Paris Pass...yes or no?

Paris Pass is not worth it. The Paris Museum Pass usually is. There are several options for cruising the Seine. Some people like the dinner cruise, others say you'll get a better dinner for less money after the cruise. Vedettes du Pont Neuf has open seating as opposed to plexiglass-covered, so you see more. If you buy tickets online you get a good discount and you don't have to reserve a specific day or time.

We looked at it and as others will tell you, we decided on Paris Museum pass and the Carte Navigo for transportation. Leaving in a week and a half. I will let everyone know how it all worked for us. Can't wait.

Paris Pass is very over priced. You can buy most stuff on your own for a lot less. It does include the Museum Pass, which is worth buying separately, and a Visite, which is a multi-day transport pass that is a bit overpriced because it already includes discounts for Seine cruises on Bateux Parisiens and L'Opentour HOHO buses. Most just get a 10-pack Metro/Bus tickets for about 14 euro to get arond town.

Look into getting the navigo passé to get you around Paris on the subway and buses , we bought our tickets for the museums right there and had no problems getting in .

Just to clarify, there is a Paris Pass, a Paris Visite Pass, and a Paris Museum Pass. They are three different things, and yes it is confusing. The Paris Museum Pass can be a good deal, but you still have to see if you are going to enough covered items to make it worthwhile: http://en.parismuseumpass.com/rub-m-by-name-5.htm The other two are not a good deal for most visitors.

As for transportation, the Pass Navigo gives you unlimited travel for one week, but it has to be Monday to Sunday. If your stay in Paris coincides with this, get it (bring a small photo from home for the pass). But if, for instance, you're going to be there Saturday through Wednesday (and so would require two Navigo passes per person), don't spend all that money. Instead, get a carnet of metro tickets - ten tickets bought together for a discount. These are ten separate tickets, so they can be shared, and they work on buses as well as the metro. When you run out, just buy another carnet. The carnet tickets don't expire, so they can be given to a friend or saved for another trip.

Be careful: the tickets from the regular carnet are not valid to Versailles or the airports; you have to buy separate tickets for these. The regular Pass Navigo used to not be valid for these either, but this may have changed recently.

As of sept 1st , the navigo pass is good for zones 1-5, will get you to and from the airport, to fountainbleau train and bus, the furnicular, all buses, subways and the rer trains in the zones .

Paris Pass- no.

Paris Museum Pass- can be a good deal, depends on what you wish to see.

For only five days I would consider a Paris Museum Pass.. ( 4 days) and buy a carnet or two of tickets good for bus or metro( ten one way tickets that can be shared by anyone and are sold at a discount to buying singularily.. this year they were 14 euros for the 10) .. you may be able to get by with one carnet each .. .I personally stay central and walk most places , but some sites are a bit further out and its good to have a few tickets handy to jump on metro if tired from walking etc.

Seine cruises are easy to book there.. just walk up and pay as you board.. they run 11-14 euros. The One included in pass is just a basic one of course, dinner cruises are much more expensive. If considering doing on I would look at Calife Cruises.. one of the few companies that actually cooks the food onboard.. the big ones just have it shipped on and reheat onboard.

So.. museum pass is about 54 euros, a carnet of tickets is 14, and lets assume most expensive price for cruise at 14.. so five days of fun for 82 euros.. each.. how much would the five day Paris Pass cost, just looked it up..
4 day Paris pass is 163!!!
And that's a "sale" price!

Even if add your own HOHO tickets you would still spend less doing it on your own.

I will just add that there are some plusses to the Museum Pass that aren't evident at first glance. You sometimes save time by being able to enter a separate entrance from the one where people are queued up for tickets. You can pop in for a bathroom stop if you know where they are located. It might encourage you to visit a museum you might think twice about plunking down an entry fee for. (Case in point...i did both the Picasso Museum and Pompidou Center for Modern Art yesterday because i was nearby. Didn't have a strong interest in either but saw some things in both that I enjoyed. I would not have paid a separate entrance fee for either one. )

As others suggest, go for the Museum Pass (check closure days for your visit) if the numbers work in your favor and do your transportation separately.

Thanks, people! Lots of info to metabolize. I'm confused about the RER? What are they? So, Navigo pass will work for us, since we'll be there Monday through Saturday morning. I understand about that pass being good only in zones 1-5. What about going to Versailles and other zones? Will these cornets be good to travel on metro and bus to the other zones? We'll be returning to London on Saturday morning so want to plan how many cornets do I need to buy. And just to understand, is cornet an individual ticket for 1 day or 1 ride and for the metro or a bus or both?

A carnet is a set of 10 tickets sold at a slightly lower price than you would pay for each one. They cover Metro and bus and are good for the whole ride. Since they are separate tickets you can divide them up among your group. One ticket per complete ride. If you run low on tickets just buy what you need at the ticket counter or machine.

I don't have experience this year with using them on the RER which is the suburban commuter train system but you've got info in above posts about zones covered.

Zones 1-5 covers just about everything, central Paris, CDG airport, Versailles. The Pass Navigo has a chip in it you just pass over the indicated spot on the turnstile and it opens. The RER is a suburban train network that goes through Paris to the outer suburbs. It is a separate system, but uses the same pricing structure and tickets in central Paris (zones 1-2), outside of that it is priced per zone. You use your ticket to open the turnstile to exit the system as well, to insure you paid the right fare. With the Pass Navigo, that is all covered.
Your personal photo should be 1" by 1.25". You can take a selfie and print it to the proper size if you have a printer with your computer. There is also a 5 euro charge for the first one you get it to cover the cost of assembling the pass, You can recharge it the next time you go to Paris.

Sam has it right , the navigo pass is great to get on all the modes of transport getting around Paris, we saved a fair bit of money getting one for the week . We used the carnet of tickets a few years ago and it was fine but this pass beats it hands down . We were on the bus , the train , and subway a few times a day and not having to worry about getting more tickets .

I was going to type out a long response, but I see that your questions are explained on the Paris by Train website, which also gives great tips for beginner riders: http://parisbytrain.com/tag/paris-metro/ (scroll down for explanation of the RER)

Throwing my vote in with Pat:

Paris Pass- no

Paris Museum Pass- a much better deal for us

We bought one carnet of tickets to share between the two of us and barely got through all 10 tickets in a week but we also didn't leave central Paris, and walked almost everywhere as it was more fun than taking public transport. If you're going to make some trips outside zone 1-2, then maybe the Navigo will be worth it.