Holiday in France

Bonjour les amies!

So we’ve been back from France for about a month now and I miss it already! This post is a bit overdue, but I’ve been battling a lingering cold and feeling a bit drained lately, so my apologies for the delay in getting this post up. We had a great trip though; we really splurged on this vacation as we haven’t had a proper holiday in two years.

Planning

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Normally, I have no problem researching and booking my own vacations and itineraries, but I wanted to make the most of this trip and thought a little help would be beneficial.

I found Lisa from www.yourparisexperience.com online and decided to work with her to ensure we got the most out of our vacation. As much as I like to splurge, I’m also an avid deal hunter, so I will say I did a lot of research on my own and discussed with Lisa the flight and hotel options I was interested in. Although there was a booking fee for using Lisa’s colleague to secure air fare, it was almost an insurance policy as they would be able to help me if any of our flights had issues. I could have booked on my own as well, and in the future, I probably will just book myself. As for hotels, I picked out some that I found on Instagram, as of course, I wanted a hotel with a terrace and a fabulous view. Lisa had suggested some good ones, but again, I had also done my research and knew what I wanted already.

Paris

For Paris, I settled on the Hotel San Régis. It’s a small boutique hotel that offers a Junior Suite room with terrace and Eiffel Tower view! Exactly what I wanted! It was convenient to have Lisa available to contact the hotel and submit my room preferences on my behalf. We made the reservation upon receiving the quote for our 4 night stay, and were all set for our hotel in Paris. Upon arrival, we were greeted so warmly by Jerome, who took his time getting to know us and help us acclimate to the hotel’s location. He showed us to our fabulous room and continued to look after us during our stay.

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I might add, the reason we decided to go to France in the first place was because I wanted to go to the FIFA Women’s World Cup championship game which was in Lyon.

The day of the game, as we were setting off to depart, Jerome made note of our train times so that he could know when to expect our return (which was very late in the evening), and make sure we got back safely. This really gave me peace of mind to know someone would be looking out for us. I really can’t speak highly enough about the entire staff at the Hotel San Régis; they truly made us feel welcomed and at home.

Our plan was to stay in Paris for a few days and then head to Cannes to finish out our trip. I definitely wanted to explore the French Riviera and knew that if I didn’t take the opportunity while we were already in France, I might not make it back anytime soon. Our schedule was jam packed while in Paris though, and looking back it was such a whirlwind. We arrived on Saturday; rested upon arrival, had a nice dinner and went to bed early since the World Cup game was the next day. We spent the entire Sunday traveling and attending the game, and got back to our hotel super late.

Shopping

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On Monday, we had a bit of a free day and spent the time shopping. I had planned in advance to visit some consignment shops in Paris as I wanted to find something unique, and for a great deal. We visited two shops on my list, Valois Vintage Paris and their sister store Luxe Factory by Valois Vintage. Both places had a great selection of items, but unfortunately, nothing quite stood out to me to purchase. The shopkeepers were both super nice and friendly and wanted to get photos with me to post to their IG feed, which was so sweet. After the consignment shops, we were supposed to try and tour the Louvre… we had lunch reservations at Café Marly beforehand and my advice to you; skip Café Marly. It was very overpriced and the service was pretty poor. The line for the Louvre was pretty long, and it was a hot day out, and even though our online tickets said guaranteed entrance within 30 minutes of our schedule tour time, we just couldn’t muster the energy to wait in line. We decided to walk around some more and explore. We ended up at Place Vendôme and admired all of the high end jewelry shops. My husband surprisingly really enjoyed the Louis Vuitton store in Vendôme, and we pretty much spent the day there. This store was huge; 3 stories and packed with customers. We had to wait a bit for service, but my husband definitely loaded up when it was our turn. It’s so odd too because he hates shopping and spending money, so the fact that he was actually enjoying himself and wanted to shop at LV, I fully supported that lol.

Prices & VAT

So, in case you don’t know, the prices in Europe are generally a little less than in the states. Even with the Euro to USD conversion, it still ends up being less and you also get the tax or VAT refund which is awesome!

