YOU GUYS! We just got back from the most amazing 15 days of travel overseas. I’ve loved sharing our travels over on Instagram and chatting with you guys as I could between activities, also taking in a lot of your recommendations for things to do and where to eat/grab coffee! I’ve had a lot of questions/ requests regarding our trip itinerary and planning process and since it’s a lot to type up on an Instagram caption or DM, I thought typing things up here would be the easiest way to really get into things long form.

I’ll break down our trip more in upcoming posts- like specific days and how I booked activities but I want to get things started with just a broad overview of how we started to plan our trip.

We started planning about 7 months ago. After taking the kids to Disney World in October and seeing how they handled the flight to Florida, we felt very confident that they could handle a big trip internationally. They both did exceptionally well and that was really what made us feel like it was manageable- if those flights were a nightmare, I’m sure we would have hit the breaks on flying overseas a bit longer lol. We started playing with different ideas of where we wanted to go and originally the idea was spending 2 weeks in mainland Italy. Long story short- we’ve had that specific trip planned since 2019. We had our honeymoon planned for Italy and had to cancel everything because of Covid. After doing some research on how to travel around Italy with kids, it just seemed like too big of an ordeal to take on with little kids. Our daughter is 5 and my son turned 2 actually on the trip (our first full day in London was his second birthday). Italy just seemed like something we would enjoy more when both our kids could handle walking long distances and cobblestone streets- we did take a stroller with us this trip(another detail I’ll get into), but the streets of Italy did not seem super stroller friendly. SO anyways, we’re saving that trip for a little later on when my son in particular is a little older.

I’m a big history nerd and have dreamt about going to England for what feels like forever. All the history there has always fascinated me. So we decided London was definitely a top location for us. We also thought that would be a great first place to start since it’s an English speaking country, making our first bout of time overseas a little simpler. Obviously, getting to Paris from London is pretty simple and the fact that there’s a Disneyland Paris was kinda a no brainer that that would be another stop for us! It’s been a little bit of a dream for me to go there, ever since I was a little girl with a Paris themed childhood bedroom. My husband did some research on places to go in Italy since we still really wanted to go somewhere else after Paris, and he ended up loving what he saw about Sardinia. We really wanted the end of our trip to be more relaxing and just about sitting around basically. We thought it was the perfect way to end the trip after a full week and a half of packed activities between London and Paris. Once we got to Sardinia, it was beaches and pools the entire 4 days. If you’re planning a trip that involves a lot of dense activities (museums, tours, etc), I definitely recommend ending your trip with something more relaxing without an itinerary!

As I sit here typing this, I still feel like I’m in a dream state, pinching myself that we actually did it and saw all these beautiful places. I’m going to be as detailed as possible for the sake of everyone asking about the trip, but also to serve as my own trip diary of memories to never forget. If there’s something specific that I don’t cover, feel free to message me directly, I would love to be as helpful as possible!

Trip Dates: Wednesday, May 13th – Friday, May 29th.

Breakdown

• London May 14th- May 19th
• Paris May 19th- May 22nd
• Disneyland Paris May 22nd- May 24th
• Sardinia May 24th- May 28th

As far as where we stayed, I can’t take credit for doing any of the research, that’s very much Joey’s expertise. He’s always in charge of where we stay and transportation, my job is to plan the places to see and things to do. I feel like we make a great team in that regard. SO, once Joey booked the hotels, I started to plan the day to day itinerary with things to see and how to book things that were closest together so that we weren’t ever traveling like across town to make it somewhere.

Where We Stayed

London : Pan Pacific London : this hotel was AMAZING. The concierge started emailing back and forth with us about a month prior to help us plan out our time in London (we actually sent him my itinerary to see if he thought it was doable and he thought I should be a travel agent with how great my itinerary was, so patting myself on the shoulder with that one!) If we ever find ourselves back in London (I hope we do! this will definitely be where we stay!) We told them we had kids and they asked us what the kids were into, we told them my daughter loves princesses and my son loves cars- when we arrived they had a fun little tee-pee fort set up in our room and then they had left gifts and balloons for my kids- a lion stuffy dressed up as a princess, a princess tiara, and princess balloons for my daughter and car balloons and toy cars for my son! They even had washcloths personalized and embroidered with their names with a truck and a crown. It was so thoughtful! They were also super kid friendly and had left bathroom supplies for the kids in the bathroom and had a kid’s club at the hotel full of funtivities planned for kids. We didn’t participate in any of the kids club things just because we had our own itinerary of exploring to do, but it was so nice that they were so kid friendly!

