Paris offers stunning monuments, streets filled with a special romantic atmosphere and history, top-rated museums, and exceptional cuisine.

I planned 9 days family trip to France. As we went with 2 kids (7 and 13 yesterday old), I had to make them have fun, and find things they’ll find interesting. That doesn’t mean my wife and I don’t have to enjoy the trip as well, so I had to find things for everyone. This is not the vision you probably have when you think of a romantic trip to the city of love, but we had a great time.

One easy decision was that we want to go to Disneyland for a few days. After knowing how many days we have for this vacation, I started reading and planning the trip.

Disney has few hotels and few partner hotels. I saw that one of them was Villages Nature Paris, from Center Parcs. We know these parks from previous trips to Europe (check out my Netherlands family trip itinerary) and we love staying in holiday parks. So I’ve booked 5 days in the park, which includes 2 days entrance to Disneyland parks (see why we choose 2 days). Villages Nature Paris is about a 15 min ride from Disneyland and offers nature, family time, quiet time, and many activities for the kids and adults.

As it’s the first time for my family in France, we can’t pass on visiting Paris, especially as it’s less than an hour away from Disneyland. So, the plan was to spend 4 more days in Paris.

After doing a lot of online and offline research, here’s what our trip end up like.

This post describes our 9 days Paris family vacation, with a 7-year-old girl and 13 years old boy. I’ll share what we did, including a map with all the pinpoints so if it fits your plans, feel free to use the same itinerary or make adjustments that fit your plans.

Preparation

As always, when planning your vacation, especially a family vacation, you must do your homework in order to make sure everyone will have fun. Ones you know when you want to go, who’s traveling, and for how long, you can start planning your trip.

I’ll go right ahead and say it. I don’t think Paris is the best choice for traveling with kids.

Yes, there is Disneyland Paris about an hour away, there are other amusement parks, zoos, kids museums, and other activities for kids (as I’ll detail later in this post), but if you want to enjoy Paris museums, restaurants, cafes, shopping, gardens, and special streets, kids will quickly get bored.

With that in mind, it’s more than possible to have a great family vacation in Paris, and later in this post, I provided a bit more tips on how to make Paris interesting for kids.

Overview – 9 Days Family Vacation in Paris

As I mentioned, we booked the first 4 nights at Villages Nature Paris holiday park. We made the booking from the Disneyland website, as part of a package for the accommodation and Disneyland tickets. As the park is a Disney partner hotel, you’ll get Disney Magic Pass, which gives several benefits, including the option to enter the park an hour before the official opening time. It might not sound much but trust me, it makes a great difference as I explain later in the post. If you come with a car, you’ll also get free parking at Disneyland park.

The park provides a real feel of nature, along with modern facilities. As with all Center Parcs holiday parks, this is a car-free park and you can learn more about it on the Center Parcs website. In the park, you’ll get around on foot or you can rent bikes, carts, and family bikes. It can get expensive so if you have your car, you might want to bring your own bike or foldable scooter. Other than the Aqua Lagoon, with several pools, rivers, water slides, and activities, you’ll find many other activities. Note that most of them are at extra cost.

Landing and heading over to the holiday village

We landed at CDG (Charles de Gaulle Airport). After the landing, we took the Magic Shuttle bus to Villages Nature. It is recommended on the Disney website and offers a nice direct drive straight to the Disney hotels. I must say that there isn’t much magic in that bus, in spite of the name