Anyone driven to south of France with 2.5 year old? old

[geekonthehill]

Looking for any tips or good places to break the journey from London to Perpignan?
We're going for a mates wedding, have got 2 whole weeks off work, hooray!
Hoping to make it a relaxing adventure rather than a mission? Am I in a dreamworld?

You are not in dreamworld at all! We've been driving down to South of France from the Midlands since our dd was only 9 months.She's 12 now. For the last 5 years I have towed a caravan down with her on my own.
Of course you'll be looking to stay in hotels but we find stopping mid afternoon somewhere with a swimming pool works well for us.
A dvd player in the car is a must. I imagine you would probably take 2 nights to get down there ( not sure how quick you would be, I'm towing @ 50mph!).
Driving in France is a joy, the roads are great.
Go for it.

We've been every year since dd was a baby with no problem. I second the DVD player. I find the Novotels are really family friendly. Good kids menu, sofa bed, dcs get free breakfast and they have pools, playgrounds and indoor play areas. We have stayed at Dijon, Lyon Nord, Macon Nord and Rouen Sud in the past. On the website you can look at hotels on your planned route. The same website also covers the Ibis, Etap and Formule 1 hotel chains if you want the budget option.

If you want something a bit less "chainy" the Alasdair Sawday's website is great for finding quirkier options - again you can search via a map. We stayed in a couple of lovely places last summer en route to Languedoc - but we drive from Brussels so probably travel a different route.....

We are an Ibis Family and have been doing the run since DD was 2 (she is 8 now). It took us until November to work out that leaving after work and catching a late evening Shuttle and then Staying at the Ibis tunnel sous la manche in Calais actually made for a better start to the holiday as you weren't getting up at stupid o'clock to catch a cheap shuttle.
When DD was 2.5 we gave her a big box of toys in the back of the cars and actually managed to get from the Dordogne to Le Touquet without a single complaint and only two stops.

We drove down in a day to just outside Narbonne from Calais (had already driven down from Glasgow to Folkestone the day before and stayed overnight there) with a 3 year old and a 9 year old and fair enough it was a long day but it was worth it, lots brief stops, picnic lunch to stretch their legs and DVDs in the car and it was fine.

Fab thankyou so much. We're gonna do it.
Think we'll take 2 days down and 2 days back, from south London. But tunnel better than boat? Was thinking DS could roam on boat but worth the extra time?
Hadn't considered an evening tunnel train...will start my research.
Thx again

I so wish we had thought about the evening tunnel train before now. In November we collected DD from school hit the road and then had a much nicer next day.

Yep last year with a 6 year old and 2.5 year old twins!! (and a very full car)

Drove from south Wales to folkestone one evening and caught the 7am tunnel.
Drove through the day (adding on 2 hours lost on the outskirts of Paris. Never using a bastard sat nav again) stopping approx every 2 hours.
DVDs, magazines, food, childrens CDs, and also knowing when to turn everything off so they could just chill.
Stopped in Valence at Novotel. Very nice
Drove 5 hours Tuesday to Port Grimaud.

Was brill. Will deffo be doing it again once we can find the money to pay for the caravan!!

On the way home we drove from Port Grimaud to Fountainbleau and stopped. Then drove a few hours more to the tunnel and then straight home.

Oh last year we did ferry cos it was cheaper than tunnel but the extra time just wasn't worth it. You can roam on the tunnel just not very far!!!
Also the tunnel is far more flexible if you are early/late.

Sorry 2010 ferry, 2011 tunnel. Still quite not in 2012 here.

Sorry drip feeding here, would drive through the first night taking a late tunnel when we go again.

Avoid Paris would be my main tip!!!

Me too. I would go via Reims or Rouen and avoid the peripheriqye every time. It might LOOK longer on via michelin, but the reality of it, especially in the summer, is a different matter.

We tried to go via Reims but it all went tits up.

Do it all the time- Definately need a DVD player!
We stayed here on the way down last time- was fab. Had a swimming pool, family room with a mezzanine level so felt like separate rooms and a really good free breakfast. DD (4) keeps asking when we can go back there as she wants to go there for the whole holiday...

DH still would prefer to do stopovers in smarter hotels where we can have a nice meal etc but he has admitted that cheap (relatively), cheerful and easy is the way to go with 2 young DCs'.

Having sometimes spent hours driving around the countryside trying to find some bloody restaurant that DH has spotted in the Michelin Guide we also now usually stop in motorway service stations for food en route and have found some lovely ones but after the horrors of last summer's offerings (and the queues) have decided picnics are the way to go- lots of them have playgrounds and picnic areas.

We used to drive back to Italy from the Uk every summer with our then small dc.
It is doable. We used to stop in Bourges, which I loved because it was WARM (at last!) with lots of restaurants where you could eat outside, a nice little park where the children could run around etc.
Avoid Paris.
We didn't have a dvd player, just a cd player, so lots of music and audio books.
Actually, the first 2 times we did it we didn't have a cd player, so I had to read a lot.
Pack lots of snacks.

Brill thanks all, house rented down south, just booking tunnel tickets and now to plan our route. There are friends in Paris we'd like to see but if I was unsure about driving in before, I'm definitely not trying it now. They can come out to meet us!

We want via the outskirts of Paris last August and was actually fine- bit of traffic but not bad. Was a weekday. Suspect though that maybe August is the best time to drive around as there as all the Parisians have gone on holiday??