The Paris in 7 days tour

Hi Martha, Paris in 7 Days is the first RS tour I took (solo) in 2007. Wonderful tour, you'll absolutely love it! I had been to Paris twice before but at the conclusion of this tour I really felt like I knew the city.

As with all RS tours there is some free time but not (in my opinion) a ton of it. I did the Eiffel Tower and a Seine River cruise that were not included on the itinerary. Some folks got tickets for a concert at Saint Chappelle (wonderful venue, I did a concert on my own several years later).

It's a great tour and you can always opt out of activities if you want to do something different (just let the guide and your buddy know you'll be MIA). I really loved this tour to my favorite city, Paris! :)

Given you want a bigger ratio of time on your own to just hang out, is there any specific reason you feel you need to have a guided tour of just Paris for 7 days and can't do this one on your own with a couple of good guidebooks, a Metro pass, and joining up for a few guided walking tours (e.g., Paris Walks) or joining some docent led museum tours or using an audio guide? It's such an easy city to do on your own even if you are traveling on your own and have limited to no knowledge of how to speak French.

I really don't get why you'd want to pay nearly double what it costs to do on your own and then feel like you aren't getting enough down time to just relax or explore and have to opt out of activities you paid for just to do what you want.

I've book my fourteenth tour and I've taken the Paris tour twice. I have found that the balance of organized activities and free time is well balanced on all tours. Also, you always have the option of not taking part in all the planned activities if they don't interest you or you wish to do something else.

Did this tour December 2015. Some of the days the tour part will wrap up around lunchtime and then you're on your own in the afternoon--unless you need to meet back up again about 6pm or 7pmish for a group dinner, wine tasting, or Louvre evening visit. Our guide gave us our tickets for the bateau, so we did not do the river cruise as a group. (Note: I'm not saying all guides do this, but ours did.)

As others have mentioned, you can always tell the guide you're going to skip a particular event/meal, but let him/her know you're doing so.

It's a very enjoyable tour, including the wine tasting and "happy hour" events (one or two) that are thrown in. Can you tack on a day at the beginning or end to have more of your own flex time? Your transit pass is included in the tour, and often the pass is good for a few days after the tour ends, so adding on a day or two at the end would be a good idea to take advantage of already having your public transportation covered.

I will let you know that I bought a coffee and pastry one afternoon and had time to sit and enjoy that. I also went to a late dinner on one of the nights at a pizza place down the street, so again, that was some alone down time. Also, we made our own way down from Montmartre and out of the Marais, so that was time for exploring and shopping or sitting. I also remember running in a couple grocery stores and a department store, so I did have some free time but not a whole dedicated day of free time.

Hope this helps somewhat!

Thank you everyone!! It sounds like this tour is exceptional with enough free time to satisfy my desire to do things on my own. I do think, as one of you commented, I need to seriously consider why I want to do the tour rather than doing it on my own.....good point. Thanks again!! This has been very helpful...
Martha