Layover in Paris seeking best way to see everything quickly

How many hours are you talking about?

We arrive at 8:30pm and have a flight at 9:00 the next morning. We are staying near CDG in order to not have to deal with the traffic in the morning.

Googling paris night tours showed a lot of possibilities, but I left it to you to wade through them. The few I looked at didn't offer midnight or later departures, which you'll need if your dinner is at 10:30. That's a tall order, and there's no way to "see everything quickly" in Paris or other big cities. Two hours between landing and the dinner reservation also seems risky, especially if it's an international flight. Sleeping at the airport make sense given your flight times, but you may want to rethink your plan for the city itself.

Arriving from where and where does the departure go?

The answers affect how much, if any, Schengen border crossing formalities you need to do.

If you are not too cost sensitive, you could make a list of the sights you want to see, give the list to a taxi driver after dinner and have him drive you around and back to your hotel

I have selected a restaurant in Paris that is open all night. So I can always push back my reservation if needed. I like your idea of giving the driver a list of sights we want to see. It is probably going to be the best one.

Where are you flying to after Paris? If it’s outside schengen countries you should be at the airport 3 hours before your departure.

We are flying back to the US but not till the next morning.

Okay, I see you have a 9:00 a.m. flight, correct? You will need to be in the airport by 6:00 a.m.

Unless you are a foodie, I think I would cancel the dinner reservation and just find food elsewhere to eat so that more time can be spent walking around Paris or just getting a tiny sense of the city. There's no way you're going to "see everything quickly". There are tons and tons of things to see and do in Paris.

And as someone else said, given that your flight leaves at 9am, you need to be at the airport at 6am, so um...if you have dinner at 10:30pm you don't have much time to really do anything else in Paris. Why the rush? I say chose either to do the dinner at a leisurely pace and then take a short stroll wherever that restaurant is and call it a night. Or, skip the dinner reservation and eat sandwiches or something quick and explore Paris.

Doing everything quickly means nothing was done at all.

What I do my last evening every time I am in Paris is starting from the Eiffel Tower, after it has sparkled at the top of the hour, is walk along the Seine towards Notre Dame. This allows you to see the buildings lit up, you can criss-cross along the bridges to get a closer look of the structures lit up (Musee d'Orsay, Petit & Grand Palais, Pont Alexandre III, Place de la Concorde, Place du Carrousel w/a walk past the large Pyramid at the Louvre) eventually to Notre Dame. Then catch the RER-B back to CDG if you like from Saint-Michel Notre Dame RER-B & C /Metro-4 Station.

Enjoy and please let us know what you did during your time and if you enjoyed it or not.