COVID certificate

Everything I have read indicates 'the shot' does not reach full effectiveness until 14 days after being administered.

You may have some extra hoops and hurdles to negotiate. Good Luck

I am not worried about effectiveness. Just wondering if they will do the conversion. I thought the booster requirement did not affect those under 65 until January 15. Guess they must have changed the regulations again.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/booster-shot.html

Indeed, a few weeks ago France quietly decided that those who had the Janssen/ Johnson & Johnson single shot would need to be boosted by December 15 or their pass sanitaire would be deactivated. It’s the only exception to the over-65 rule, and they haven’t done a great job of publicizing it.

One of the Forum folks who is getting ready to travel to France told us about it.

Alas, I don’t think the French will count your kids as vaccinated until 7 days after the booster. In that case, their only solution will be to get an antigen test, but that has also changed — where before, a negative antigen test provided a pass sanitaire good for 72 hours, now it is only good for 24 hours. Antigen tests cost €25 and are available at virtually any pharmacy. But what a pain when you thought you had done the right thing and weren’t notified otherwise.

P.s. from everything I have read, getting a vaccine dose doesn’t have any effect on testing.

Passes do not expire, but one's eligibility might.

What type was the one shot vaccine at University? Those receiving the Janssen/Johnson & Johnson shot require the booster as of 15 December. Boosters become effective 7 days after they are received. You only need vaccination and a negative PCR/Antigen test to enter France. However, the app may not show valid until 7 days after the booster if the initial shot was Janssen/Johnson & Johnson.

There is a possibility that to keep your children's pass sanitaire valid, they will need a negative Antigen test every 24 hours until the 7 day booster period has expired.

Check this link for more information:

https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/actualites/A15179?lang=en

Note: Kim writes faster than I do.

Nothing is going to stop this trip now. We leave this Saturday. This has been the 3rd time rescheduling.

I did see a flow chart on another website that showed if completely vaccinated with 2 shot or 1 shot and have a booster, you are okay considered fully vaccinated. There was a footnote at the bottom that specifically stated if the booster was done in France, then you will be considered fully vaccinated after 7 days. Hopefully the pharmacist at CDG looks at our kid’s cards and sees the booster was done in the USA and goes ahead and gives them the QR code. If not, we will pony up and pay the money each morning to get the rapid test. We will be in Blois and then Mont St Michel/Normandy during the 7 day period. It should be easy to find pharmacies. The kids are experts at daily testing since their Universities were doing this at the height of the COVID madness.

We have too many things scheduled and paid for to back out now. Adapt and overcome will be our mentality for this trip.

Thanks for all the replies. If I have time when there, I will get on and let you all know how things are going in France.

I hope that you are travelling direct to France, certainly not via Heathrow. From Saturday, France have pulled up the drawbridge for anybody coming from the UK.

We will not transit through the UK. I just saw this new development. Maybe this is the one smart thing I did. Direct from IAD. However, on the way home we go through Munich. This was going to be either UK/France or France/Italy trip but we decided to go only to France due to the uncertainty of border crossings and COVID. A ton can happen in 2 days.....

It looks like if you are transiting through a UK airport for less than 24 hours, you are still able to get to France.

Hopefully the pharmacist at CDG looks at our kid’s cards and sees the booster was done in the USA and goes ahead and gives them the QR code.

They will not. They will see that the shot wasn't given seven days ago or more, and will not give the code yet.

(Just the same as they would do for any French person — passes only become active seven days after the injection.)

I believe that the QR code contains shot dates, types of shots, as well as someone's age. A pharmacist may, I am not really sure, issue you a QR code from your child's CDC card, but that does not necessarily mean that the code will be valid or accepted as proof of vaccination before the 7-day wait period has elapsed.

Can't the kids get antigen tests every few days to keep their pass active until their 7 days is up?

The kids, could, yes, but it will be daily, that they'll need a test (until they reach the 7 days out from their booster), as the government recently changed the validity of a pass derived from a negative test to be only 24 hours rather than 72.

So 5 days x 2 kids x 25€ a test = €250 worth of tests.

Currently, we are waiting for our first flight. United has been uncharacteristically efficient with the paperwork check. We breezed through security in less than 30 minutes. We got them the boosters on the 15th. So 7 days is the 22nd. We arrive tomorrow. Worse case scenario would be 2 days of testing. Let’s hope French pharmacies are efficient with the rapid tests.

Oh good, it's fewer days than I thought.

Yes, French pharmacies are efficient with testing.

"Let’s hope French pharmacies are efficient with the rapid tests."

I agree with Kim...they are unbelievably efficient. You will likely be pleasantly surprised.

please keep us updated. we are leaving in 7 days and are transiting through London at this point. All are boosted or had very recent vaccinations.

Made
Our first flight this morning. Rental car still up in the air. Hopefully our van will be there still. Tickets to Fontainebleau and Chambord are out. I will do a travel insurance claim after our trip. Hopefully no more delays.

Did you get delayed by a day ?