For example, I bought a pair of Louis Vuitton sneakers for 550 Euros; converted to USD, that came out to $616.26. I received my VAT refund of 66 Euros – converted to $68.87. So the total price I paid for those shoes was $547.39. In the US, the same pair of shoes cost $740 before tax. I have a sales tax of 6% where I live, so the total would be: $784.40. The difference in cost is $237, and I enjoyed saving that much by buying in France, vs buying in the US.

Hotel Costes

We had dinner reservations at Hotel Costes later that evening. I will add we were about 250 feet away from there at LV, but my phone’s GPS kept rerouting us and we walked back and forth for a good 15 minutes. We even tried to ask shops if they could point us in the right direction and they didn’t know where it was. I feel like the street names and building numbers are hard to find in Paris lol; it could just be me, but I was having a very hard time navigating my way around. We finally found the restaurant/hotel and made our way to their beautiful courtyard for dinner.

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I actually really enjoyed my meal at this restaurant, but a few things weren’t as great as the food. One, I’m not used to public establishments still allowing people to smoke inside. We had two tables near us that were smoking and it was more than I could handle. Secondly, it could just be a cultural thing, but I found the waitstaff to be very inattentive and trying to track them down for anything was difficult.

After dinner, we headed back to our hotel as I had scheduled an early photo shoot for the next morning with a photographer I found on Instagram. Side note, I forgot to mention that Louis Vuitton offered to deliver our purchases to our hotel so that we didn’t have to carry them around. I thought that was amazing, and what’s even better, our lovely sales associate Gail (not the correct spelling), packaged up a full set of perfume samples for me, as well as a large box of Ladurée macarons. We enjoyed coming back to our room to find all of our goodies waiting for us.

Rent The Runway for the Win

I was really looking forward to my photo shoot in Paris. I love all of the iconic shots that people post on IG and I definitely wanted to have some taken as well. As a blogger, a photo shoot in Paris is a must. Normally I would have stressed out, and gone nuts spending a ton of money shopping and online ordering, trying to find the perfect outfits and looks for the shoot. However, I was SO blessed that my partnership with Rent The Runway allowed me access to several amazing dresses that I was able to borrow for my photo shoot! It was so nice not having to worry about buying all new clothes, and to just know I could wear these beautiful designer dresses and return them when I got home.

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If you haven’t checked out Rent the Runway in a bit, or think they are just for special occasion dresses, there’s SO much more now – think work wear, weekend wear, outerwear, handbags, jewelry and accessories, and even home decor from West Elm! They have a great Unlimited program where you can rent 4 items at a time for one flat monthly fee. You can utilize your account to the max and swap out your pieces as quickly as you’d like and get new items sent in about 2 days. Do that a couple times a month and you are definitely winning with the Unlimited membership. Shipping (both ways) and dry cleaning are all included, so it’s seriously just one flat monthly fee of $159; you can add additional spots onto your account if you want to rent more, and you can pause or cancel your membership at anytime with no hassle, so it’s a steal of a deal. What’s even better? You can try Rent The Runway Unlimited for 50% off your first month using my code: OCCLUXE50 (#ad #rtrinsider #rtrambassador). Drop me a comment or email if you have any questions about the program!

Shop/Rent the exact dresses I wore in Paris from Rent The Runway!
You’ll see the retail prices listed for each dress are, for the most part,well and above the monthly membership fee, so it’s such an amazing program to get to wear beautiful, high-end, designer clothes for a very reasonable monthly rate! ❤️

