Since everyone on the site was so helpful with our trip planning I thought I would share some of our experiences relative to the health pass, COVID Tests, etc. I posted earlier that my sister and I applied for our passes on 8/10/21 when they first became available. She got hers in less than 24 hours I had not received mine by the time we left.
I used by CDC card everyplace we went with NO incidents or even second looks. Eiffel Tower, Versaille, Louvre, metro, shops, cafes and the hop on hop off sight seeing bus. Most places did ask for it but they were very familiar with the CDC cards and happily accepted it. One or two really looked at it to be sure there were 2 doses but most did not. We took the highspeed train from Montparnese to Bordeaux and they did not ask at all either way. Also Bordeaux was fine as well - no issues with the CDC card there or at Paris Disneyland. I want to add that you should apply anyway and keep your eyes open because I am sure they will crack down as time goes by.
Second I want to mention the COVID tests. We did ours at a pharmacy. It was a bit of a challenge because while hotels and restaurants typically have english speaking employees the pharmacy did not but we managed to communicate using google translate. The whole process took about an hour to an hour and a half because of a couple of things. We went on Friday but on Wednesday afternoon we checked with a pharmacy down the street who said they did give the rapid antigen tests for travel. Their business hours were posted as Mon-Sat 08:00 am to 09:00pm. It was a mid sized pharmacy so we were surprised when it did not open at all on Friday when we needed to test. We went to two other pharmacy's before finding one that would do the test. By that time it was later in the day and the line was longer. There were probably about 6 people ahead of us when we got there. We took the test and left and when the results can to our email almost exactly 15 minutes later we opened them and saw that they were negative all in the correct format and closed them back up. The next day after we changed hotels to be closer to the airport on our last night we realized they had spelled both of our middle names (maiden) incorrectly. Fortunately it wasn't an issue when we got ready to leave as we did not have time to go back and get them fixed. So the moral of the story is stay in the area and wait for your test - AND CHECK THE INFORMATION THOROUGHLY.
Finally, we were leaving out of CDG and chose to stay at the Hilton Charles DeGaulle the night before. We went over in the afternoon and surveyed the airport - which was a good move. All the airlines have been moved into one terminal and the place is a madhouse. After taking the shuttle over we determined we did not want to do that with luggage. Not only is it very crowded it drops you off miles from where you need to go with signs that are hard to read if you don't speak the language. So consider that as an option if you haven't been through CDG before. Our flight boarded at 10:12 and we arrived at the airport at 7:00 - it started really filling up by 8:00. We made it to the gate by 9:00 only because we were super early.
We had a wonderful time and we are very glad we did go. I actually did get my health pass 5 days into our trip so they will come thru eventually. Last but not least I want to recommend a tour that we took in Bordeaux. 2 hours on the train each way. The company is called Olala Bordeaux. Our guide was Yam, who was an expert on wine and the area. Here is the link but we couldn't have asked for a better day trip from Paris and the city is AMAZING - if you can squeeze in more than one day you should but we saw quite a bit on this tour including the Medieval City of St Emilion which was really interesting.
Thanks to eveyone for helping us plan our trip and good luck!