Public transporation in Paris

For 5 days Traveling with teens I would go with the new Navigo Easy for each person in the party. That way you do not worry about someone losing those little carnet tickets between getting on and getting off the metro. Many complain about getting fined about 50 euros because they misplaced their tickets during random checks in the metro
https://parisbytrain.com/navigo-easy/

What days of the week? And where will ou be going e.g. are you coming in from CDG? The Visite is never a good choice ( it is a tourist hose job). The Navigo Easy might be appropriate if your trip laps over a weekend making the Navigo Decouverte in appropriate. But if you are there for a weekend, the 4 teens can all get Sat and Sunday day passes called Ticket Jeune for about half the cost of a Mobilis day pass.

So tell the day of the week and you can get better advice.

Thank you. We will be coming and going via Gare Du Nord. Our hotel is near the Eiffel Tower area. We will be there Monday- Friday. And we will stay within the city except one day where we will travel to Versailles. The RER-C interruption stinks, so we will have to get on at Javel.

It is no big deal to get on at Javel -- we had to do that this spring. The RER C has been down for one reason or another almost every time we have been in Paris the last 10 years.

You can't use the Easy to get to Versailles so if you go that route, you will get tickets for Versailles separately. Since there are 7 of you and you need 14 tickets for Versailles, you get a carnet of Paris/Versaille Rive Gauche/Chateau tickets which gives you a 20% discount and then 4 individual tickets. The tickets are about 3.50 each so a carnet will cost instead of 35 Euro about 29 or so.

For around town one carnet each is probably about right for the trip. so you could do an Easy for each person to reduce the odds of lost or demagnetized tickets -- everyone has 10 rides for 14.90. If you run out, you can then buy a carnet or two or ordinary tickets and share them which gives you the discount.

If it were me I would get everyone a Navigo Decouverte and never think about transport again. If every uses 3 or more rides a day and Versailles, you will break even and it is so much more convenient and stable. If so you need postage stamp sized head shots and to get the passes on arrival. You might save a couple of Euro a head with it or you might spend a Euro or two more a head with it, but it makes things easy and you run no risk of paying 7 35 Euro fines on the spot for not having a valid ticket.

Janet’s suggestion of the Navigo Découverte for everyone is what I was thinking, too. If your group breaks up at all (some to one museum, another group to the park, etc), then redistributing carnet tickets could be more trouble than it’s worth.

Thank you, you all have been amazing!

Be sure to remember the tip, if you do decided to get Navigo Découverte passes, to just print out the photos on your home printer and cut them up. No need to buy expensive real photos for them — especially with 7 people to buy for!!

Don't forget Mobilis passes for unlimited travel for a day, I think they work out to $17.00, so if you need more than 10 metro tickets each, on any given day (we didn't), they'd be worth doing instead of carnets.

Or--what we used, which was the Passlib, which you can buy for 5 days for a set price and includes unlimited metro/train/bus to everywhere (including Versailles), a museum pass, the hop on/off bus for a day, and an hour Seine river boat cruise. It was a terrific way to get everything we needed for one price.