Paris Photo Shoot

Ok, back to my photo shoot…I found my photographer Anastasia Abramova Guendel online and she was AMAZING to work with. From super prompt communication and follow up to just being a really sweet person in general. I was of course a little nervous for my shoot and she was so encouraging and helpful and I really enjoyed it. A few side notes our call time for our first shot was 6:45am at the Trocadero; this is because it’s not as packed with people at that hour, except for those also wanting to snap photos. I was supposed to meet with my hair and makeup artist at 5:45am…unfortunately she never showed up. Such a bummer. My one time only Paris photo shoot and I miss out on getting my hair and makeup done. Sadly, I also didn’t have the right adapter for my hair tools so I could not curl or straighten/touch up my hair with heat. Also, I don’t normally wear a ton of makeup, and when I do, it’s still a very natural look, so I had very limited cosmetics to use. Nothing I could do about it at that point or that early hour, so we made the best of it and went on with the shoot. Unfortunately, the shoot date I picked was during the week leading up to Bastille Day, so a lot of fencing had gone up around the Trocadero and limited us to where we could actually get decent shots. Despite all of the setbacks, Anastasia was so nice and really worked hard to get the most out of the shoot for me. I have to also commend my husband for being amazing and carrying around several bags full of dresses, shoes and accessories as well as my pop up changing tent. He carried everything all around town and never complained even though he was so tired and starving. The fact that both he and Anastasia wanted me to have a great shoot and enjoy myself, is something that really meant a lot to me. We had a jam packed shooting schedule starting at the Trocadero, going over to the Pont Alexandre Bridge, the Grand and Petit Palais, the Tulleries Garden, the Louvre, and then back to our hotel for terrace shots. Anastasia was great at putting together our schedule and making the most of our time. I cannot recommend her enough if you are looking to do your own Paris photo shoot.

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More Shopping – VIP

After the photoshoot, we rested a bit from the hectic morning and then headed over the Galeries Lafayette to do some more shopping. My travel agent Lisa, had set up an appointment for me to meet her contact over at the shopping center for a bit of VIP treatment. We got to use the exclusive lounge with snacks and drinks, received a great swag bag, and I was able to use their concierge service to process my VAT refund in a nice private office vs. standing in line at the general help desk of the mall.

I had a great day at the Galeries Lafayette! I started my shopping off at Chanel and purchased 2 handbags and a belt (trust me this is definitely NOT the norm, but when in Rome errr… Paris lol!). I then purchased the aforementioned Louis Vuitton Sneakers and browsed around at all the fun designer shops available; it truly is a one stop shop for everything!

Favorite Meal in Paris

After shopping, we had our final dinner in Paris at Kong. I’m so glad this was our last reservation; it was the best place to end our time in Paris at. My husband and I absolutely loved the food, and the staff and service were fantastic! We were exhausted from the long day, and still had to pack up after getting back to the hotel as we would be leaving for Cannes the next morning.

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Packing & Travel from Paris to Nice

Packing was a bit tricky because we had purchased a bunch of items while in Paris. Luckily, I was able to fit all of our new luxury items into carry-ons we had so we could keep them on us. We were flying Air France from Paris to Nice, and they don’t really have a business class option I was told, but I knew I was going to have to pay for overweight baggage. Even though the flight itself was really short, I would recommend giving yourself extra time especially if you have luggage to check. It was a circus trying to get everything checked in and I’m not really even sure how our bags ended up making it as it was mostly self service to send your bags through. You have to use a kiosk to print the luggage slips and then you go through a check point where someone verifies your ticket and luggage slips. Then you go to another kiosk to scan your luggage and load it onto a conveyor belt. I knew one of my bags was overweight though and I needed an actual person to help me. This is why I would have gladly paid for a “business class” seat to have priority check in and it could have potentially saved me from having to pay weight overage fees. There was one employee for maybe 10 kiosks and people already lined up for her assistance. I don’t know how, but my husband was able to wrangle another worker, who as luck would have it, knew what he was doing and helped us with getting our luggage checked. I prepaid $45 on the AF app for my extra baggage, which was to take advantage of a 10% savings rather than paying more at the airport. However, when it was registered as overweight, I had to pay again – this time it was $70; maybe it was a flat overweight fee; I couldn’t really figure it out. So I’m sure for the price of an upgraded business class ticket it would have been about the same without the hassle. The worker had to actually call in my credit card number because there was no point of sale system at these kiosks. Unfortunately, he missed a digit either on the card number or date, and it was declined; so I had to use another card that would eventually charge me foreign transaction fees. While waiting to board, I called my credit card company to inquire about the charge being declined and that’s when they told me that the expiration date and card number didn’t match when attempted to process. Luckily everything was OK with the account and it was just a user error issue. But really what a headache to just try and check the bags; so that’s my lesson for you, if you have extra/heavy luggage upgrade your ticket for priority/personal service to save yourself a lot of stress. Luckily flying back home, we were business class all the way through so we did not have to worry about going through that again and the business/first class weight limit per bag is 70lbs, instead of 50lbs.

