Paris, City Cards

The Paris Museum Pass, which can be bought for periods of two, four, or six days, is good value if you plan to visit many museums. This does not cover travel.

The Paris Visite cards covering travel and offering discounts for attractions are usually not good value for money. It is possible to get a Navigo weekly pass covering travel only, but this is ONLY available for a Monday to Sunday calendar week, not for any other seven day period.

Otherwise the most efficient way to travel is usually to purchase "carnets" of ten single-journey tickets at a discount rate. If there is more than one of you, you can both use tickets from the same carnet. A day pass will only be cheaper than a carnet, I believe, if you make at least five transport journeys in a day.

I'll agree with Philip that the Paris Museum Card plus individual carnets of transport tickets is the most economical way to go. You can share a book of tickets, and the museum pass is really nice as it allows you to go back to the attractions if covers as many times as you wish: we did the Louvre 3 times on ours as it was too much to swallow all at once! You could also get up to the top of the Arc de Triomphe in the daytime, and again at night, if you wish.

The usual caution is not to use the pass on your first day if you're arriving late enough not to be able to do a lot of sightseeing: the clock starts ticking the minute you use it for your first attraction. With 7 days in Paris, we bought our 6-day pass on arrival but didn't activate it until day 2.

The pass allows line-skipping for most places but not the Towers at Notre Dame or Sainte-Chapelle, and some Rick Steves members have reported issues with line-skipping at Versailles, if that one is in the plans. It also doesn't cover entrance to the Eiffel.

Paris, while somewhat spread out, is a wonderful city to walk so we barely used one carnet of tickets between us during an entire week in the city!

I think the Paris Museum Pass is a great value, one of the best in Europe. It doesn't include transportation but the carnet packages of 10 metro tickets are the way to go.

There are some heavily marketed 'passes' that are not passes. There is no pass that gives you access to transport and museums and monuments; anything advertising that is simply putting the ordinary museum pass and the very overpriced and rarely appropriate Paris Visite transport pass in an envelope and then adding their giant fee. This transport pass is designed to hose tourists. The only time it is a good value is if you are commuting daily from outside Paris (which is a terrible idea unless you are staying for free with your Uncle in the suburbs -- and even then maybe not) or if you make two airport runs in the same time period.

Paris has the Visite (bad idea), the Mobilis day pass which is rarely a good idea unless for a day you literally plan to rocket around town from one side to the other e.g. 5 or more trips. The Mobilis is however a good choice on a day you are doing a day trip to Disney as the cost of the 5 zone Mobilis and the round trip to Disney on the train are about the same and with the Mobilis you have the value of the pass that evening when you get back (until midnight). The Navigo Decouverte is the best transport pass if your trip is 5 days or so and falls between Monday and Sunday of one week. It is a week pass and by far the best deal. You need a postage stamp size head shot for that -- you can just print one on your computer.

A carnet of 10 ordinary tickets for 13.70 (prizes go up Jan 1) is probably the most economical if the trip doesn't fit the parameters of the Navigo Decouverte.

The museum pass is a convenience if you are there a short time and plan to visit many museums and monuments. It allows you to use special security lines at the Orsay and Orangerie, two of the places that often have daunting lines. At Versailles you stand in the same long security line, but then don't have to line up for tickets.

You're on the right track with the advice above, starting with Philips's succinct version. If you're using one of Rick Steves' guidebooks, you'll find that his intro to Paris arrives at the same conclusions.

Thank you everyone, terrific advice. We're going with the Museum Pass and the carnets.
Merci à vous tous, ont une belle journée et bon voyage !

Firstly great info with regards to the pass and the travel options.

Did not want to start a new topic, had a quick question, how does the Museum Pass compare with the Paris Pass? in terms of price there is a lot of difference i know but for someone like me who plans to buy the 2-day pass and this being my first visit to Paris which pass should I prefer?

The difference between the Museum Pass and the Paris Pass is price. The Museum Pass is more affordable and covers the same sites/landmarks. Additionally, I like the convenience of buying the passes at the airport to save on shipping charges.

The Museum Pass and the 'Paris Pass' use exactly the same pass for museums. There is no 'Paris Pass' if by that you imagine a single card that takes you into museums and onto transport. The 'Paris Pass' is a marketing scheme where the ordinary Museum Pass and the Paris Visite transport pass are put in an envelope with some additional coupons and a markup is taken. The 'Paris Pass' just resells the official Museum Pass as part of their package.

The Museum Pass and the 'Paris Pass' use exactly the same pass for museums. There is no 'Paris Pass' if by that you imagine a single card that takes you into museums and onto transport. The 'Paris Pass' is a marketing scheme where the ordinary Museum Pass and the Paris Visite transport pass are put in an envelope with some additional coupons and a markup is taken. The 'Paris Pass' just resells the official Museum Pass as part of their package.