Our Paris Post-Covid Adventure, Part 1: Planning

As many of our YouTube followers know, we had to postpone our trip to Paris in May of last year, which was to be a high school graduation gift for two of our kids. It was really disappointing, especially because we were able to get ORD-CDG tickets for ~$440! Still, we finally got our refund (no thanks to Hopper!) and waited our the rest of 2020 like the rest of the traveling world.

In January, we felt positive that a summer trip would be possible, and among all of the fire sale airfares we found Paris for ~$500, snapping them up immediately for the week of June 3rd. Well, as we all know by now, we learned in May that Paris wouldn't open to US citizens until June 10th! This time, we had booked via Chase Travel (taking advantage of our points to reduce our out-of-pocket to about $400 for 4 tickets), and they worked with us to rebook for the following week, traveling on KLM. At the same time, we decided to bless our moms with a Mother's Day gift of traveling with us.

(Without going into exhaustive detail, KLM had some "challenges" in their communication of flight changes, and we ultimately cancelled our flights with them and rebooked with AA for about the same price. They're our preferred airline anyways, and it worked out splendidly.)

Our Airbnb host weren't as accommodating of our request to change our dates. Despite us knowing that we were going to be one of the first groups of travelers returning to the City of Lights, they wanted to increase the costs of accommodations. We declined (thanks Airbnb for no cancellation fee), and found a better place for the same amount and an additional room, so we now had a 4br/3ba apartment on Grands Boulevard.

There are many options for airport transportation, but with 6ppl traveling and 10+ pieces of luggage, we didn't want to risk not having a large enough vehicle. We arranged for a stretch limo to ORD from our home (more for practicality, but our moms were over the moon with excitement), and a van at CDG, via Viator.

This will be a multi-part blog, as there are many details to share. And, we're working on a vlog, but that will likely be late July. Please SUBSCRIBE to our Channel and click the BELL to be notified.