Paris : Le Clef Louvre Paris : we booked a Premiere Suite apartment which had a full kitchenette which was so cool. We had such a good view of the street outside from the balcony. The hotel was also a 2 minute walk to the Louvre!

Disneyland Paris : Disneyland Hotel : THE BEST HOTEL HANDS DOWN THAT WE’VE EVER BEEN TOO! I will get into more details when I get to writing about our time at Disneyland Paris but this hotel is just so magical and beyond amazing. I’ll never forget it.

Sardinia : Mangia’s Sardinia Resort : an all inclusive resort, we only left the resort for one day which we spent on a boat tour on the water. It was so nice to just hop from the private beach area to the pool to back to the beach. Such a relaxing vibe! They also had a kid specific pool and a kids club for activities. They also have an itinerary for the dates of your stay which they give you when you check in and it gives you details on where you can go for specific work-outs: tennis classes, yoga, weight training, etc and certain times where they have live music playing in certain areas, it was really cool and all included in your stay. We were actually tempted to take a tennis class but missed it because we were having too much fun at the beach!

Booking Travel, Transportation & Accommodations

The Pan Pacific Hotel, Le Clef Louvre, and Disneyland Hotel we booked in February 2026 and Mangia’s Resort we booked in March just because when we booked Paris, we hadn’t decided exactly where we were going next yet. We bought a one way ticket to London in January 2026 and kinda just went from there.

After booking our flights, my husband booked a car service through the Pan Pacific Hotel to pick us up from the airport, this was super fun because the driver was at baggage claim in the airport holding up a sign that said “Francos” which my daughter loved seeing.

We decided we’d spend 5 days in each place BUT had a last minute change of plans about a week before we left the states. Long story, semi-short- we booked a tour of Emirates Stadium (my husband is a huge Arsenal fan) on Sunday, May 17th in the morning- the team was scheduled to have a game that night, their last home game of the season- if you follow soccer, this was a big deal because the team was primed to win the Premiere League and it being their last home game and second to last game overall- it was a huge ticket. We planned on trying to get tickets the day of and were told by our hotel concierge ahead of time that it would be nearly impossible and that our best bet was to find a local pub to enjoy the game. THEN the game got switched to Monday May 18th- mind you, still while we were home in the states. My husband found a reputable site that resells tickets and of course did some background checking to make sure it was legit, with his research he basically learned that the site sells tickets from season ticket holders specifically when they can’t make games, making sure everything is legit. Because the game was such a popular event, we had to enter a lottery system to get the tickets and we would be told 24 hours prior to game start whether or not we got them and then if we did get them, we had to immediately pay the fee, which mind you- was $$$$$. Because it was a once in a lifetime thing and because we weren’t super sure we’d get them, we decided that if it was meant to be, it would be. Because we were basically gambling here, we actually had to extend our hotel dates to allow us to stay in London one more day (we were supposed to leave for Paris on the 18th at 4 pm) and check into our Paris Hotel that night. We called the Pan Pacific while we were still in the U.S. and moved our hotel check out to Tuesday, May 19th. The Paris hotel was unable to move our reservation, so unfortunately we ate the money we paid for the night of the 18th, but it was nice getting to the hotel early the next day and actually being able to go straight to the room instead of waiting for the 11 am check in- so you know what, it all worked out!

Okay so sorry for the detour there but I do want to say, while I am SUPER type A and plan things to a T- there are some things that you just leave up to chance and have to give it to the universe! SO I actually had two versions of an itinerary for Monday, May 18th- one if we got the tickets and one if we didn’t, so there’s that lol. With kids, I’ve also learned to be a little looser with things and to just go with the flow, which I definitely recommend be your mental state if you’re taking on a big trip with little ones no matter where you’re going! My mentality for the trip was this: if we do my itinerary as planned, awesome, huge win- and if we don’t, who cares, I’m literally walking the streets of Europe with my husband and my kids- like that itself was and is THE DREAM!

Back to trasnportation, while we were in London, we took the Tube once from the station closest to our hotel to Buckingham Palace and well, if you don’t already know this about me, I am NOT about public transportation, like EVER. The concierge told us the Tube was fastest and I felt compelled to at least try it once since it is a British staple. After we got off at our stop, I immediately knew we wouldn’t be doing it again LOL. I will say, we obviously had the kids and we brought our stroller, and getting the stroller up/down lifts, escalators, stairs between trains was not for the weak. So after that little experience, we strictly got taxis which in London were awesome because they’re those iconic little cars AND if you have a stroller, the stroller wheels right in and you don’t even have to break it down or kick your kid out. And other than using the occasional taxi, we literally walked EVERYWHERE. So much walking, but it was so amazing and really nice to experience the city that way. More details on that in the London specific post. So in short, London Transportation: Tube(train), taxis, walking.

