, but city days taking subways, stairs, etc. all day are not easy on them. Kinda like Disney, where you walk 6-8 miles. They get tired and can’t do nearly as much as adults for sure so I just had to routinely be patient, buy a lot more snacks to motivate them and keep them happy, and often change plans because we were too slow or tired or whatever.

I find it also helps to plan your day with their motivation in mind when possible. Don’t do that thing they want mid day, save it for the end so they have some motivation.

But also the winter dark at 5 and not 9:30 really comes into play. Museums and most of everything else shuts down at 5ish so after that you are really limited to what can be done that day at night with kids.

2 other things OP, we didn’t do a good job looking into this but this was more fun then I expected
Jardin D acclimatation

It was a play park, zoo, and small amusement park in one. Could easily spend close to a whole day there. We ran out of time because we didn’t know what it was and had another reservation. I think there was daily passes you could get? It wasn’t cheap but not expensive either.

The other thing I enjoyed and my kids did also, was the tour of the soccer stadium Paris St Germain. We were there during the World Cup so the league was off but you could watch a game or just do the tour. The tour was like $20/ each and maybe 1.5 hours its self guided but it’s a very contemporary stadium and they had some big names on the roster (in 2022 they had 3 of the top 5 players in the world).

You can take the train to Giverny (about 1 hour) and visit Monet's home and gardens. Really spectacular views. Went last May.

Book a big bus tour. I really enjoyed riding around seeing it all with some audio to know what I’m looking at with an explanation of the history and all.