Nice to Cannes

We arrived in Nice without any further issues and promptly collected our bags. I had set up car service with Blacklane prior to arrival because I knew we would have extra luggage and needed a vehicle that would be big enough. I was really pleased with the service from Blacklane, both to and from our hotel in Cannes and Nice. They were ready and waiting for me at each pick up point, had nice, clean cars, had water inside for us and the best part is that everything is included in the rate you pay, even gratuity. Their prices were reasonable too, compared to the price the concierge at my hotel quoted, and the average cost of a regular taxi – again, I had to plan ahead due to our extra luggage, so it was worth it to me to have it all lined up and pay a little more than risk getting a compact car taxi as my only option upon arrival.

Le Majestic – Cannes

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I chose the Hotel Barrière Le Majestic Cannes for our stay in the Côte d’Azur. I will say they gave my travel agent a hard time when she was trying to make our reservations, and she even suggested I go with another place, as she felt they were not responsive. I of course, knew what I wanted and couldn’t be swayed, and am so glad I stuck with this hotel. It was simply gorgeous, very regal, and luxe – right up my alley lol. Through my travel agent we were able to take advantage of her agency/affiliate perks which included a room upgrade, free daily breakfast, and reserved seating at the private beach for each day of our stay. We were treated so well upon check-in, other guests commented that we must be VIPs. We got offered a room upgrade and had our choice between a higher floor unit, or a lower floor unit with expansive terrace. I knew I wanted a great terrace for photos, so even though our ocean view was limited, I loved having a grand terrace to lounge on. After checking in, we had two separate visits to our room. One brought a cute little teddy bear with key chain featuring the hotel’s logo along with a hat, and a gorgeous flower arrangement as a welcome gift! The second visit brought a fun tray of treats and drinks as a personal welcome from the hotel manager. I do believe all of these VIP perks were from our affiliation with my travel agent’s company, and we really enjoyed them!

We both love a beach vacation so we knew we were going to take it easy and relax on this last part of the trip. We were tired and hungry so we headed out to find something to eat. I guess it was super early for dinner (about 5:30pm), so there was only two places nearby with dinner service. By the way, Cannes is so lively late at night, restaurants are open very late and the streets are busier than they are during the day. Anyway, after dinner, we stopped by the Christian Dior store and that’s when I went overboard lol. I snagged my saddle bag and strap, and a cute iPhone case. I had spied this adorable bodysuit in the window, but didn’t bite on the first visit. After a day or so, I still wanted that bodysuit so we went back the next day and I bought it along with a pair of slides. I also bought the most delightful Gucci fragrance – Emerald Gardenia – from the Gucci store that was literally attached to my hotel!

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We enjoyed two days on the beach and wrapped up our trip with massages the night before we had to head home. The spa was just OK to me; as was the massage itself.

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I pre-ordered breakfast on the morning of our departure and it was delivered late, so we barely had time to enjoy it unfortunately. However, the ‘gram eats first and I was able to snap some fun photos before heading off to the airport.

Merci France!

All in all, we had a great time. We definitely spent A LOT more than we had anticipated, but again, we haven’t had a true vacation together in almost two years so we were happy to enjoy ourselves, and the shopping was really a one time thing. That’s not how we normally roll lol, we just took advantage of our destination and spoiled ourselves a bit.

• To view my IGTV Shopping Haul click HERE.
• To view more on our hotel rooms check out my IG Stories: PARIS | CANNES.
• To shop my looks, visit my LIKEtoKNOW.it page HERE.

Have you visited France as well? Drop me a comment and let me know what you loved most about Paris or any other area of France!