Update. Alamo gave way our van. There was no trying to find us another car. No apologies. So on to Hertz. One hour outside Paris the car engine smokes. We get stranded fortunately at a hertz commercial location. Our daughter speaks French. No one in small towns speak English. Communication is difficult. Be prepared. We were On the phone getting a tow and We waited 1 hour. Then we are told to wait for a replacement car After one hour they tell us none available. They offer no way to get anywhere. Hertz hangs up phone and leaves us stranded in a small town in France. So we have to find a train station and head back to Paris. We are extremely mad with hertz right now. We checked into the Hilton Maison and now our plans for mont st michel, Normandy, fontainebleau, chambord, chenonceau, and Rouen are out. We will just say in Paris 2 weeks. Thankfully, Hilton upgraded us due to our status. May try to hit the train to Rouen still. Taking it in stride but this is the worst travel experience in my life. We have lived and travelled all over the world and this is by far the absolute worst 2 days ever. The kids are all adults so we are being flexible to their desires. BTW, pass conversion no problem. Pharmacist knew the booster date and just gave our 2 adult kids the full pass.

Kim, yes we did and plans have changed big time. See above post. Be prepared to be flexible. Currently reassessing my itinerary while family is sleeping in. I’m an early riser. Pass Sanitaire is 100% required now.

Very true. But I am prior military so you can get used to things like this. Adapt and overcome. Speaking of which, still going to try and to go to Rouen for the day on train. Any other things to think about? I guess we could still get back to fontainebleau by train. We just did the reverse trip. It is about 8 euros per ticket for a 1.5 hour express train. My research is making me think Normandy and MSM are too rural to get to by train. Thanks again. I did not mean to complain too much.

Rouen is a beautiful city, brilliantly rebuilt in the old style after the war. You'll enjoy it. I especially liked the museum of metal work, but there are others, and of course there's the Joan of Arc connection.

You can get to Bayeux by train. I don't know whether you'd be able to get four (?) spots on a D-Day tour at this late date, but it's worth trying. A full-day tour will cost roughly 100 euros per person and will be a very efficient way to see a lot of invasion-related sites. I used Overlord, but there are other tour companies. Nearly all the tours depart from Bayeux. Bayeux has a small but pretty historic center, an interesting cathedral, the Bayeux Tapestry, and a good invasion museum, so there's lots to do there. The tourist office in Bayeux would be able to tell you what other invasion-related sites can be reached by public transportation. The tourist office runs walking tours, though I don't know that they operate in the winter.

I don't know whether it is doing so right now, but the Churchill Hotel in Bayeux used to run shuttle buses (vans?) to Mont-St-Michel. That's not ideal in normal times, because day-tripping to MSM puts you there when it is most crowded, but I imagine there aren't so many people at MSM these days. There was not, in the past, a requirement that you be staying at the Churchill Hotel in order to get tickets for its MSM shuttle.

The Memorial de Caen in the city of the same name is a very large museum covering the lead-up to WWII, the war itself and the Cold War. I liked it, but many people find it large, overwhelming, crowded (possibly not right now??) and expensive. It takes about a full day to see the entire museum. Caen is a short train hop from Bayeux. It's an industrial city that was nearly obliterated during WWII, so it has just a few remaining historical sights (primarily a castle and a couple of abbeys). It's not as attractive a place to stay as Bayeux. It's a handy public-transportation hub, though. I stayed there for several nights while I day-tripped to the coastal resort towns of Deauville and Cabourg (by train) and to historic Honfleur (by bus). I don't know what those places would be like at this time of year; they might be dead. I also went to Falaise by bus to see the newish museum about civilian life during the war, which has good coverage of the Resistance. Like all the war-related museums I visited in Normandy, it is very accessible to English speakers.

We hung out in Paris today and the kids said it was the best day ever. After yesterday, anything would be. Tomorrow we will navigate the trains to Rouen. We are salvaging a bit of the trip.

Oh goodness, i am so sorry. What a pain, and I can't believe (except I can) that the Hertz staff just hung up and abandoned you.

Acraven gave you very good information on how Normandy might be possible (depending on availability of Overlord or other tour operator)if you feel up to looking into it.

Update again: we went to Rouen today. Awesome place. Christmas markets going on. We traveled on the Nomad regional train. Super easy to navigate. We went 2nd class. Cost was 160 round trip for 5 of us. No seat assignments so plan accordingly. Return trip was a breeze. Headed to Eiffel Tower at night. No lines. Probably because it is in the mid-30s. We will relax tomorrow and go to Fontainebleau after that. That’s where our car broke down so we definitely know the way there. 😎

I just got back and spent two days in Dijon and 3 days in Strasbourg. My weather was really wet and cold but both were an easy train trip... around 2 hours I think? It would make for a long day trip but it is easy to get to an entirely different part of the country (Burgundy and then Alsace).

Another update: on the train now to Disney. Super easy to buy tickets. Also, we went to Château Fontainbleau yesterday. If you go from Paris, buy the 1 day mobile ticket. It gets you metro, train, and bus in one ticket. Super easy to navigate and you do not have to buy tickets each place. It was the same cost as the train ticket to the chateau so it is a good deal. No lines. We had PM tickets but they let us in early. There is a great cafe right outside the entrance across from the bus stop so you can eat and wait for the bus. Staff is super friendly. So far, this has been a fantastic trip despite the hiccups earlier this week. Heading back to Paris in 3 days to do our museums and tours. We did check off some of the Rick Steve’s weakling tour this past week.

So glad you are currently turning your trip around! You have a great spirit !

So we just had a guy at Disney train station try and escort us through gates to buy tickets. Everyone, please be aware of the scammers. No matter how much you think you are blending in, you do not. They know exactly the people to target.