Day trip to France with kids - what time to come back?

[MegBusset]

Am booking a day trip for August, going via Le Shuttle to Calais then down to Boulogne.

Will probably get Le Shuttle around 8am (so getting to Boulogne about 10/10.30 local time). Plan to mooch around the market and old town, have a picnic, then maybe Nausicaa in the afternoon and of course stopping at a hypermarche :)

Can't decide what time to get the train back - thinking about getting the train back about 7.30pm (so leaving Boulogne at 6.30) - does that sound like a reasonable length of time to fit everything in?

How old are your children? I would have early dinner in boulogne and get train back a bit later...but depends on how far you've got to go home, and whether you woud enjoy a nice meal?

I would get a later train too. We've just done a very similar trip. I think you'd struggle to fit all that into one short day without feeling terribly rushed. Nausicaa can get really busy and Calais at rush hour was hideous, so don't underestimate the journey back just in case... Fantastic day out though

Yes. After Xmas and Easter, we had at least 1.5 hours to wait....if we had done the usual turn up at last minute we would have mussed the ferry/ train. Boring, but worth knowing.

Ok that's really useful thanks. The kids are 6 and 8 so should make it through the day alright, they'll probably fall asleep on the way home. We'll be staying with my folks who live in Deal so not far to go on the other side.

Will look at trains around 9pm then. Any recommendations for somewhere nice to get pizza in Boulogne? (From our last holiday that proved the safest bet as I'm veggie and DS1 is allergic to loads of stuff!) And which is the best hypermarche to stop off at?

We had great pizzas in Hardelot-Plage (about 20 minutes down the coast from Boulogne) I've got lots of allergies and they catered for me when I handed over my translated allergy cards, admittedly with a bit of eye rolling! There was a pizza place in Boulogne old town but we didn't try it...
We went to Auchan hypermarket near Cite Europe - it was huge! Would recommend leaving enough time to browse properly - we whizzed round and I'm sure missed most of the bargains!