After moving our stay an extra day in London, we had to rearrange and re-book our train tickets to Paris. Luckily, you can make changes on the app without it charging you extra fees. The fastest way from London to Paris is via the Eurostar Train . We booked our train tickets for 7 am London time, which had us arriving in Paris at 9:30 am Paris time. Paris is 1 hour ahead of London.

When we got off the train, my husband used BlackLane (a chauffeur app/service in Europe) to book us a car from the train station to our hotel. I know a lot of people use Uber which works obviously as well, but because we had our kids and a stroller, we just wanted more predictability with who/what kind of car was driving us around.

In Paris, we literally walked EVERYWHERE. We only took an Uber once to go to Versailles and then once back to Notre Dame from Versailles (Versailles is about a 45 minute drive from central Paris). Of course, this depends on where you stay, but because our hotel was so central to a lot of sightseeing, we were able to walk everywhere. Paris has a Metro train system that I couldn’t even tell you what it looked like. We booked an Uber Van to take us from our hotel in central Paris to the Disneyland Hotel (Disneyland Paris is about 45 minutes without traffic outside of central Paris). Once we were at Disneyland, we didn’t need any transportation, the entrance to both their parks was directly outside our hotel. We booked another Uber Van to pick us up at the hotel and take us to the airport in Paris. Paris Transportation (we used) : Blacklane, Uber, walking.

Once we had our Paris and Disneyland Paris dates planned and booked, we booked our hotel in Sardinia, and then booked a flight from Paris to Sardinia, Italy. The flight from Paris to Olbia (airport closest to Sardinia in Italy), was 2 hours direct. Our flight left at 3:15 pm Paris time and arrived 5:30 pm (same time zone). We actually didn’t plan out how we’d get to our hotel from the airport in Italy until the day we were leaving Disneyland. My husband actually spoke to a rental car place at the airport from the Disneyland hotel room and figured we’d just rent a car when we got there. So we rented a car at the airport and had it the entire stay in Italy. Because our hotel was all inclusive, we only left once and had to drive ourselves to the boat ports for our port day, which was about 30 minutes away from our hotel. Joey did some math and basically the Uber fees to and from our hotel <–> airport, was going to cost almost as much as renting our own car, so it just made more sense to have our own car, not to mention that we did have to drive to the port for our boat tour, which would have made using Uber more expensive than renting a car. We added two car seats to our rental for the car. Italy Transportation: rental car.

Everything that requires payment was via Apple Pay or card, we didn’t have any issues as far as converting $$ or anything like that.

Apps We Downloaded & Used While in Europe

+ Google Maps – just common sense

+ Faye : this is a travel insurance company that we booked international health insurance with, trip insurance (covering cancellations, trip delays, etc), and then luggage insurance (lost or damaged belongings). I know not everyone books health insurance while traveling but we just don’t like chancing anything, especially with little kids so we wanted to make sure we had something in place. It’s worth the $$ to give peace of mind.

+ jump taxi : taxi app for London

+ Greene King : app for London, used for booking tables at participating pubs/restaurants, ordering, and paying for food. Europe eateries are not the same as those in the States. It’s nearly impossible to catch a waiter and because you don’t tip, no one checks on you lol, so nearly everything was done via the app! In Paris we had waiters that came to the table, but it certainly isn’t as efficient a system as we have in America lol. But hey, you’re meant to slow down and enjoy!

+ Blacklane : used for booking private chauffeurs to and from airports/ driving longer distances.

+ UK ETA : mandatory digital entry permission for travelers who don’t require a visa to visit the UK. Linked to passport!

+ Disneyland Paris : app for booking restaurants, fast passes, map of the parks, etc!I actually still have it on my phone because I don’t have it in me to delete it LOL.

+ Fly Delta : flight information

+ British Airways: flight information

+ Air France : flight information

+ Eurostar: app for train getting from London–> Paris

I feel like this is getting rather long so I’m going to stop here! Next post will cover how I planned our day to day itineraries (including how far in advance I booked things!)

Let me know if you have any questions on anything covered here!