Paris, France

We made it!

We are starting the blog when we arrived into Europe via Paris.
But we have included a couple of pictures from the Hong Kong side. Our biggest stress was getting Oscar safely to Paris and he was on the same flight as us but in puppy class. We have heard awful stories of dogs being very distressed and even dyeing. However Cathay Pacific flight and cabin crew were fantastic but the check in staff were absolutely shite. Made it much harder and stressful than it should be.

Thanks to Kaitlan Aslin and Kev Don for there great advice on how to communicate to the flight crew and cabin staff to remind them that our precious cargo is on board. We printed a photo of Oscar (plus some chocolates) and sent it to the flight crew to remind them and thank them for looking after him. The Captain came down and spoke to us to say Oscar is well and thanked us for the chocolates. They also pinned Oscar photo in the cabin. Thanks Cathay flight staff you were fantastic

We were waiting nervously for Oscar to arrive with the other oversized luggage like golf clubs and surfboards. But we heard his bark and all was good. Great to be in a dog friendly country.

Accommodation

We decided to stay at the Sheraton at the airport because it was walking distance from the airport and to get ourselves sorted.
We made a rookie mistake leaving Oscar in the room so we could get some dinner.  We were trying to get a taxi or bus but failed. When we got back to the hotel we were talking to concierge when two security guys interrupted us and wanted to speak with concierge and we thought, how rude. But they really wanted to talked to us to see if we had a dog in our room. Apparentlhy Oscar wasn’t happy with us leaving him after a stressful flight. Fair enough too. A rookie mistake by us.

Car

Scott was very excited to pick up the car near the airport. I first car that we owned (well leased in this instance) for over 10 years. We did the French leasing program back in 2003 on our honeymoon. For about $20USD per day, we got a brand new Renault fully inclusive with insurance etc. and hand it back from 3 weeks to 6 months. We have ours for 6 months. Not having a car for over 10 years, we noticed how technology advanced the Renault Scenic. A nice upgrade was the moon roof and Bose sound system.